Page 52 of Fighting My Demons

“You killed your parents first?” Xavier asks.

“I didn’t mean to. My mother gave me a gun to protect myself. When my father caught me, he tried to make me go back into the house, and I pulled it on him. It went off, and I accidentally shot my mother, who was in the doorway,” I whisper, looking down at my hands.

I can still picture her blood on my hands as I tried to stem the bleeding. She was shot in the stomach. My tank top was drenched in her blood, my clothes ruined, and she kept telling me to run, but I couldn't leave her.

“My father lost it and attacked me when she stopped breathing. He tried to strangle me. I escaped into the house. The back door led into the kitchen. When he slammed my head into the counter, I grabbed a knife from the chopping block and stabbed him in the neck. He died a few minutes later, and I was left with two dead bodies.”

“So, how does your sister come into it?” Blaine asks.

“She heard the gun go off when I shot my mother. We had a panic room upstairs, so she fled to it. In the meantime, I was trying to revive my mother. It was stupid. I didn’t even know CPR. But I tried. I could live with Dad's death but not hers. But she was already dead. So I panicked. The gun was next to her body, and when my sister eventually came out of the house, I thought she was one of my father’s men. I didn’t even look. I just shot at the door. I shot her four times before I realized who she was. I thought she was still in the panic room. I heard the bolts lock in place when my father attacked me in the kitchen.”

“Why didn’t you ring the police?” Latham asks.

“Because I was fourteen and scared, and I had just killed three people. I killed my family. I lay with Isobella for a bit when her phone started ringing. It was Brian, and when I answered, he thought I was Isobella. He caught an earlier plane and was on his way home. Isobella knew all along that Brian was organizing with my father to sell me. I was worried when he got home that he would either kill me or still go ahead with the plans to take over my father’s business.”

“He didn’t recognize you at all? And he thinks your sister is missing?” Xavier asks, and I shake my head.

“My father was renovating the yard at the time, and my sister’s body now lies under the concrete where a gazebo was being built. The concrete was still wet, and they were pouring more the next morning and had tarps laid out. I placed her under the tarp. When my brother came home, he assumed I was Isobella, and I didn’t correct him. I told him I couldn’t go through with selling Arabella, and she had run, and that I killed our parents helping her escape. He was angry but said he loved me and helped. But he vowed to kill Arabella if he ever found her.”

“What did your brother do?”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

“He helped me cover up their bodies. We weighed them down and tossed them off my father's boat at sea. When I came home, they were pouring concrete, and they didn’t see my sister under the tarp which covered her body up. A week later, my father’s body washed up. The police came to the house and found traces of DNA from my father in the kitchen and on the knife’s handle. We bleached it, but they found blood when they pulled the handle apart. They knew we’d covered it up. I was expecting to go to jail. I was going to come clean. I figured if I were in prison, my brother wouldn’t be able to hurt me when he found out I wasn’t Isobella. I was in my father's study being questioned when Brian walked in and said he’d done it. He told them he found out our sister was being sold, and she took off, and he killed them, helping her escape, and I was his witness. He said he was off his head on drugs, and I could vouch for what happened because I was there. He said he’d threatened me to keep quiet.”

“He took all the blame?”

“Yes. He said there was no point in both of us being locked up, that I should use our inheritance and get through school, and when he got out, he would find me. That I could help him get back on his feet. He did five years because he claimed mental health. He spent two years in prison until sentenced and then was placed in a mental health facility. He used what money we had left around the house to pay off the judge.”

“Why didn’t you run?”

“He would have found me. My brother always finds me. Even though my parents are dead, he still has connections. It wasn’t until after he got out that I realized my sister was the one being traded for the alliance. Brian didn’t like that, so he and Dad convinced the man to take me instead. For years, I pretended I couldn’t see the demon following me so he wouldn’t know. Brian put it down to trauma since I was no longer the bubbly sister he wanted when he got out. He asked where the money was from my family's estate. I told him I sold it, and there was nothing left, which angered him. My parents left everything to Isobella. They cut both Brian and me out of their will. Brian was never going to take over my father’s business. Isobella was. He’s hated me ever since, but not enough to let me go.”

“So you used the money to survive?”

“My parents had life insurance, plus money stashed everywhere in offshore accounts under Isobella’s name. Brian took the offshore accounts and cleaned them out. I wasn’t even aware they existed until I found the paperwork. The house was left to Isobella also. I told Brian I’d sold it, but I still own it. I never went back after he was arrested. I went and stayed with my grandmother. She died just before Brian got out,” I explained.

“All this time, and Brian never figured it out?”

“No, we were identical twins, and he just thought I’d changed. Not a far stretch considering everything. He did say, though, that if he hadn’t kill Arabella, he would still sell her off. That Luca still wanted her since he couldn’t have Isobella, and despite hating me, Brain could never hand me over. Said he always loved me, and I was his.”

“I have one more question,” Latham asks. “You still own the house. And you pretended not to see the demon for years, right?”

I nod.

“Will you take me to your house?”

“I haven't been back there since I was fourteen,” I tell him, horrified by the idea.

“The demon was still with you right in that house?”

I nod.

“Yes, until a little after my nineteenth birthday. Then he disappeared.”

“Then his essence would have imprinted on it. We will be able to find him, Bella.”

“He hasn’t bothered me for years. I don't want to risk him coming back,” I tell him.