Jenny: Can you come to the house?
Damien: That’s not a good idea. You can come here if there’s a problem.
Jenny: Dad’s gone, Damien. Please come. Mom needs you…
I was still in a bit of a fog, but seeing Jenny’s last message snapped me awake immediately. I grabbed my clothes and started getting dressed. Gone could mean so many things, especially after what I had been through. Had my father been arrested again? Did he just—leave? Was he dead…? I hated Edgar Sinn, but I didn’t wish death on him, even if I spent my teenage years hoping for his untimely demise. I drove to Sinn Manor for the first time since I left home. I swore I’d never be back. I had been able to see my mother periodically when s
he came by for a visit with Jenny at my house fairly often. If my father was gone, then my reason for staying away left with him—I just wished I knew what version of gone I was about to deal with when I walked through the front door.
“Mom? Jenny?” The door wasn’t locked, so I pushed it open and walked inside.
“Damien!” Jenny came running into the foyer and hugged me immediately.
“What happened?” I gave her a quick hug and then pushed her away.
“He left…” She looked up at me. “He just—got his things and left.”
“Isn’t that what you’ve wanted?” I tilted my head to the side inquisitively.
“Not like this.” She shook her head back and forth. “He got—married.”
“I’m sorry, what?” I blinked in confusion. “What are you talking about? He’s married to our mom…”
“No…” My mother walked into the foyer behind Jenny, and I saw tears in her eyes. “We got divorced after he went to prison.”
“You never told me that…” I walked past Jenny and hugged my mother.
“It was his idea.” She sobbed as she laid her head on my shoulder. “He was afraid that the feds would try to go after his assets—a divorce made that more difficult. He wanted to make sure we were taken care of…”
I doubt that is true, but she doesn’t need to hear it right now.
I comforted my mother, even though I wanted to pour her a drink and celebrate. I tried to get her to leave my father right before he came home from prison. She was so loyal—devoted—and obviously still in love with the damn bastard. I led my mother into the living room, got her to sit down, and I walked into the kitchen so I could get her a glass of water. Jenny’s assumption was right. My father was cheating on my mother, but he wasn’t just keeping a mistress on the side—he didn’t have to. He had pulled some dastardly shit in his time, but his latest bout of cruelty was something else entirely. It was clear that he had broken my mother’s heart into pieces.
“Mom, you should try and get some rest.” I put my hand on her arm. “I know you may not feel like it right now, but it’s pretty late—you’re going to need to talk to a lawyer tomorrow so you can sort all of this out.”
“There’s nothing to sort out.” She lifted her head and looked at me. “I signed everything over to him after he was cleared of the charges—we even talked about getting remarried at some point, but the time was never right...”
“Wait.” I shook my head in confusion. “Everything?”
“I trusted him…” The tears formed in the corner of her eyes again.
“Damn…” I blinked in surprise.
“He said I need to be out of the house by the end of the week. Jenny can stay, of course…” She sighed.
“Screw that!” Jenny’s head snapped back. “I’m not staying here!”
“You can both stay with me.” I patted my mother’s arm.
“Thank you.” My mother nodded. “But—Jenny, you do have to stay.”
“Why?” She leaned forward and narrowed her eyes. “If you’re leaving, I’m leaving.”
“He was very clear—you aren’t allowed to leave.” My mother’s face was just kind of blank—with no real emotion on it. After so many years of following every one of his instructions without questioning him about any of them, it didn’t even occur to her to fight back to keep Jenny.
“Jenny’s seventeen years old.” I glanced at her. “I’ll hire a lawyer, and we’ll keep this tied up in court until she’s eighteen if we have to.”
I had been teetering on the edge of a full-blown explosion of rage since I heard that my father stole Jenny’s trust fund—finding out that my mother was walking away from Sinn Manor with nothing was enough to send me over the edge. I didn’t think there was any way to come back from it after what he had done. I was going to have to confront my father, and it wasn’t going to be peaceful. The bastard had gone too far. My mother deserved at least half of everything, and she was going to get it, even if I had to hire every lawyer in Carson Cove and half of the ones in the city.