“Tell me,” I said to her, and she clamped her mouth shut. “Unbelievable. Even now, you can’t be straight with me. Fine, have it your way.” I glanced back at Cain, who was still hovering in the shadows. “What should I know?”

“Do you want to know all of it?”

“Yes.”

“Your father that you call Dad didn’t simply drift apart from you. When he and your mother got a divorce, he was a stay-at-home father and would’ve taken your mother for half of everything. She didn’t like that, so she told him she’d press charges against him for abuse. She said that she’d use the full power of her position to make his life miserable and ruin him if he didn’t leave you behind, and she wasn’t giving him a cent.”

My mouth fell open, and I looked back at my mother. “You were blackmailing Dad with fake charges? What kind of demon mother are you? You first cheat on him, rip apart our family, and then proceed to threaten him?”

“I’d worked my entire life to get where I was. I had to fight tooth and nail and claw over anyone that got in my way to reach the top of my game, and I wasn’t letting your father drag me down into a heated battle in court over money that was mine. If he’d been a better husband in the first place, I wouldn’t have stepped out.”

I stumbled back from the bed. “What the fuck? Do you even hear yourself? I spent years agonizing over why Dad didn’t want anything to do with me, I blamed myself for him leaving, and this whole time you knew why and kept your mouth shut?”

“Don’t be so soft and naive, Kirby. I’m a woman working in a man’s world. You do what you have to do to stay ahead. That means in your professional and personal life. Besides, you were hanging around him too much. Your head was always in the clouds like his, wanting to flit from thing to thing with no purpose. He supported you to do whatever you wanted, even when it was a stupid idea. Not that separating you two did any good. You’re still a waif of a personality. So embarrassing.”

I bit my lip but refused to cry. This woman wasn’t getting any more of my tears. “Arrogant, always so fucking arrogant. What else should I know?”

“That’s it, now you know everything, so can you untie me now?”

“That’s not all,” Cain chimed in. His voice was soft and yet as lethal as a blade.

“Tell me,” I said and knew that he would.

“She knows who your real father is,” he said, and my heart jumped in my chest.