"I’ll call Devlin. He should be here as well. He may want to bring the authorities.” I stood quickly and went for my cell phone.
Once everyone had arrived, Jay brought a tray of coffee into the dining room and began to serve everyone. Once he reached me, he put a glass of milk in front of me. I smiled up at him and he smiled back kindly. It was strange, but it was like Jay had been in my life forever. From the moment we walked into this house, Jay and I seemed to be on the same page about everything. His smirks and knowing smiles were priceless to me.
The letter was being passed around as Aidan paced around the table explaining what we had learned.
"What if it’s just another ploy?"
I looked up at James intently. "It’s not." I felt all eyes fall on me.
"Lilli, this could be just another…" I cut Henry off this time.
"It’s not." I stood up, my chair screeching against the hardwood floor. Aidan moved quickly toward me. "I will not allow this poor, innocent boy to be manipulated and used for Gideon’s satisfaction. I want to find them and if you don’t want to help me, then I will do it myself."
"Baby, please calm down. I don’t want you to upset yourself." Aidan pushed my chair back and sat me down, placing his hands on my shoulders as he stood behind me. "I am going to help Lilli find them."
"Aidan, you need to be careful, we now know how far Gideon has possibly gone with his own daughter." Devlin shook his head and took a deep breath. "We also know how far he has manipulated you, so I think you need to assume that he is not above doing worse."
I felt Aidan’s hands start to massage my shoulders lightly, obviously he felt my tension.
"I think we all know that he is a cold-hearted, manipulating asshole, but what I want, aside from finding Loreley and the child, is to take Gideon down." He released my shoulders and moved so that he was standing next to me.
The room was silent for a long moment, everyone thinking over the information that was in front of them.
"I’m helping." My head snapped up to see Aunt Anne looking around the table. To say I was surprised would be the understatement of the year.
"You know that you don’t even have to ask me." Viola sat back in her chair eyeing me. "We all know where I stand with innocent children."
"Obviously, I would never leave my wife unsupported." Henry took Anne’s hand as he finished.
"James…" Elora spoke with authority.
He shook his head.
"This could get dangerous for all of us, but fuck it…let’s find Loreley and figure out how to get rid of Gideon." Elora leaned into James and kissed his cheek, leaving her head to rest on his shoulder.
Using what Loreley had sent to him and Liam, Devlin set to digging up as much information as he could on Gideon. Viola, Anne, Elora and I met with a couple of private investigators, hoping they would be able to find Loreley through the letter’s postmark and date.
I knew finding her was going to be difficult. I also knew that once we did find her and her son, my life would be forever changed. I was not the only one to have Aidan’s children. I would be lying to myself if I said that it wasn’t hard to think about. Or that it wasn’t going to be hard to deal with, for that matter.
How did we make this work? She and the child would need to be kept safely away from Gideon. Did that mean that they would live in this house with us? Wouldn’t that be slightly uncomfortable and awkward for all of us? I sat, thinking about moving Loreley into the pool/guest house.
~
Lilli
Being six months pregnant meant that I could sleep again. I loved this trimester. However, when my cell phone started ringing in synchronization with Aidan’s during my love affair with dreamland, I couldn’t help but let a particular ‘F’ word fly out of my mouth in a large groan.
Aidan chuckled but quickly grabbed his phone. "Hello." He croaked out, his voice still thick with sleep.
He cleared his throat as my phone rang again. I sat up and grabbed it, noticing that it was four in the morning.
"What?" Aidan jumped out of bed and ran to the television. "When?" His free hand was fisted into his hair.
"Aidan?" He turned his wide eyes on me. "What? What’s wrong?" I felt the nervousness and panic start to rise from my chest into my throat.
He turned the television so that it faced the bed and not the sitting area. There, on the screen, was a picture of Loreley and Gideon, an old family photo. It wasn’t the picture that shocked me, it was the large scrolling headline beneath.
‘Father and daughter found dead’, ‘Both found with multiple gun shots to their bodies’, ‘Prominent New York Businessman found dead with his daughter.’
I gasped and climbed off the bed.
"We are watching it now." He spoke into his phone while mine continued to ring on the bed.
"Oh my God”, I shrieked as a thought pummeled its way to the forefront of my mind. "Aidan!" He snapped his head to me, looking me over. "Where’s the baby?"