“Your mom took me in at that halfway house because she knew who I was. I didn’t just stumble upon that place, your mother brought me there to try to help me because she took pity on me.” He drew a deep breath in, and I could tell that the worst was about to come. “If it hadn’t been for her, I might still be running drugs for your dad.”
My hand fell from his chest, and I felt like I was underwater.
“What?” I asked breathlessly.
“I didn’t know what was happening back then,” he said. “You have to believe me. I didn’t know who your father was, or how big of a conspiracy the whole drug-thing was. I just thought I was running a few lines to people and getting paid. I was only going to do it until I had enough money to get off the streets.”
Adam leaned into me and held me by my waist as my arms dangled limply down at my sides.
“Pauline caught me one night. She had been watching things that your father was doing, and she had followed me right after I had done a pickup for him. Your mom was so brave, she walked right up to me on the street at night and told me that she could help me. She said I didn’t need to work for him anymore and that she was getting ready to blow his whole operation wide-open. She asked me if I would come back with her to the halfway house where she could help me, and that’s when I first saw you.”
I was stunned. Not just because Adam had worked for my father, but because he hadn’t told me. No wonder he had been so good about me not telling him stuff. This fucker had secrets of his own. Still, how could I judge him for withholding a piece of information that he thought would either hurt me or make me think less of him? I had done the exact same thing.
He stood there, looking into my eyes and waiting for me to say something.
“Why did they put a camera in your room?” I asked.
Adam sighed. “I’m sure that was to have proof of whose side I am on and whose side I used to be on. If your father goes down, I have no doubt that he intends to take everyone who ever worked for him right along with him.”
“I’m not letting him take you,” I said.
Adam looked at me with wide-eyed hope. “You’re not furious with me?”
“Of course, I’m not. I’m just happy that you’re back.”
And despite the ebbing anger that I was more than deserving of feeling, my love for this man grew bigger than that. Pulsed louder than that. And eventually, swallowed my anger whole completely.
I loved Adam. Just like I loved Julian. Like I thought I loved Michael.
And I wasn’t letting my father take another person away from me that I cared about.
27
Michael and Julian had done an amazing job of working together to build Goldshire up in ways that I never imagined. I was truly impressed, and a bit stunned that they were even working alongside each other, in addition to having gotten so much done in just a few short days.
The campus was closely monitored, and Michael had set up a security detail comprised of Goldshire students who had volunteered to help. The old board members had been dismissed, and he had essentially kicked them all out on their asses. He put Julian in charge of overseeing the day-to-day running of the college. He released several statements to the press, which clarified Goldshire’s complete and utter separation from Lineage as he tried to distance everyone here from the corrupt downfall that loomed in Lineage Academy’s near future.
Instead of being the fake trophy leader that his mother had wanted to place in the Headmaster position for, Michael actually had a vested interest in bettering the school and making sure its students and families didn’t get swindled out of their wealth by my father’s embezzlements.
“I had no idea you took such an interest in school operations,” Adam teased him as Michael was delegating various tasks to a handful of trusted members of the student body. One of which was putting together the next exam schedule. “I thought you were going to abolish exams.”
Michael chuckled. “People change, I guess.”
Adam nodded, and I was pleased to see all of them getting along so well on the same team. We all knew that it would only be a matter of time before my father made some sort of move to try and abolish the school, or us, or both. But none of us wanted to run anymore. We all had too many things that we had given up or had taken from us by my father. And none of us felt like we were going to let him get away with running the city and its people into the ground. We were going to stay and fight.
The only person that didn’t feel like he had a solid reason for wanting to exchange our freedom for this fight was Julian. He was on-board, and he wasn’t going to leave without us, or at least not without me, but he still seemed to have a lingering desire to just hop a train and get the hell out of dodge. He didn’t seem quite as obsessed with taking down Jack White as the rest of us were, and that was because he didn’t know about his parents. I had to tell him. I had to let Julian know that his parents, who, even though he hadn’t been super close with, he loved and respected, had aided and hidden my father during this entire time, which allowed him to grow and tighten his hold on the academies. I just didn’t want to.
I felt as though we were in a holding pattern. We had all talked about various ideas and plans and ways to expose my father and to keep all of us safe at the same time. But until he made a move, Michael thought it was best to stay low and stay together. Michael had the Headmaster’s suite wholly cleared out. He turned it into a minimalistic loft where we could all stay together. After all the separation, I never once complained about all of us being on top of each other again. In fact, we were all more on top of each other than we ever had been before, but at least we all had our own rooms.
“You’re kind of quiet tonight,” Julian said as he leaned into me on the couch.
Michael and Adam had just gotten up to go dig up some drinks. I was hoping that I wouldn’t start swigging bottles of wine one at a time like my mother had when she was going through her roughest times, but I figured an excess of alcohol consumption was one of the least of my worries. Especially since this situation was far from over. It was nice to have a little reprieve, though, and it gave me time to think about things.
“Julian,” I said gently, figuring now would be as good a time as any. “I need to tell you something about your parents.”
He furrowed his brow. “My parents?”
“Yeah. It’s something my father told me about your parents.”
He sat up to look at me and waited. He was always so good about waiting. I was awful at it. I blurted everything out, and even when I couldn’t, I was still terrible at holding anything in. I always thought that it was better to be blunt and honest right from the start, a quality that I got from my mother.
However, it seemed like I had been doing a lot of lying and secret-keeping that past year. With only a few months until graduation, and hopefully, only a few months until we could all wrap this mess up and finally leave Charleston, I wanted to be better at being truthful one hundred percent of the time. I did wish that I had a little more tact and decorum about it, though.
I drew in a deep breath. “My father said that your parents are the ones who hid and harbored him all of these years.” There it was, blurted out. Ugh.
Julian didn’t say anything, but he didn’t look that shocked either.
“Did you already know that?” I asked him.
He didn’t move. Only his lips did. “No.”
I swallowed hard. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. To be honest, my parents always seemed like they were leading double lives. They were only ever half-present for much of the time. This makes sense now. It makes sense that they were trying to do their best raising me, but without getting too close to me in case, I would grow up to be as fierce and investigative as your mother was.”
“You’re taking this a lot better than I had expected,” I said.
