CHAPTER 53: THE TRUTH

"Mom?" I whispered as I entered.

She turned her head slowly toward me, and a weak smile spread across her face. Her eyes focused on the documents partially visible under my jacket, and her smile grew wider.

"Layla," she said weakly. "You found them."

"Mom, what are these?" I moved closer to her bedside.

"The truth," she said simply. "I’ll rest easy now, knowing that you’ll know the truth and that you’ll avenge me."

"Avenge you? Mom, what are you talking about? What truth?"

She struggled to sit up slightly, and I helped her, propping pillows behind her back. Her breathing was laboured, but her eyes were clearer than I’d seen them in years.

"How long have you been awake? I mean, really awake?"

"On and off for days," she admitted. "But I had to pretend. I had to wait for the right moment."

"Wait for what?"

"For you to find those documents. For you to be ready to hear what I have to tell you."

"Ready to hear what?"

"About your father. About what he really is."

My stomach clenched. "What do you mean?"

"Your father," she began, her voice sounding weak but determined. "He didn’t marry me for love, Layla. He married me to pay off my parents’ debts. They were desperate, and he offered them a solution."

My heart sank. "What?! Mom..."

"I was barely nineteen when we married. My parents were almost bankrupt, and your father, he made those debts disappear."

"In exchange for you?"

"In exchange for me. And my family’s silence about his business dealings."

"What business dealings?"

"Money laundering. Illegal gambling operations. Worse things." She coughed, a harsh sound that made me wince. "I didn’t know at first. I was young and foolish. I thought I could change him, thought love might grow between us."

"But it didn’t?"

"Love?" She laughed bitterly. "He never wanted love from me. He wanted compliance. Silence. A pretty wife who looked good at business functions and never asked questions."

"So what happened? Why are you...?" I gestured at her frail condition.

"Because I finally grew a spine," she said with a flash of her old spirit. "After years of watching him treat you differently than Cassandra, after years of watching him manipulate and control everyone around him, I finally had enough."

"What did you do?"

"I threatened to leave and to take you with me. To expose everything I knew about his illegal activities."

"And?"

"And that’s when he started poisoning me."

The words hit me like a physical blow. "Poisoning you?"

"Small doses at first. Just enough to make me weak and confused. The doctors all said it was stress, depression, a nervous breakdown." Her grip on my hand tightened. "But I knew better. I could feel myself getting weaker every day."

"But Mom, that’s attempted murder."

"It is murder, Layla. Just a slow, careful kind that looks like natural causes."

"But why? Why not just divorce you?"

"Because I knew too much. And because a sick wife gets more sympathy than a divorced one. It’s better for his public image."

I felt sick. "How long has this been going on?"

"Two years. Maybe more. It’s hard to tell when it started because the symptoms came on so gradually."

"Jesus, Mom. Why didn’t you tell anyone? Why didn’t you call the police?"

"With what proof? He made sure the poisoning looked like a mental breakdown. Who would have believed me?"

"I would have believed you."

"Would you? Honestly?" She looked at me with sad eyes. "When you saw me acting erratically, talking about conspiracies, would you have believed me or would you have thought I was having a breakdown like everyone else did?"

I opened my mouth to protest, then closed it. She was right. I probably would have thought she was paranoid.

"That’s why I hid those documents," she continued. "Evidence of everything I could find. Financial records, correspondence, medical reports I had done secretly."

"Medical reports?"

"Hair and blood samples I managed to get tested at a private lab. They show traces of arsenic and other toxins."

"Oh my God."

"There’s more," she said, her voice growing weaker. "Something I should have told you years ago, but I was too much of a coward."

"What?"

"Something about your past. About who you really are."

My stomach dropped. "What do you mean?"

"You’re adopted, sweetheart."

"What?" I blurted out before I could even stop the word. "Adopted?"

"Your biological parents died in a car accident when you were three. Your father was the cause of the accident; driving under the influence. To keep the accident under the wrap, he adopted you."

I tried to process what she was telling me, but my mind felt like it was fracturing. "That’s... that can’t be true."

"It is true. And it explains so much, doesn’t it? Why you were always treated differently? Why Cassandra was always the favorite?"

"Because I’m not really his daughter?"

"You’re not his biological daughter. But you should have been treated as one. The fact that you weren’t shows what kind of man he really is."

"Who were they? My real parents?"

"I don’t know everything, but what I could find is in those documents. Your biological father was a journalist, I think. Your mother was a teacher."

"What were their names?"

"Sarah and Michael Stuart. They were... they were good people, Layla. From what I could piece together, they were very good people."

"Stuart? But..."

"He changed your name when he adopted you so you could fit seamlessly into the family. Then after that, he made sure every record of it was buried, so basically, no one knows about your adoption or the accident."

"Did they... did they love me?"

Tears were streaming down her face now. "From everything I could find, they adored you. You were their whole world."

"Then why...? How did I end up with... him?"

"Your biological parents had no other family. When they died, you became a ward of the state. Your father wanted to keep the accident off the records, so your adoption was the condition."

"So I was just what? A charity case to cover up his crime?"

"To him, yes. But not to me." She squeezed my hand fiercely. "Never to me. From the moment you came into this house, you were my daughter in every way that mattered."

"So why didn’t you tell me this earlier?"