Page 110

“Have a little fun, Millie,” I claimed her lips with mine and I was good at drawing the kiss until she was weak in the knees. When I pulled away, she was dizzy. “You need a bit of a break from taking care of the baby. Go.”
“I think I’m the luckiest woman in this world.” She said, “I have to keep pinching myself to remind that this is all real.”
I laughed.
“You know what? I’m the luckiest man to have you.”
And I wasn’t lying. She was amazing and if it weren’t for Millie, Theo and I wouldn’t have succeeded in what we’d started out to do. This woman, the love of my life, had helped a great deal unknowingly.
“Castle...” she said sweetly, overwhelmed.
She and I. We were similar. She wasn’t aware of it, but we were born in poor conditions and we’d worked for all of this.
We deserved it!
“I’ll make it up to you tonight.” She said, running a finger over my jawline.
I gave her a heated look. “You should get going, or I’m tearing that pretty dress to shreds.”
“Gaga...Goo-goo.” James said.
“Jamie approves,” I said.
Millie rolled her eyes.
I accompanied her downstairs, and then she kissed both James and me before sitting inside the car. I waited until I saw it disappear through the gates.
“Where do you think your uncle Theo is, Jamie?”
James spoke again in his baby language.
“Let’s put you to bed and then I’ll go look for him.”
I read James his favorite book, and the kid dozed off as soon as I finished reading a page. I tried to call Theo’s number, but he wasn’t answering, so I looked for him.
Twenty minutes later, I’d checked mostly every place that I thought I would find him, but I couldn’t find him anywhere.
The door of the connecting wing was wide open, and I followed the path down to the tunnel. I went deeper, using the flashlight of my phone. I’d been here countless times as a kid, but never bothered in the years that followed.
There was light emanating from a source a little farther down. I took the stairs down the spiral staircase down.
Ten people were in a circle, holding hands. Candles illuminating the place. The dark-cloaked man in the middle was chanting as the others followed him. His voice was authoritative and his actions fluid and practiced. Their faces were covered in masks, body in cloaks.
I waited until the ceremony ended.
The members kneeled, bowing to the cult leader, hanging onto his every word. When the ceremony was over, the leader walked towards me. The large pendent glinted in the dark.
He slid off the cloak’s hoodie, and Theo had a grin on his face. “Didn’t think you would be joining me tonight.”
“Just came to check on you.”
The ring in his hand glimmered. “Millie’s not home?”
“Nope.”
Devin thought he was running a cult, when the members had secretly rejected him. According to them, he did not have what it took to carry on the legacy of the Montgomery ancestors. They allowed him to believe he was in control, but in reality, they had helped Theo take the position and had been involved when I was admitted to the hospital. They were everywhere, watching over us and protecting us.
Theo had also been the one to kill Barbara because that woman knew too much, and she’d seen Theo write the journals and would have exposed everything. The members had seen the potential in Theo, and when he’d turned eighteen, they convinced him to take the position of the new leader to continue Grandpa’s legacy.