CHAPTER SEVENTEEN // SIARA LYNN DUPONT
[WORD COUNT: 2558]
[TOTAL: 43571] 

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It didn’t make any sense. How did Bona have a son? This… This must be one of those cases where the criminal has the same last name as another person. I mean, Faulkner was a common last name… I swallowed my fear and cracked my knuckles, hoping the pain that followed shortly after my actions would somehow snap me out of my reverie. I was ridiculous for assuming that Bona had a son. Yes, he did hide a girlfriend who he intended to marry for ten years, but he wouldn’t go as far as to not tell me that he had a son… Would he? If he was capable of hiding someone for ten years then I had no doubt that he had a son. 

But I couldn’t just go running to Bona (while he was probably grieving terribly for his loss and rejection of Reese) and blatantly assume that he had a son. It was better off if I checked first officially that he had a son, and if this Bane was indeed his son… then I don’t know what I would do. Was Bona involved in the murders? Did he… Did he make up Reese last minute to fool me into believing that he was innocent?

I harshly bit my lip and shoved the thoughts from my mind. I couldn’t be so quick to assume things, things such as serious as accusing Bona, the chief of a police station–someone who I trusted with my life–partaking in the crimes. With shaky fingers I minimized the page I was on and pulled up Bona’s online record. It was only a few years ago that Decint County updated all the records of everybody in the city onto an online database, so I was pretty sure that his record wouldn’t say anything from about twenty years ago.

I was right. His record was clean. 

The only other place I could look was in the basement, where some of the older files were stored. Security guarded the place because some of the lower ranked police officers weren’t allowed inside without approval from the Chief. I was allowed because of my high ranking, and I found myself taking pride in being a detective for a small moment, even though I didn’t feel like it ever since I was assigned to this case. 

The shaking of my fingers managed to dull but I had to hide them by shoving them in the front pockets of my pants while I exited my office. I ignored the heavy stares of everybody else and stiffened when I passed the Bona’s office, almost tripping on my rushed walk towards the basement. I nodded towards the security guards, who were in a deep conversation when they let me pass by. 

The basement was huge. It held the files of every single registered citizen in New York City ranked by their last name. The one’s in here were from A-L since there were so many and not enough space. M-Z files were in one of the other smaller stations in the city. 

Biting my lip in anticipation, I trekked through the basement searching for the storage bin that held names with the last letter being F. I eventually found it and held my breath in anticipation as I fervently went through each of the files, desperately searching for Faulkner. My fingers trembled as I finally reached the file. I harshly ripped it open and gasped in disbelief as my eyes met the facts in front of me. 

Bane Faulkner was the son of Bona Faulkner.

I couldn’t breathe. I was stunned… I was in shock. Bona had a son who was responsible for all of the murders that occurred these past two weeks. This–This made me question everything. Was he in contact with his son? If he was, did he know what his son was up to? Did he help him remove all of the evidence? In a way, the facts were all laid out on the table, but I sincerely could not fathom the fact that Bona was even remotely responsible for the murder of my brother.

I stood from the floor and gathered all the papers I spread out and put them in a disorganized pile back into the folder. I shut the bin closed with my foot and almost ran out of the basement, barely giving the security guards any acknowledgement that I had left. My breaths were short and quick, and I was having trouble breathing. Hell, I had trouble even seeing right or accepting the fact that Bona (THE CHIEF OF THE POLICE STATION. I MEAN, WHAT THE HELL.) and his son (WHO HE ALSO HID FROM ME. AGAIN, WHAT THE HELL?) were possibly the prime suspects in this case.

I stormed into Bona’s office and slammed the file on his desk, not realizing that I was crying until now. My heart was pounding so loud that I could barely hear anything. His eyes were worried when he saw that I was crying, but it vanished when he noticed that his file was the object that was slammed on his desk. He didn’t even have to check why I was crying, he already knew. His expression was passive, void of any emotion. It sickened me. “Lynn… I can explain.” 

“Damn right you are going to explain!” My breathing was out of control. I saw black spots in my vision and I forced myself to snap out of it. I held onto the small inkling of hope that Bona could be innocent but that thread was slowly diminishing. 

Bona stood from his seat, alarmed, and placed his hands on my shoulders. “Lynn, calm–” 

I pushed him away. “Don’t touch me!” I was sobbing. His touch burned me, imprinting me with images I really did not see. Images of his tall, threatening figure standing over Mason’s body, laughing at him, holding a knife that held all of his blood over his open wounds– “Just tell me, dammit, tell me if it was you.”

“What are you talking about?” The hurt was obvious in his tone, and it only made things more difficult to endure. It was really hard to tell whether he was innocent or guilty. “What did I do?” 

“You know what you did!” I screamed, bursting with more tears. I saw that he made the effort to touch me again and I put my hands in front of me, not wanting more sick and brutal images to appear in my head. “You–you lied to me again and I bet you killed him, I bet you killed–”

“Don’t you dare say it,” Bona growled, his eyes shining with more hurt. “Siara, the only thing I hid from you was that I had a son, and his name is Bane. I did not kill those people. Do you honestly think I would kill the woman I love and your brother? Is that what you think of me?” He ran a distressed hand through the air. “Jesus, Siara.” 

I gasped, feeling a rush of relief and guilt overwhelm me as more tears fell. I shouldn’t have been so assuming… I should have thought through this more. “I... Why didn’t you tell me?” My voice cracked. “I don’t understand. Is it me? Am I too... intimidating for you that you won’t tell me things? I thought we were close, and now all of a sudden you're hiding a woman from me for ten years and now your son? How old is he? Is there anything else you're hiding from me?”

