“I could see why you would believe that,” he said. “But you’re wrong. I’ve always loved you like a daughter. I was there when you were born. I attended every birthday party, Christmas, and every other damn holiday.”
As I stared into his eyes, something wasn’t right. And for the first time, I saw him for who he really was. Not the man who built Hearthstone and Project Nightfall. Not the man whocontrolled everyone and everything. His eyes showed me a different man.
“Oh, God.” I placed my hand over my mouth and stepped back, keeping my gun pointed at him.
“Paige?” Parker spoke.
“You see it,” Uncle Jerry said.
“Shut up!” I shouted.
“I always wondered if somehow you always knew as a child,” he said.
“You’re trying to distract me, and it’s not going to work. You made me better than that.”
I couldn’t stop staring into his ice-blue, cold eyes. The longer I stared, the more undeniable it became. He had the same eyes that had stared back at me in every mirror my entire life.
“Your mother was weak,” he quietly spoke.
I knelt and jammed my gun into his forehead. “Don’t you dare talk about her.”
“It was always the plan that Mark would raise you as his own, and you’d never know. Hell, he didn’t know. It was a well-kept secret between your mother and me.”
“Stop! You’re lying.”
“We had an affair?—”
“No,” I whispered. “Shut up!”
“She and your father got into an argument over his drinking a year after they were married. Before you were even conceived, she came to me for help. She didn’t know what to do. She was broken.”
“So you took advantage of her?” I snapped.
“It was mutual. She wanted it just as much as I did.”
“You think you can break me with this? With your lies? Your supposed control?”
“I’m not breaking you. I’m telling you the truth. And when she came to me and told me what Mark had done, I couldn’t let it go.”
My mind raced. My head ached. Fragments, pieces of my childhood, were trying to push through. The way Uncle Jerry always watched me. His interest. His obsession. The extravagant gifts he gave me as a child, laughing it off when my father questioned him.
“Jerry, that is way too expensive. You shouldn’t have given her that.”
“Oh, come on, Mark. She’s like a daughter to me and the only one I’ll have. Let me spoil her.”
“You are NOT my father!”
“Yes, Paige. I am. You were always mine.”
Something inside me snapped. I stood up and turned so I was facing Parker.
“You’re weak, Paige. I made you better than that,” Uncle Jerry said. “Take your control back, woman! With you at my side, we can do anything. Just think about?—”
I quickly turned around, and without hesitation, I fired both guns, emptying them into his chest.
“I am in control, asshole. And I’m far from weak.”
I ran to Parker, untied him, and tightly wrapped my arms around him.