“Sean—my father—you know how he is.” Her voice was softer. Through his overwhelming emotions, he knew she was manipulating him. Trying to calm him down. Trying to get him to do what she wanted. “You’d been expelled. It … tainted you. Us. I didn’t want it to come back on my son.”
He didn’t regret his decision, but it had come back to bite him in the ass so many times that he was beginning to wonder if he should have just turned his back on the pedophile.
Of course, that wasn’t the issue—the issue was how he’d exposed the bastard. He’d embarrassed the university and law enforcement. In hindsight, there were other ways to yield the same result. But at the time … he liked to prove how much smarter he was than everyone else. He was a teenager. A showman. A genius with too much anger and the need to prove himself to … to everyone.
He didn’t have anything to prove to anyone anymore.
“I was weak, Sean. I couldn’t go against my father.”
That he believed. Ron McAllister was a narrow-minded bastard who had never thought Sean was good enough for Madison. They were kids, they should have been going out and having fun, but it was as if Sean were always on trial for something. It didn’t matter that Sean started college early, that he had a genius-level IQ or had made six figures designing a top video game before he’d turned eighteen. All that mattered was that he didn’t come from a “good” family, that he had gotten in trouble as a kid. Trouble? No one knew the half of it. The three years after his parents died … Sean could have killed himself a dozen times over. That he didn’t was a miracle—and Sean didn’t believe in miracles.
“Forgive me, Sean.”
“No. No way in hell am I ever going to forgive you, Madison.”
He turned to face her. Silent tears ran down her face, but they had no impact on him.
“Please. Sean. I can’t lose my son. I don’t have anyone else to turn to.”
“I can’t believe you kept me from knowing my son. He’s twelve years old. Twelve. I lost out on twelve years. Does he even know I’m his father?”
Slowly, she shook her head. “I—I told him I didn’t know.”
“Am I on his birth certificate?”
Again, she shook her head.
Sean didn’t think he could feel any worse, but he did. His son—his child—out there, not knowing him, not knowing his heritage, who his father was, what he was made of. A blank line on a birth certificate. How could Madison have done that? How could she have done such a thing to Sean? To her own son?
Instead of hitting Madison, Sean swung out and knocked over a decorative vase. It shattered on the tile floor. He stared at the pieces of glass. He and Lucy had gone to a craft fair one Sunday afternoon and bought the handblown vase. It didn’t really match the house, but they both loved it. Like his heart, it was broken.
What could he do? Leave his son—his son—down in Mexico, without knowing his fate? With a father—a stepfather—who had put Sean’s child in jeopardy because of his own selfish needs? What was Carson up to? Were they already dead?
Could he turn his back on Madison and Jesse as if he had never known the truth?
Sean turned to face the woman who had betrayed him so deeply he didn’t know how he was going to climb out of this pit. “I will not lie to Jesse,” he said.
Madison released a sob but nodded.
“Whatever I say is gospel. You do everything I tell you. You do not lie to me about anything, from this moment forward. Understand?”
Again, she nodded.
“Get out of here. Right now. I can’t look at you.”
“But Sean—”
“I’ll email you everything I need to get started. But I need you gone. Lucy will be home soon and I have to talk to her.”
“Lucy…”
“My fiancée. The love of my life. If I have to leave the country to find my son, then she needs to know what I’m facing.”
Madison opened her mouth but to her credit didn’t say a word.
“I’ll leave in the morning.”
“I have to come.”
“No.”
“But—”
“You will not come with me.”
He couldn’t talk anymore. He had to act. To do something.
Sean opened the front door and didn’t look at Madison as she crossed the threshold. She turned and faced him. “Sean, I am sorry.”
“No, you’re not. If Jesse wasn’t in trouble, you would never have told me.”
He slammed the door. He had a son. And his son was in danger.
CHAPTER TEN
Typing the formal memo to Madison asking for all the information he needed to begin the search for Carson and Jesse calmed Sean down. At least enough for him to think clearly. She’d already sent the preliminary information—Carson Spade’s full name, social, employer, recent photos—but there was much more Sean needed.
He sent off the email, left a message for Kane to call him immediately, and then called JT Caruso. He needed cover from RCK in case things went south in Mexico.
“Are you certain you want to do this?” JT asked after Sean told him the basics. “She should hire RCK and we’ll put together a team. I can have good people on site in eight hours.”