“I do. I hadn’t realized. I’m so sorry,” I said softly.
Jack nodded. “Thanks. You know, I’ve never, ever spoken about it with anyone before. Never. Not when I was fourteen when my mom left, not afterwards. No one knows. Knew, I guess. That my dad faked her death. He didn’t want anyone to know that she had left him.”
He took a few seconds. I didn’t know what to reply, so I just took his hand and held it. He gave mine a squeeze and kept going.
“My first memory of him hitting her was when I was eight. I was supposed to be in bed, asleep, but I decided to sneak down and get a glass of water. They were fighting, and I heard the smack and her cry. I ran back up to bed without the water, I was so scared. In the morning my mom had a giant red mark on her face, which she never mentioned.”
He bowed his head and kept talking.
“Over the years I started to realize just how bad it was. And it got worse. She went to the hospital once, claimed she fell off a horse. I don’t know if the people there knew or not, but what could my mom do? My father is one of the most powerful and richest people in the country. No one was going to believe her.”
“How do you know she ran away?” I asked softly.
“Because I watched her do it. I was fourteen, it was just after an especially bad beating. I know my mom knew, at that point. After dinner, she asked to have a talk. I didn’t know what was coming. But my mom told me that dad would be staying in the city that night, as he often did. That was normal. Then she told me that she loved me, and that I was well off here, where my father had enough money to pay for everything, that it would be better for me. I didn’t know what she meant, so I went up to my room. But something didn’t sit right with me. I couldn’t sleep. So when I heard a car pull up, I went over to the window and looked out to see the taxi. That was weird. Cabs never came here, everyone always had their own private drivers.”
A tear welled up in his eye, threatening to drop onto his cheek at any second, but he held it back.
“I watched my mom get into the cab with a single suitcase and I knew she was gone. She looked up at my window and saw me. I think she was shocked at first. She didn’t expect me to still be awake at two in the morning. Then she gave me the saddest look I’ve ever seen, blew me a kiss, and waved goodbye. That was the last time I saw her.”
“And your dad pretended she was dead?”
Jack nodded. “He put a funeral notice in the paper, actually had a funeral for her, grieved, all that sort of thing. I guess he figured my mom wouldn’t care enough to contradict him, and he was right. She was just from a normal family, so it’s not like everyone knew her by sight or anything. All she had to do was move away from London and no one would have any idea who she was. I guess that was what she wanted. He paid off all the staff, it would have cost him millions, and then replaced them with new people.”
“And you kept quiet about it.”
“I did. My father came to me after, he said that if I ever said anything about it, he would write me out of the inheritance, and I’d be left with nothing. I thought about what my mom said, and how she wanted me to stay with him because of his money, because she thought I would have a better life with him. So I did it. Not for him, for my mom. She knew I’d be fine, he had never hit me. Not once. It was just her. So instead, I did whatever I wanted. I made him buy me the Lambo, and I know he hates it, but it’s basically blackmail. I flaunt it in front of him – though I’m not going to lie it’s also very, very fun to drive on its own. I do what I want, and sometimes that involves breaking the rules. Like dealing. Like getting more speeding tickets than anyone else in the city. The tattoos are legal, but my father hates them. And it makes me like them even more. This last one, the one on my right pec, doesn’t even mean anything. I just liked the design and got it for the hell of it to annoy my father. Is it healthy? Probably not. But nothing about my relationship is, and I figure it’s better to be this way than to beat women myself.”
“So what made you change your mind? Why did you tell everyone today?”
“Because I have something to lose now.”
The look in my eyes must have given away my confusion.
“You, Jules. You. I don’t want to lose you. I want you in my life, and I care about you. Hell, I love you. And because of that, I care about your mom. I don’t want her to ruin her life, I don’t want her to end up beaten and abused, feeling like there’s nothing else she can do except fly the coop in the middle of the night. I want to protect you, and that means protecting her.”
My heart melted at the moment Jack said those words.
“I love you too,” I whispered. I didn’t think about it, didn’t worry about it, I just said it. And it was the truth. I had fallen in love with Jack, fallen in love with my brother.