Bona bit his lip, eyes still shining with hurt. “He’s twenty one.” He visibly stiffened and swallowed as he sat back down on his chair. “How did you find out?” I took note of how he avoided my question.

“He may be the main suspect in the massacre,” I sniffed and pathetically wiped my tears away, feeling a whiplash of emotions I really did not want to feel as I slid in the chair across from him. Relief, anger, hurt, guilt, sadness, fear… 

He swore, slamming his hand on his desk. “Christ, I would have never expected this from him.” He buried his head in his hands.

“Bona,” I clenched my teeth, trying really hard to control my emotions. “Explain to me everything. Now. I will go crazy if you don’t tell me what the hell is happening.”

He lifted his head and stared straight into my eyes, revealing an emotion I would have never thought I could see in his eyes. Guilt. “Before I tell you, you have to promise me that you will forgive me. You broke your promise the last time and I don’t know if I can trust you handling this information considering how you reacted previously…” I grinded my teeth together and dug my nails into my palm, hating that he threw the word trust around so freely. I trusted Bona with my life. But with his new secrets that he has been hiding for me for who knows how long? Reese? And now with Bane? I didn’t even know if I could trust him anymore and he had the nerve to say that he couldn’t trust me? When had I ever done something that could make him not trust me? “Siara?” 

I nodded, not trusting myself with words.

“I never told you this in fear that you would hate me, but.. Bane is your half-brother. I know that may sound terribly confusing but please, let me explain. Before your mother was married we were together for two years. She got pregnant and had Bane and gave him to me, but then divorced me to be with your father. A few months later they got married and I disappeared, raising him by myself. It hurt, because I really did love her. I even thought that we would be together forever, but now that obviously out of question. 

She eventually forgot that she even had another son and was with me for two years and made you, Lisa, and Mason with your father. Ten years later we met again and we had an affair. Your father eventually found out and thats when their marriage started falling apart. He started cheating too. It was like some sick sort of game, they both wanted to see who would hurt the most. I know that I’m the bad guy. I was the one that started everything and I know that it made their marriage crumble because at the time your father and I were really close.” 

Bona slowly drifted away as he recollected everything. “It really was a sick game. He had sex with everybody she knew, and she did the same. I only found out when it was too late and the guilt began to itch. Eventually he went to far and your mother had enough. She… She snapped. She told me–she told me that she was planning to kill him but I only thought she was joking because… because we all thought about wanting to kill someone just to express anger, right? We never do it, of course but she actually did. She killed him and I didn’t stop her until it was too late. I had to do the right thing. So I called the police and it was known by everybody in a one-hundred mile radius. I don’t think you remember because you were so young, but it was really chaotic. Your mother… she was really crazy. And it’s all my fault. I made her that way, and it’s my fault for ruining your childhood and having that image scarring your mind. I’m sorry for that. I’m so sorry.”

He had tears in his eyes but I barely noticed. I was too far away. Too deeply consumed by an anger I held behind my heart for my mother, and the confusion that was intertwined with the anger for not knowing why. The why finally hit my in the face and I didn’t want it anymore. I didn’t want the truth. The truth hurt to even accept, nonetheless to acknowledge it. My vision was red and I lost the feeling of my palm from digging into it for so long. All this time… it was him. It was Bona. It was his fault that I lost my Daddy. It was his fault that… I had to live this life in fear, anger, and confusion. All of it was his fault, just because he couldn’t keep his dick in his pants. The betrayal hurt more than the anger I’ve built upon for my mother. I thought of Bona as my second father, and in a literal sense he technically was. It hurt, to know that he was the one that drew a wedge between my parents. It hurt like hell to know that he knew that my mother was going to kill my father yet he didn’t do anything to stop her. He was just as bad as she was. It was all him. 

“Bona was a few years older than you at the time and I raised him while I raised you, Lisa, and Mason. It was too hard for me to introduce you guys to him so I just hid him from you. I didn’t know how to tell you and I feared that I never will. But eventually you did find out and I’m so sorry that you have to find out this way. Please know that I tried, I really did try to tell you but the words wouldn’t just come out. You need to understand where I’m coming from–” 

I laughed, but my voice was void of any emotion. I was dead. I hadn’t felt this way ever since I saw my mother stab my father. It was this level of pure anger, rage, and fury up to a point where it made all of my emotions and feelings vanish and be replaced by numbness. I was this robot that had no compassion for anybody. I was dead. 

“I need to understand?” I laughed again and stood from my spot, shoving my aching hands that I long ago lost the feeling to in my pockets. “You know, for a second there you had me feeling a bit bad for you. I mean, you were the one that witnessed your mother stab your father while looking you. You had to go through the most traumatizing experience in the world at ten years old. You had to suffer through your teenage years in fear and confusion so concise and biting that it’s a wonder how much of a good person you are today, right?” 

Bona was at a loss for words. I couldn’t care less. My emotions were dead and I felt so empty and useless I needed to let out some of this anger pent up inside of me before I exploded. “It’s all your fault and I hate you for that.  You expect me to forgive you just because you couldn’t have sex with someone else instead of my Mother? Who was married with three children, for Christ’s sake! You ruined my life. You ruined everything and you have… you have the nerve to ask for forgiveness? Well you aren’t getting any.”

I shook my head, held the tears in, and walked away.

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