“How did you know where to find them, Samuel?” she demands, eyeing him with caution.
“Please,” he says. “Call me Rivers. Samuel Mathers is the name my father gave me and I don’t want anything to do with him. I’ve always gone by Rivers.”
“Okay, Rivers,” Shay says, testing it out. “How’d you find my kids?”
Rivers’ eyes flick to me before focusing back on Shay. “We’ve known for a little while that they made it to Aston Creek but it was actually after Skylah visited Castle Rock a few days ago that we could pinpoint her location. I have a few…measures put in place for when my father receives a visitor. I’m always notified. I guess it’s my way of checking up on him, making sure he’s not hurting anybody else.”
“So, the guard just passed along her information? A minor’s information to the son of the man who orchestrated this whole thing?”
Rivers nods. “That’s correct. I understand how bad that looks.”
“What should be understood is that I will be putting in an official complaint to the prison about this.”
Rivers glances at Tully and then to their unborn child. “You do what you have to do to protect the people you love,” he says. “If you feel you need to come forward with that information, then I will give you the names of the guards involved.”
I scoff. “So, you’re just going to rat on your people?”
“They’re not my people. The fact that they’ve already broken protocol and policies to supply me with that information tells me that they’re not trustworthy men, and certainly not people I want in my corner. I’m Anton’s son, the one who’s supposed to rule his kingdom now that he’s incarcerated. They do me favors in the hopes that one day I’ll take over his reign and bring them on board.”
“That’s awful.”
He nods. “People like that deserve to go down. I didn’t make the decision for them to supply me with that information. I didn’t bribe them, I didn’t hurt them. I simply asked and they agreed. That was their decision and theirs alone. That’s not on me.”
“I can get on board with that,” I tell him, hating the fact that I’m agreeing with this man, but he has a point. People who are willing to cling onto others to get a step up in the world are nothing but a disgrace. Pride comes from standing on your own two feet and making something of yourself, knowing that you made an achievement through hard work and dedication.
Not in the mood for hearing the ins and outs of Rivers’ deal with the guards, Shay keeps him talking. “So, you got our address and decided it was a good idea to come here?”
He nods. “After she visited my father on the weekend, one could assume she went there looking for closure and I realized that if that was true, then maybe it would help to see me so she can truly put it all behind her. Hell, maybe she’d even be ready for me to ask for forgiveness.”
“Why would I ever give you forgiveness? You took my mother away from me. I was four years old without a mom? Do you have any idea what that night led to?”
“I…” he shakes his head and lets out a heavy, pained breath. “I’ve always known what kind of man my father was. I knew he had taken you and your brother that night but that was the last I ever saw or heard of you. I’ve always wondered what happened, always hoped that maybe you were one of the lucky ones.”
My eyes drop. “I wasn’t.”
Rivers closes his eyes and leans forward onto his knees, his head hanging low between his shoulders. Not a sound is heard throughout the house except for his heavy breathing and when he finally raises his head, I see ghosts in his eyes that look as though they’ve been haunting him for far too long. “If you don’t mind, could you tell me about it?”
“About my life?”
“Where you ended up. Everything bad that ever came your way because I was too weak at eight years old.”
Shay sucks in a breath. “You were only eight?”
He nods. “It was my eighth birthday. I was to become a man and to do that, I had to play God.”
Shay’s eyes brim with tears and as Rivers glances back at me, I let him have the full brunt of it, not sugar coating anything. “My brother and I were left in a concrete basement, no clothes, no toilet, no food. This lasted for a few days until the deal with Lucien and Maria Valentine finally went through. They took us on as though we were their adoptive children. Maria was a bitch and Lucien was ice cold. When I was fourteen, I was asked to join Lucien in his study where I found him with a business partner, Marcus. They’d just written up their deal on how I was going to be wed to Marcus on my eighteenth birthday,” Tully gasps but I continue. “Lucien offered Marcus a taste of what he was purchasing and for the next three years, he would touch me, every time getting worse all while Lucien sat back and watched. My virginity was a big factor of the deal so I consider myself lucky that I was never raped by Marcus…”