“Oh yeah, and how’s that?” Blake’s tone is mocking.
Killian, Axelle, and Raven show up in the doorway. They hurry in, but Jonah holds them back with his body, not allowing them close enough to get hurt.
Stewart’s recovered from Blake’s throat constriction, and stands to his full height. “Did she tell you how many guys she slept with the night she got pregnant with Elle?”
“Liar!” My shout fills the room, reverberating off the walls. “Why are you lying?”
“Oh, I’m a liar all right.” Stewart laughs. “But not now. Then.”
He lied… then? Lied about what?
“Oh, come on! Look at me.” He points to his face. “She looks nothing like me.”
The entire room goes still, and my head feels light. Oh my God. My head swivels toward Axelle,who’s wrapped in Raven’s arms. Her face is drained of color.
“Yeah, that’s right. Let it sink in, bitch—”
“Shut the fuck up.” Blake shoves Stewart, sending him back a couple steps. “Don’t say another fucking word.”
A flicker of something calculated passes over Stewart’s face. He looks back and forth between Blake and me. His lips curl into a grin. “Me and the boys had some fun that night. Hottest chick in school, drunk as hell at a party.”
Bile rushes up my throat. I stagger back, bracing my weight against a bookshelf. I don’t want to, but I desperately need to hear what he says next.
Blake shakes with rage, his muscles dancing beneath this skin, ready to unleash. “I warned you. Not another word.”
“Didn’t take much to get her so drunk she passed out. Shit, she probably weighed ninety pounds back then.” Stewart’s laughing and teasing, talking about me but speaking to Blake.
“I told you to shut your—”
“Blake, no. Let him. I want to know.” What happened that night? I remember drinking, and waking up with Stewart. But the in between… could he be telling the truth?
“Mouse, baby.”
I shake my head. “Please.”
“Fuck,” Jonah mumbles from across the room.
“Oh, now you want the truth, huh?” Stewart runs his hand through his hair. “You didn’t seem to care about the truth when your parents were begging me to marry you.”
Begging?
“They were so worried about your reputation. Little did they know you’d fucked half the football team that night.”
My hand splays over my chest, and then moves up to grip my neck. No. I’d have remembered. Right?
“We had our fun with you, taking turns, filling you up.” He looks past me like he’s reliving the memory and enjoying it.
“You’ve heard enough, Mouse,” Blake growls, his voice trembling with rage. “Get Axelle the fuck out of here.”
Axelle shrugs off Killian’s attempt to pull her outside. Her eyes lock on mine. She wants the truth as badly as I do.
“No. Tell me everything,” I say to Stewart, knowing that we may never find out what happened that night if we don’t get it now.
Stewart’s eyes grow icy cold. “Everything? How about how you ruined my life. You and your bastard kid.”
The nausea bubbles up into my throat. As badly as it feels to hear what he’s saying, I need him to continue. My soul demands answers.
“Why didn’t you tell me? I married you because I thought you were Axelle’s dad. If you weren’t, why didn’t you say anything?”
He throws his arms out to the side. “How fucking stupid can you be? What was I supposed to do? Admit that I roofied the hottest chick in school so the boys and me could gang bang her? I’d end up in jail.”
“Enough.” The pop of plaster rings through the room. Blake pulls his fist from the wall, where he knocked a foot wide hole. “I can’t take this shit.” Blake’s jaw is rock hard, his mouth in a tight line, and his fists flexed. His shoulders seem bigger, swollen and held up high, prepared to do damage. “Tell him you’ve heard enough.”
Stewart studies Blake through narrowed eyes. That scheming look back on his face. “Haven’t you been listening, asshole? You don’t want her. She’s garbage. Even back in high school, no one stepped up. Not one of the guys claimed the baby as their kid. No one wanted them.”
Crack!
The sickening sound of broken bone, and Stewart drops. Blood gushes from his nose, running down his chin and onto the carpet.
“I want them. They’re mine.” Blake’s words are bellowed seconds before the room erupts.
The coffee table shatters against the wall. Stewart is up and punches Blake, but it has no affect. He throws Stewart to the ground, straddles his body, and rains punches to his head. Fleshy thuds of fists to bone ring thorough the room.
Strong arms lift and move me from my statued spot. Axelle and Raven are talking to me, but their words are static. White noise compared to the words that pound in my head so hard they rattle my core.
I want them. They’re mine.
Twenty-nine