“Do you know for sure he’s Mark’s?” The words cracked on my tongue.
He looked to where he had his fingers threaded. Pieces of his light brown hair flopped forward as if it might shield me from some of his pain.
“Anthony demanded some sort of paternity test be done when I first went to him for help, but I refused. I told him it didn’t matter. I didn’t want to know. Liam calls me daddy, but I know, Alexis. I knew from the first time I held him that he belonged to my brother. But that doesn’t mean I don’t consider him my kid.”
“Oh God, Zee,” I whispered, wishing I could hold some of his pain.
Anguish burned through his rasped words. “And now…knowing she’d been with that vile piece of shit during that time, and now she’s gone because of him? What the fuck am I gonna do?”
He slumped over, gripping the back of his head as he lost himself to sorrow, a gut-wrenching sob so deep it echoed from the walls. “How am I gonna tell Liam? How is he ever going to be okay after this?”
“Zee,” I pleaded, wanting to tell him we’d figure it out.
Together.
But my head snapped up with light tapping that sounded against the door. It cracked open to reveal the same man who had been outside the police station and at the hospital the day Colton was born.
The expression on his face was grim. “I’m sorry to interrupt.”
“Anthony.” Zee looked back at him, quickly running a hand over the moisture streaking his face. “It’s okay.”
“The investigator is here, along with a social worker from the state. They need to talk to you.”
Zee’s spine stiffened. Slowly, he stood and gathered himself. “Okay.”
He started for the door before he hesitated to peer back at me. I’d always thought this powerful man held a vibe of vulnerability about him. Something so intrinsically beautiful and brilliant, yet somehow soft.
But I didn’t think I’d ever seen him so clearly than right then.
The protectiveness, the loyalty, and the devotion and from where it all stemmed.
His jaw trembled before it clenched in restraint, those bronze eyes begging me to see. “I’m so sorry.”
Then he turned and followed Anthony out the door.
Terror gripped me.
Because I was sure I’d never heard a more distinct goodbye.
Chapter Fifty-One
Zee
The entire room spun.
Dizzying.
Gutting.
Too much.
I dropped my head between my knees and attempted to find the breath the news had knocked from my lungs.
Mark. Mark. Mark. My brother’s face spun through my mind like a whirlwind while every silent promise I’d made him battled with the reality.
Confusing and disorienting.
Anthony stood over me. “Are you okay?”
Helplessly, I looked up at him, wishing I could go back and refuse the test the social worker had demanded two days ago when I’d told her the entire story. “I don’t think I am.”
Anthony knelt down in front of me. A friend. A father figure in this fucked-up situation when I couldn’t seek my own. I could never admit to my parents what I’d done or the consequences or repercussions of it.
“You’ve always been his father, Zee. Always. From day one. Nothing has changed except for the fact you really are.”
I swallowed around what felt like razors lining my throat. “Then why does it feel like I lost a piece of my brother?”
Anthony’s words tightened with emphasis. “Because that’s what you’ve done all these years, Zee. You’ve clung to the idea that there might be something left of Mark when you didn’t want to let him go. You accepted Veronica’s claim that he was Mark’s because that’s what you wanted him to be, thinking it would carry on your brother’s legacy. That a tangible piece of him would remain in this world.”
Grief thickened my words. “But I felt it…” I touched my chest. “Right here…when I held Liam. Every single time I’ve ever held him, I felt it right here.”
“What did you feel?”
I struggled for a definition of that undefinable feeling, blinking through the emotions as I allowed myself to experience them one more time. “Belonging. Peace. Like I was holding something sacred. A treasure that had been entrusted to me.”
Anthony set his hands on each of my shoulders. “That’s what being a father feels like, Zee. That’s love. Pure and unadulterated. Unconditional. What you feel for Liam doesn’t have anything to do with your brother. You feel that because he’s your son.”
I gasped around the reality.
Liam is my son.
Liam is my son.
“How’s it possible to feel so heartbroken, so utterly destroyed, and feel like I gained the world at the same time?” I choked over the question.
Anthony squeezed my shoulders tighter. “Because you’ve never truly mourned the loss of Mark, Zee. You’ve been frantically clinging to everything left of him, trying to keep it alive when it was already gone. You’ve been trying to fill his shoes when he never asked you to. All these years, you’ve been representing someone else, and never, in all that time, have you stood for yourself. You let yourself be used and manipulated by Veronica, accepting that abuse because you thought you were honoring your brother.”
“I didn’t know what else to do,” I said quietly.
He inhaled a deep breath as he rose. “But now you do, Zee. You mourn and you let yourself hurt, because you lost your brother. You grieve and you don’t feel guilty about it. You deserve to miss him, no matter the mistakes the two of you made. Because you can’t change the past or what either of you did. But what you can do is finally say goodbye. Then you get it together and decide what it is you stand for.”
With my palm, I swiped the evidence of the grief from my face, and I pushed to my feet. “I stand for Liam.”
I pulled up to the curb at Sebastian and Shea’s Los Angeles pad, an older, rambling, ranch-style house situated on an acre of land with a huge backyard.
They say you know who your true friends are by their actions during the hard times. The way they treat you when you’re at your lowest.
I’d spent years terrified of what the guys would think when they found out what I’d done. When they knew I’d betrayed my brother, and then turned around and kept a secret I had no right to keep, thinking it was the right way.
The only way.
I should have known better.
I should have known better all along. Because I knew it when I climbed out of my car and into the blazing afternoon sun and saw Sebastian anxiously awaiting my arrival.
My footsteps were slow and heavy as I walked toward him, not because I was worried about his judgment, but because I had no idea how I was gonna handle seeing Liam for the first time after finding out he was mine.
That he truly belonged to me.