I stared down at Jessie, my birth father. The man that I used to think was responsible for Ian and Leah's deaths and the continuous harassment and torment of me and my entire family and friends.

Instead, he turned out to be the person who'd saved me from dying an untimely death at the hands of my birth mother, albeit accidentally, but she'd still had the gun trained on me for the better part of the entire confrontation where I'd learned the truth, well, most of it.

That was the point of this brunch meeting, with Lachlan sitting dutifully by my side, mostly considering we still didn't trust Jessie one hundred percent, but hopefully that could change in the future. This was my shot, my chance to learn about who I'd come from, and I wondered just how many things I'd inherited from him.

Was my allergy to grass (weird, I know) hereditary from his side, or was it from Luciana? Was my proclivity for coffee over tea nature or nurture? I had so many questions swimming around in my brain, but the more pertinent ones deserved front row attention.

"Why come back into my life, and why use my mom as your way to do that? You could've just reached out and said you wanted to have contact, especially since I've been wanting to find my birth parents for the better part of my life," I asked him, eyes squinting from the slanting sunlight being cast through the little cafe's windows, the golden, buttery light illuminating the dark shadows cast across Jessie's tired face.

He blew out a breath of air while his hands circled his steaming cup of coffee, two sugars and a splash of cream, in stark contrast to my coffee filled to the absolute brim with multiple sugars and cream, the liquid so milky it was more sweetener than actual coffee, but that was how I had always enjoyed the beverage.

"You were getting older and I found out that you wanted to know your birth parents through your dad, who'd given me a job after I ran into some legal trouble with Luciana. It was her idea to launder money, and while I did probation for the crime, she was the one who had masterminded it all, before her mental health started failing. I'd been in love with Luciana and she was my wife, but I caught her a few times smoking while she was pregnant with you, and so I made a vow to stay with her throughout the entire pregnancy to make sure she couldn't harm you, and when you were born, we gave you up to your parents, and yes they made it seem like a business deal, giving me a job right after and a visa to the U.S., but it wasn't like that at all.

"Your parents were desperate for a baby, and the process in the U.S. was taking too long. Luciana couldn't be a mother in prison and I couldn't be a proper father just getting myself up off the ground. Your father helped me make a name for myself in the financial industry and build my career from the ground up, to make a life that could make my daughter proud. Luciana slowly lost her mind in prison, so they moved her to a mental facility and I went to visit her every few months, telling her everything that your parents would tell me about you. She never got over the fact that she had to give you up, she blames me for it because I got off on the charges while she was stuck in jail. I came back now because I reconnected with your mother after I made a name for myself, and after she divorced your father. She's always wanted you to know me, we've been friends all your life.

"It was your father who didn't want me to ever come around you, scared that you would figure out who I was to you before you turned eighteen which was when he wanted you to finally find out the truth."

Jessie rubbed at his five o'clock shadow while Lachlan brushed some of my hair off my shoulder and rested his hands across it, that simple action spurring my heart to flutter a little in my chest while I tried to concentrate on what he was saying.

"Why did Luciana's family tell me that you...forced Luciana to have me? In more ways than one," I alluded, coding my words to make them a bit more civil in the calm coffee shop atmosphere.

He wasn't phased at all by the question, like he'd heard the accusation before many times.

"Because that's what she told her entire family. She's still so angry with me for what happened in the past, she can't let go of it, and she figured if she could poison you from me before we had a chance to meet, then she had a chance to get to you."

"Okay, so, you're involved with my dad's shady business then? That doesn't really inspire confidence," I told him, still needing to talk to my dad about that himself.

He scrunched his dark brown eyebrows and widened his eyes before clearing his throat and looking slightly away from us while he answered.

"Shady? No, your father's business has always been above board."

"Okay, I can tell that was a lie and I didn't even need a lie detector for it. We know. Lachlan's dad is involved with it too, so we know what's going on, the money laundering and maybe more," I said, Lachlan's form stiffening beside me but he needed to know that we weren't messing around, or at least I wasn't.

I said I wanted answers, and I was going to damn well get them.

Jessie sighed and rubbed his eyes, my gaze flicking down to the spot underneath the table where his injured leg was stretched out, the boot that he was made to wear while his leg was healing seemingly bulky and uncomfortable.

"Look, we've been trying to pull away from Brooks' company for years, but his threats are credible. It's not as easy as it sounds."

