Chapter 10

Madison

 

The tears kept flowing when Stone left the room.

“What’s wrong sweetheart, does it hurt?” Dr. Hollander said as she lifted the blanket to cover me.

“No…” I whimpered.

“Well, that’s a good sign. You get some rest and I’ll check up on you tomorrow,” she stroked my cheek with the back of her hand, “Whatever it is, it’ll get better.” She whispered.

 

 

I closed my eyes and gasped for air as I remembered the words that Stone said. He had been gone for a couple of hours, longer than I expected; I wondered what was taking him so long? Was he going to come back, was Alyssa okay? The door opened, and Daniel ran to me. Stone walked in slowly not giving me any eye contact at all.

“Momma!” He yelled.

“Daniel…Oh, Daniel. I’ve missed you.” He climbed up on the bed. I couldn’t get excited. It was hard to catch my breath.

“Be careful. Momma’s chest is hurt.” Stone said.

“What happened momma?” Daniel asked.

“Let’s not talk about that…how are you?” I pulled him towards me and scooted over, so he can lie down next to me.

“I’m fine. Me and daddy ate lunch after we went to his job.” I glanced over at Stone who still wasn’t looking at me.

“Here champ. Take these crayons and coloring book and go sit by the table and color until I finish talking to momma.”

“No.”

“No? Why?”

“I’m never going to leave momma.” He crossed his arms against his chest.

“We’re right here. Don’t worry.” He lifted Daniel and placed him on the chair near the square table in the room. He was far enough to not be able to listen to our conversation.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“I just had to check in with my job. It’s the only income we have. I can send you the money where ever Jackson sends you in protective custody.”

“Jackson? Protective custody? What are you talking about?” my stomach churned from the thought that I was being separated from him again.

“Andrew may still be alive…I shot him and he fell in the lake, but they haven’t recovered his body.” He lowered his head.

“You shot Andrew? Are they going to take you away, are they?” I yelled nervously.

“Calm down Maddie. You’re getting yourself all roused up for nothing.” He whispered.

Daniel lifted his head to look at us.

“Alyssa is okay. But, she has a long road to recovery. She’s going to be here for a while. I’m not going anywhere.” I explained.

“Why do you sound like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like you don’t love me.”

“I love you more than anything in this world, Maddie.”

“You told that doctor I was your sister. I don’t want to hide this anymore, Stone.”

“Maddie, we are brother and sister according to everyone else. We’ll lose the kids if someone finds out we’re together. We have to hide. We can’t lose them. Too much shit is happening right now for me to run into your life on a white horse in shining armor and profess my love for you in front of the world.”

“Get out!” I shouted. The tears brimming at the corners of my eyes.

“Maddie! Stop this!” he shouted.

“Get the fuck out!” I coughed.

“No!”

“Momma, daddy, stop!” Daniel shouted. We both look towards him.

“You loved me the minute you touched my hand when I was eleven and now…after everything we’ve been through you care what anyone else has to say? I’ve put my life on the line for you and the kids. I visited you for five years every weekend, lugging these kids around so they could know you, remember you as their father. I took care of you like a woman takes care of a man, not her brother. I’m not hiding the way I feel about you. I’m not!” I shouted at the top of my lungs, the pain in my chest knocking the breath out of me.

“You’re my sister, for God’s sake. We have to do this the right way,” he ran his fingers through his hair. He acted as if he needed to tell me something. As if he needed to make me understand, “My father is your father. Mickey is your father, Maddie. I’m…I’m sorry.”

My eyes stayed glued to his. I was hearing things. He didn’t just say that. I know that’s not true. It can’t be…it can’t be.

“You’re a liar! Get out!” I bellowed grabbing my stomach.

“Maddie…please. Calm down, you’re going to re-open your wound.”

“Get out!” I screamed placing my hands over my ears. The door opened slamming against the wall.

“What the hell is going on in here?” the security officer shouted.

“I was just leaving. Daniel…let’s go,” Stone went to grab Daniel and Daniel kicked him. Stone was shocked at his reaction, “Daniel don’t do that again!”

“You said you loved momma! Now you want to leave! No daddy! No!”

“Daniel, let’s go. Now!” Stone picked him up and Daniel gave him his best baby punches.

“I want to stay daddy! I want to stay with momma!” He cried.

