Page 145 of Pink Ink

Salty tears trickle into my mouth no matter how hard I try to stop them from flowing. I’m mourning for the woman who raised me and never got her happy ending.

If there was one thing she cared about more than anything, it was him. She wanted that happily ever after with the family, the house, and the loving husband more than she wanted me. I know because I heard her begging too. I heard her on the phone telling him that I’d be going to college soon, and she could move closer to him so they could see each other more.

Mom spent every single day of her life wishing she could be with him.

He was everything to her. I was the one who had to help her through her depression when he inevitably left. I was the child who distracted Mom whenever she was missing him.

I saw how much it hurt her when I said that I hated him, so I kept it inside and seethed behind closed doors. I had to listen to all the lectures about why he’s the most amazing person in the world, and I was the one who dealt with her disappointment when she couldn’t convince me, and she’d say,You just don’t understand.

And still, he wasn’t there.

“Where. Were. You?”I scream.

I’m about to burst. Rounding on him, I shove him over and over, repeating the same three words until my throat is raw. I don’t care that he has a gun pointed at Maddox. I’m so riled up that I wouldn’t hesitate to stab my own father just to get rid of the tension winding around my heart so tight I fear it’ll stop beating.

“What? No answer? Of course, you don’t have an answer. You’re a coward. A fuckingcoward!” I hit him in the chest again like I might be able to take away the pain Mom would have felt when she died and realized that he lied to her as well.

“I had to,” he grunts when I shove him back hard enough to make him stumble.

“You didn’t have to do anything! You didn’t have to leave. You didn’t have to have a kid. You didn’t have to keep hurting us by coming back. You didn’t have to pretend to die just to escape your responsibility.” I can barely see him through the tears as he puts his gun away. “Say something!”

“He was here,” Maddox answers when the man who helped create me doesn’t.

I stare up at my father, waiting for him to confirm or deny it.

“Why?” I croak, stepping away from my father and closer to Maddox.

He answers again. “Because he’s the grand magistrate. The supreme leader of the Order.”

My stomach bottoms out. He’s…

A maniacal laugh bubbles out of me. It keeps rolling out, becoming increasingly hysterical until I’m close to hyperventilating. My mother died alone because he chose power over us. Myfatherwould rather run a fucking secret society than show up for his family more than once a year.

“I may not have been present, but I have always been involved. If anyone knew about you or your mother, they would have killed you,” Dad says calmly and evenly like it might stop me from losing it completely.

“Then why did you have a baby?” I yell.

I know the answer already.Because Mom wanted one. She wanted her perfect family. I’ve just never been able to figure out whether it was because she wanted to become a mother or because she wanted to keep a part of him.

She loved me. She did. But her love for me was never enough for her.

“So what?” I throw my arms up. “You asked Maddox’s dad to kill me? Get rid of me so no one can hang me over your head?”

Dad’s face contorts with measured fury. “Roland will pay for what he’s done.”

“Then what, Richard—is that even your name? Richard Talbot? Did you know that I was looking for you?”

His eyes flick away. That’s all I need to know. “James Richard Shepherd.”

My head turns to the side like I’ve just been slapped.

Find Shepherd.

That’s what Mom said as she was dying.

It wasn’t the ramblings of a dying woman. She was coming clean about my father’s last name.

This whole time he knew I was searching for him, and he was never planning on making himself known. Seeing him right now is an accident. If he had his way, he’d be happy for me to live out the rest of my life as an orphan.