"Yeah, we know," I said sullenly, Lachlan's arms tightening around me as he slipped an arm around my waist.

"So where are we going from here? You're going to still date my mom, and Luciana is going to stay in the state for psychiatric care. I'm planning on going to school here, too. Are you going to...want a relationship?"

I held my breath as I waited on his answer. I honestly didn't know which answer I would've preferred. I still needed to figure out what was going on with my relationship towards my dad, and I hardly thought hat building a strong relationship with Jessie would help that in any way.

Sure my dad was an asshole most of the time, and had used me to get close to Ian's family by having me date him, but he was still the man who'd raised me and, blood or not, was my father.

Family mattered, and the events that had occurred in the previous weeks had only proven that fact to me time and time again.

"I want to be in your life, Kate. I want to get to know you, to stay with your mom, absolutely. I want to know my daughter. I wasn't able to provide and care for you like a father should have been able to do when you were born, and I want to make that up to you. If that's okay with you though. I understand if you want nothing to do with me."

I crinkled my eyebrows and threw something out there, just to see what he'd say.

"Would you break up with my mom if I asked? If it meant that I'd want to have a relationship with you, but only if you two weren't together?"

Pain flared across his features as Lachlan stiffened beside me, clearly thinking that what I'd asked of him was harsh, but he didn't know that I wasn't being serious.

"That's a hard question, Kate. I love your mother, I have for a while now. I guess I'd ask if you could handle me dating her silently, out of your sight, and then see where we could go from there. A compromise?"

My mouth quirked up at the sides. It was a pretty good answer, I had to give it to him.

"That was a test, I wasn't being serious. But you passed."

"Heh," he breathed out, laughing slightly at what I'd just done.

"Just making sure you're as committed to my mom as you are to wanting a relationship with me, too," I said, because it was the complete truth. If he wasn't as 'in love' with my mom as he claimed to be, then that would've meant that he'd only used her to get to me, and I didn't want that for her.

As much as we butted heads, I wanted her to be happy. And maybe that was the disconnect, all those years of her being unhappy in a loveless marriage with my dad, she couldn't give her all to being my mother, and as my injury throbbed in a dull ache on my head, I wondered if that was why our relationship had suffered so much.

"Well, you can count on me being committed to your mother, and you. Without a doubt," he said, and as I took a pointed look towards the wound on his leg, I was reminded of that, in spades.

We finished up our conversation with light banter, jokes about curfew and being a protective father where Lachlan was concerned. It was nice to have a normal conversation, for once.

It was after the brunch when Lachlan brought me to his house, however, that it was my turn for a talk with his father, albeit unplanned, but we'd discussed what would happen if he confronted the both of us together.

One step inside his modern two story house and his dad was on us in a heartbeat, my first in person sight of the man in question, and the fear that he struck within me was moderate compared to the fear that I'd felt after having a gun literally shoot me in the head.

If I could survive almost murder from my own biological mother, then I could survive a simple brush with Lachlan's dad.

Until those light blue eyes fixed on me, the color seemingly hiding the evil that lay nestled underneath his light exterior. What kind of monster abused his own children, and then pitted them against the world as extortion for reassurance that their siblings wouldn't be hurt right along with them?

Gerard Brooks, that was who. And he was staring at me like I was worth less than a bug he could easily squish underneath his three hundred dollar shoes. Or possibly more than that, I didn't know how much the guy paid for his shoes, but that wasn't the point.

I survived. I was alive, and I would not let a man like this steal that, from me or from Lachlan, or Blythe.

"Katrina. How lovely for you to come and visit."

My teeth clenched as Lachlan stood like the kids in a supernatural drama right before a big fight scene, half crouched, fists clenched, teeth bared in warning. His posture was the epitome of hostile, but his father wasn't having any of it.

"Come now, join me in my study. You won't be putting those fists to any use in this house today."

His skin pallor matched the shade of his hair, leeched of all color and white, but styled professionally atop his head. Wrinkles adorned the sides of his blue eyes and the corners of his mouth.

Innocuous as he might've seemed, he was a snake underneath his disguise of normalcy, that I knew all too well, as did Lachlan.

We followed him into his study, like we didn't have a choice, but Lachlan walked in front of us, his arm draped across my front in a protective stance.

What a way to meet the parents, under duress and while I still had a bullet wound on the side of my head. What could go wrong?