I almost died. I reached out for Daniel and Stone sat him on the bed with me. Daniel held me tight as he whimpered into my chest.

“Leave…just leave. He’s staying with me.”

“Hurry up sir, I’ll be waiting outside.” The security officer barked. Stone nodded his head. Stone stood before me and placed his hand on mine.

“Maddie, I’m never going to lie to you. I love you too much to do that. We have to wait until everything blows over. We have to get legal guardianship of the kids before we can be together like husband and wife.” My heart skipped a beat. I was so overcome with emotion, I broke down and cried.

“Husband and wife?” I whispered.

“Yes…someday Maddie. Someday. I promise you’ll be my wife and we will have kids of our own. You and me. I want it that way.” He said holding my hand gently.

I glanced away towards the window remembering the evil world I lived in once upon a time with my mother and her men.

“I will wait. I will wait forever for you Stone. Forever,” I whispered as the tears fell from my eyes, “I have to tell you something,” I said as I wiped my tears.

“What is it?” he asked.

“You need to get someone to watch Daniel. I can’t say this in front of him.”

Stone gently lifted Daniel and walked out of the room. He came back in and sat on the bed next to me.

“Where is he?” I asked.

“With Mirva?”

“Who?”

“He’s in good hands, Maddie. She’s an Agent with Jackson.” He grabbed my hand gently and kissed my forehead. The security officer from the hospital walked in.

“Sir, are you leaving?” he asked staring at Stone, ready to throw him out.

“No.” Stone shook his head.

“Are you okay, miss?” he turned to me and asked.

“Yes, it’s okay. Thank you.” I nodded and turned to Stone.

“Tell me Maddie, what’s going on?”

“When you left…after you killed Lucky. My mother had so many men come over to the house. It was like a brothel, except she was the only woman available. She got pregnant with Daniel and then Alyssa. I took care of all three of them alone. Grandma helped a little. She would watch them while I went to school sometimes, but most of the time, I had to leave them with the neighbor until I came home from school. I begged grandma to take me to see you every weekend with the kids because I needed to see you and I needed to get out of the house.”

The tears flooded my eyes. I couldn’t see his beautiful face anymore; I was drowning in my sorrows.

“You’re scaring me, Maddie. Just tell me.” He pleaded as he cupped my face into his hands.

“Your father…he moved into our trailer park a couple of years ago before Alyssa was born. He was shacking up with a woman there.”

“My father? I thought you didn’t know my father?”

“I didn’t. I didn’t know he was your father, until you took me to his house to get your birth certificate,” I sighed, “Ana and your father…well…they started seeing each other again.”

“Maddie, where is this going?”

“He helped her out. He bought me things. He took care of us. He took care of Ana…then,”

“Maddie, don’t say it.” He whispered as he stood up from the bed.

“He…wanted more. He would come to my room at night; you know when he was finished with her.” The tears skimmed down my cheeks relentlessly.

“Maddie,” he turned to me, “Maddie, did he touch you?” I stared at him. I knew I couldn’t lie to him, “Maddie, answer me?” the ball in my throat didn’t allow me to answer, “Maddie, please.” He pleaded.

“I never…let him. I always had the kids with me. I made every excuse until one night…” I opened my arms and he ran to me. I pressed my face against his chest.

“No…No Maddie…” Stone held the back of my neck and cried into my hair.

“He was drunk and angry at Ana.” I continued to speak, barely catching my breath. Stone gripped me tighter around my shoulders.

“No…don’t say it!” I felt his chest heaving in and out against my face.

“Please…I have to. I can’t go on living with this in my heart.”

He released me and stood up away from the bed. He stared at me as if I killed his soul.

“I had just turned sixteen the day before. He came to the house screaming at Ana. Telling her she was a whore for fucking Sly. He beat her really bad. The kids were with me in my room. I locked the door, but he kicked it open.” My breath hitched when I saw Stone’s reaction.

“Stop! Stop!” He yelled placing his hands on the top of his head.

“He…he…” I started gasping for air as I reached out for him. He stood glaring at me, a questionable look on his face. Disappointment. Anguish. Horror.

“He raped you…didn’t he?” his face stood frozen, “You got pregnant…from him.” He spit the words out.

He shook his head, the tears fell from his eyes as he closed them tightly shut, raising his fists to his forehead as the sobs ripped from his lips.

