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“I’m always nice.” A smirk crossed his lips.
“Do you two surf?” Simon asked them.
“You bet we do. We grew up in Hawaii,” Grayson replied.
“It’s all we did.” Gabriel smiled.
“Then welcome to the family, cousins.” Simon grinned as he stood up and hugged them both.
Sam, Sebastian, Stefan, and Shaun took turns welcoming the guys into the family. Just as we all started talking, I glanced over and saw Aunt Barb and Ian walking toward us.
“You, be quiet.” Aunt Barb pointed to Simon.
“I didn’t say anything!”
“You were going to.” She shot him a look, and I chuckled.
“Mom, what are you doing here?” Sam asked.
“I knew you’d be together, and Ian wants to talk to all of you.”
“I see you’ve met your family,” Ian spoke to Grayson and Gabriel. “Listen, boys. I want to tell you some things before I go into surgery tomorrow. I may not make it, and you deserve to know exactly what kind of person I was back in the day and why your fathers cut me out of their lives.
“You don’t need to—” Sebastian started to speak.
“I do, Sebastian. I’m not going to lie. I’m a recovering drug addict and have been clean for thirty years. I was a heavy drug user. I stole, lied, and used people in every way possible to score my next fix. I fell into the wrong crowd, hung with some very bad people, and paid the price. The night of the fire, I was on my way to my parent’s house to grab a couple of things I had left there after my father kicked me out. I waited until I knew they were asleep so I didn’t have to deal with them. A friend of mine parked around the block, and I walked because he had a loud car, and it would have woken them up. As I approached their street, I saw the flashing lights of the police cars and the fire trucks. I stood across from the house as the street was filled with people, including my parents, watching our house burn to the ground.”
“Did you set that fire?” Simon asked him.
“No. I didn’t. But I had my suspicions at the time about who might have. A couple of days later, Henry called me and told me our father wanted to see me. So, I went to the hotel they were staying at, and that’s when he accused me of starting the fire. He told me that he wouldn’t get the police involved if I left town and never came back. He said I was dead to them, and they would live their lives as if I never existed. Then he instructed Henry and Liam to take me to the bus station and make sure I got on the bus.”
“Why was he so sure you were the one who started the fire?” I asked.
“Well, my drug habit, for one, the fact that he sold my shares of the company and kicked me out, and I had texted my brothers that night asking them if they were home. And the only reason I did was that I was going to have them grab my things for me, so I didn’t have to go there.”
“Did you explain that to him?” I asked.
“There was no use, and they wouldn’t have believed me anyway. After Henry and Liam dropped me off at the bus station and told me they never wanted to see me again, I got on the bus to Texas and never looked back.”
“How did you end up in Hawaii?” Sam asked.
“I’d always wanted to go there and figured it was the best place to get lost and forget about my family. Nothing sounded so appealing at the time than sleeping on the beach, high on coke and listening to the waves. So, I spent three months in Texas working for a construction company, but I was spending more money on drugs than I could save. I went to my boss and gave him this sob story about my mother, who was lying in a hospital bed in Hawaii dying, and asked him if he could give me an advance so I could go say goodbye to her. I told him I’d only be gone a week and I’d work extra hard when I returned. He wrote me a check that day, I cashed it, and bought a plane ticket.”
“Not too long after I got there, I met their mother.” He glanced over at Grayson and Gabriel. “She was a real partier. We did drugs together, drank, and then she got pregnant. I didn’t want kids at that point and didn’t love her enough to marry her. I was so messed up, not only from the drugs but from the rejection of my family. I didn’t want to totally abandon her because she didn’t have anyone but a few friends, so I helped out when I could. After the boys were born, she went back on drugs. When they were three months old, I got a call from a friend telling me that Maria had left the boys with her to run to the store, and she never returned. So, after trying to call Maria for hours, I went to her house that night. That’s when I found her lying on the floor, dead from a heroin overdose.”
“Jesus.” Simon shook his head.
“After I called 911, I went to her friend’s house and picked up the boys. I brought them back to my place, which wasn’t even big enough for one person. I stayed up that entire night staring at them as they slept in my bed. The thought of putting them up for adoption crossed my mind several times. Then, I thought about my father. If I abandoned my boys, I would be no better than he was. And the last thing I wanted was to be like him. I had already failed my family and wasn’t about to fail my sons. So, I flushed the coke I had in the toilet and got clean. I attended a support group for recovering drug addicts and single fathers and got a job selling real estate. I excelled at it in my first year. I could sell anything to anyone. After a few successful years, I branched out on my own, started my own company, made millions, and raised my boys the best way I knew how.”
“I would say you did a great job,” Conner spoke.
“If it wasn’t for them, I’m not sure I ever would have turned my life around. The sad thing is I couldn’t even see that until after Maria passed away.” Tears swelled in his eyes. “I never told my boys any of this until yesterday because I was ashamed, and I didn’t want them to know that I was a drug addict who didn’t want them when they were born and kicked out of my own family. So, as far as they were concerned, I was an only child.”
“I just want to know who you thought started the fire,” Simon said, and I smacked the back of his head.
“What? I’m a fucking detective.” He looked at me.
“I believed it was a man named Robert Colton. He knew how my father felt about me, and after Robert had a run-in with a client and lost a huge account, my father fired him. I was in his office the day Robert stormed in and told my father he’d be sorry for firing him.”
