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‘This is unfair.’ Heseethed.
‘You can tell that to my attorney.’
‘You’re a heartless bitch, Aster.’
Those were my husband’s last words to me. He called me a heartless bitch when all these years I had been feeding his kids. He’d lied to me time and time again while enjoying the luxury that my family name offeredhim.
I flipped the pages in the journal, looking for more entries, but there was nothing.
Blank pages.
That was strange.
The journal was left at an unsatisfying ending. It kind of felt like reading a thriller novel and getting the most unsatisfying cliffhanger ending, only this was reality. This had been someone’s life.
I joined Theo and Castle in the gaming room upstairs that evening. Chandler was with us too, but he was busy playing the Pac-Man arcade game. Some of these arcade games were vintage, straight-up. Why go to the malls to play these games when you can bring the arcade room home?
The family came from old money. They never had to worry about anything, and the evil siblings had shown how ungrateful they were to what Aster had given them.
“What’s wrong with your fingers?” Theo asked me, inspecting them.
“It’s nothing.”
“The tabloids are talking shit about you.” He told me, joining me on the leather seats.
“Tell me about it. I was a nobody until a few months ago. Now everyone knows my name for a completely different reason.”
“Have you read the news?”
I shook my head. “I don’t want to.”
Theo didn’t take a hint and started telling me about the lies the newspapers and broadcast were saying, “They are calling you a gold-digger, a nobody who married into our family for money.”
“Oh please, no one would be interested in being part of a psychotic family, regardless of how much money they had.”
“Ouch.” Theo chuckled. “They know you never went to an Ivy league school. They also know that you forged the documents. I’m sure Devin had something to do with this. That would explain why the media circus is tearing you out like a bunch of vultures.”
I was tired of this.
I was tired of constantly living in fear and knowing there was no way out unless Castle regained his memories. I wanted a normal life. That’s the only thing I hoped and longed for, and getting to that dream meant making a sacrifice on the way. A divorce would probably happen, but I’d get the freedom and the empire would have their original heir.
Theo followed my gaze, “When mom was alive, we used to travel a lot. I don’t remember much since I was little, but we have the pictures to prove it. Castle enjoyed playing in the arcades and sometimes he would become this annoying kid who wanted to buy the arcades and take them home.”
I laughed, “And he got what he wanted, didn’t he?”
“He was mom’s favorite, so they ended up buying the gaming machines for him.”
I watched Castle and Chandler as they moved from thePac-Mangame to theSuper Marioone. The familiar game sounds drifted from the arcade machine.
“You share a father,” I said.
Theo’s brown eyes burned into mine. “You’ve been reading the journal.”
“Yes, I have. So I’m a little confused. The entry that I read proves your father was already having an affair with Lorna before he married your mother. Does that mean Devin and Dayana were born later?”
Theo nodded. “You need to understand something, Millie. My father, Christopher, was a con artist. He and Lorna were a team that lived off of by tricking other wealthy people. Dad took employment in the Montgomery household after a lot of planning and plotting, but Mom got pregnant before Lorna did. It would make sense that Dad kept the two families away from each other, and a few years later after Devin and Dayana were born, Lorna took up the job in the mansion, and she fed some horse-shit to my mother about an alcoholic husband. My motherbelieved her and that made it easier for Dad to manage two families, having all his children under one roof while he deceived our mother as she invited snakes into our home.”
“The journal is not complete. Where is the rest of it?” I asked.