“I…I did everything I could to miscarry the weeks that followed, and finally I picked a fight with someone at school and they kicked me in the stomach, and I miscarried,” he covered his mouth with his hand, “I saw Lacky at the house and told him what happened and he took me to the hospital with the kids. I told the doctor I was seventeen, so I didn’t need consent from my mother, to take out whatever was left inside of me.” I wiped my tears, remembering the pain I went through that night.

“You let my father walk away a free man?” he barked, “Why didn’t Lacky arrest him?”

“He didn’t believe me. He said…I tempted him.” I grabbed the cup with ice water and drank until I almost choked. My hands were trembling, and my heart was bleeding.

“What? Why would he say that?” he walked over to the bed and grabbed my hands gently as they shook.

“I don’t know. Lacky was very angry with me after we came back from the hospital. He actually seemed…jealous.” I whispered softly.

“Jealous? That doesn’t make any sense.” He said shaking his head.

“He never looked at me the same again after that. He only came to the house to check on Ana.”

“My God Maddie, why did you wait all of these years to tell me this?” he asked.

“He threated to kill me and the kids. They were all I had in the world and I was afraid. My mother never told me he was your father or that he was my father. I never knew until I saw him when I was with you.”

“That was the reason you were upset. Not because there was no mother on my birth certificate, but because you saw him.”

He sat for a moment as if he had the air knocked out of him as he struggled to breathe, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the sides of the chair.

“I have to go Maddie.” He said abruptly.

“No…No…don’t leave me!” I yelled.

“He has to pay for what he’s done.” He whispered.

“Haven’t we paid enough for what they’ve done to us? If you do something to him, we will all pay for it, including Daniel and Alyssa. Is that what you want?”

“She was married to him you know.” He said lowering his head.

“Ana?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Before you were born.”

“How could she marry an animal like that?”

“It’s over Maddie. It’s over.”

“What’s over?”

“All of this is going to end…I promise.”

“Please…don’t do anything stupid Stone. We can be together now. Andrew is gone. We never have to see our father again…or Lacky. It’ll be you, me and the kids. Please, don’t do this.” I begged.

“You don’t understand. You have no fucking clue. This goes deeper than what happened to you. I am ashamed of what my father did to you and I promise you, he will not see tomorrow. But, I will never be the same…and neither will you. We can’t be together Maddie…ever. He’s not only my father…he’s yours, too, and that changes everything,” he leaned in and kissed me on the lips, “This is where I say good-bye. If I stay with you, I will be just like my father, a rapist, an incestuous rapist that didn’t give a damn about his children. What example will I be to Daniel and Alyssa? That it’s okay to sleep with each other?”

I grabbed his hands and pulled him towards me.

“We didn’t know when we met each other that we were related.”

“That piece of shit told me the truth, maybe Ana isn’t my mother and we’re not sure, but he knew you were his daughter, he’s on your birth certificate and they were married.”

“We weren’t raised together…I nurtured and took care of you and the time we spent together taking care of Bryan…The moment I touched your hand, we knew…please don’t do this. Our love is stronger than this Stone. Our love was meant to break all boundaries…Don’t destroy what we have, please.”

“You’re right…I will never love anyone again…never,” he sat on the bed and caressed my cheek with the back of his hand, the tears brimmed at the corner of his eyes, “I love you so much that I hope when I kill my father…God takes me, right there and then, because I can’t bear the pain of losing you, knowing that someday, you’ll be in the arms of another man,” he cupped my face in his hands, “Promise me you’ll take care of the kids.”

“Don’t talk like that. You’re never going to leave me Stone…Ever. You will always be mine. Please don’t leave me. The kids need you, they need their father. Please.” I begged.

He stared into my eyes, stood up from the bed and walked towards the door, then turned and glanced over at me.

“Ana had a baby after they broke up. Your grandmother took the baby and gave it away. I think that baby was me,” he wiped the tears from his face with his hand, “I could’ve dealt with being your half-brother, I could’ve dealt with anything else but this. Now, when I place the gun in his mouth and pull the trigger…I’ll finally be free of him and I’ll never have to look at the face of the man who destroyed the love of my life.”

Stone turned and walked away from me and as the door closed behind him, it was the beginning of the end. My heart pounded against my chest, I couldn’t breathe. I pressed the nurse call button; my vision was blurry, and the walls began to close in on me as my eyes slowly closed reminding me…I would never see him again.