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Just a quick update since I'm already late for class. I will try to finish chapter 37 later. Sorry for the errors in advance.

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Elena's P.O.V.

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It couldn't be.

It can't be.

I haven't seen him in over two years.

I searched high and low for him through a private detective, though I didn't let the kids know.

And now here he is, right when I was just getting used to the idea of letting him go forever. The idea that he ran off with one of his scandalous affairs.

Edward is my soul mate or so I thought.

We were together since our junior year of high school. The typical high school romance story.

Our parents thought it would be a great opportunity to merge the businesses since my father had no male heir to take over from him and I didn't want to fully run such a large corporation. Our marriage right out of high school came as a great convenience to them. We both went off to college together. He was the most attentive and affectionate man ever. He had loved me something fierce back then.

Then I had Ethan, Evani and Evan. He loved them all, but Evania being the only girl, and a daddy's girl, became his pride and joy.

He was never the same after she died.

I knew that one day he would do something to get in serious trouble but I just never knew what.

Now he sits before me in handcuffs and a prison jumpsuit.

I'm still in disbelief that this is what our life has come to.

The last time I saw him was when we decided to separate legally for a period of time but he never came back. It was right before Bryce took over, and he was involved in some scandal with prostitutes.

The stock hit rock bottom, investors were all backing out and no one wanted anything to do with a company whose CEO was spending all the earnings frivolously, and even worst on prostitutes. It took Bryce a lot of work to earn his place back at the top, I was there with him, it wasn't easy. A lot of doors were slammed in his faces and called ignored or abruptly ended. But that didn't stop him. At one point he was about to accept defeat. He left and weeks later he returned with Tomar. I saw the effect that a child and the corporation were were having on him, I told him he was allowed to give it up, no one would be mad at me. Instead he looked at me and said "not now, not ever. I have come too far. I am not my father and it's about time people start to understand that." Six months later and most of the company's affiliated with Edward were back in swing. All of which could have been avoided had Edward been faithful.

I wanted to leave him but like always, I was a fool with a burning candle. I held out hope, especially after Bryce was born that another child would help, but it always seemed to pain him to be at home.

I saw it when he looked at the boys.

When he looked at me.

The memories that haunted him.

But where has he been for over two years? He surely couldn't have been in prison this entire time. If he had the media would have took wind of it and even though he is no longer the head of all the corporations combined, the companies would have experienced a crisis with the stock just because of Bryce's affiliation to him, as well as myself.

Bryce!

He took care of that as well didn't he? Because as far as I know, no one knows where Edward is. There are just too many questions.

"Edward, what is going on? What did you do?" I asked.

"Oh I don't know if I should answer that Ellie. It seems my son has already pulled one too many tricks on me, I don't know if this is some ploy to get me to confess to some bullshit but I refuse to speak without my lawyer present."

I took a deep breath.

I turned to Bryce who was at the other end of the table sitting next to Raelynn.

"Bryce, can you please explain what's going on, why your father is here and why you brought us here.?" I asked him

He looks at his father as he responds. "He is no father of mine, he's a monster." He hissed.

"Bryce he will always be your father no matter what, you cannot change your DNA" I scold him.

"Father?" He yelled questioningly. "Since everyone wants to know the truth so bad then let me start at the beginning, when I was thirteen and he started to the beat the shit out of me." He looked at me as I gasped.

It can't be true. I know Edward started to develop a drinking problem and most times he wouldn't come home. But when he did, he was always throwing or smashing thing, but he never hit me. I never ever in my mind thought he would hit his own kids. But he was hitting our son. This can't be true, how could I have not seen it or rather yet, how was I so blind to it.

"All those injuries you claimed you got from playing football? All the fights you would claim to have gotten in? All those times I put bandages on you, worried about your bruises, took you to the ER for a sprain or broken bone? Are you telling me it was all your fathers doing?"   I just cannot comprehend this. If he says yes then this is forever going to kill me, all the night I laid in bed with Edward, stayed married to him and kept the kids nears him, he was abusing them?

I was happy and oblivious and my child was suffering. I don't even know what to do.

No One can possibly fathom the pain I'm feeling.

He doesn't answer and I see his jaw clench as he stared at his father.

"Bryce?" I whisper, wanting an answer, I need to know?

He took a minute but then looked at me. He closed his eyes tightly and took a deep breath. I could see him struggling to control himself.

He opened back his eyes and looked me in mine and it was then I saw the look that he wore back when he was a teenager, I could see the vulnerability and hurt in his eyes, the pain.

I didn't need him to answer anymore, that said it all. I have become so familiar with that look but misread it. It wasn't just him going through some rebellious stage and not wanting to tell his mother what was going on, it was a broken child, hiding his suffering.

"Oh god!" I cover my mouth. I want to scream. As the tears run down my face, I think of an object I can use to dissect Edward like a frog.

"Bryce, why didn't you tell me? I would have protected you? I would have kept you safe, it was my responsibility to keep you safe." I turned back to Edward. "It was your responsibility to keep him safe!" I yelled at him. He just sat there with arms crossed watching us. His face was blank. I just wanted to chuck my damn chair at his face.

Bryce interrupted my violent thoughts. "I wish I could have told you mom, I didn't tell you to protect you, I just couldn't see you hurt, so I took the hurt for you. I love you mom, and I don't know if I could have lived with myself if anything happened to you. Ethan and Evan were hardly ever home because they were either at football practice, camp, their friends house or some party. I had to be the one to protect you." He explained.

I don't understand. What does he mean he was protecting me.

"What do you mean protect me, I'm suppose to protect you!" I exclaimed.

"Mom, it was never me that he meant to take his anger out on, it was always you. The first time it started I heard him come home, you weren't there. He was yelling you name and smashing stuff. He said it was your fault, all your fault and you needed to pay. I didn't know what he thought was your fault. He was walking throughout the house yelling for you. I peeked my head out of my room and saw him take his belt off. I didn't know what to do and I knew you would be home shortly because you had just went to the grocery store. He didn't stop, he kept going, I panicked and confronted him. He got mad at me and punched me in the face. I fell and then he put his foot on my back pressing me to the ground and welted my back with the belt " screaming, it was all your fault, I lost her and it was all your fault." I didn't know what he was talking about but he kept hitting me any and everywhere he could until he was tired. He then dropped the belt and I laid in place out of fear of angering him even more and also because I felt like my body was on fire. I then heard your bedroom door slam and knew then that he was gone. I didn't want to get up, I felt I couldn't but I had to. I didn't want you to see me like that. I crawled until I could stand. I went to my room and locked myself in. When you came home I refused to open the door, you thought it was just having an attitude and went away. I tried to get up and make sure he didn't do the same to you but after I got to my room my body gave out. I listened and prayed that he would either be too tired or already passed out to harm you. I listened for hours but never heard anything. I then figured out that if he got to me first and took out all his anger on me, then he wouldn't harm you. So it continued like that, him beating me with whatever he could find, until I we moved to south Carolina when I was sixteen. He settled for beating me, and I thought as long as he never touches you, it was fine with me."  He recanted the past.

I sat there shocked. The next thing I know the chair I am sitting in is in my hand and Edward is scrambling to get under the table.

If Ethan hadn't stopped me, I promise you, the four legs of this chair would have been imprinted on his body.

"Mom stop! Its all over now, I'm fine, its fine!" Bryce told me, moving Ethan out the of the way and embracing my hysterically crying self. I held onto him for dear life and cried. I cried for the children I didn't protect, the children I didn't keep safe. I cried for Bryce and Evania.

"It's not fine Bryce. You're not fine. It was never fine and will never be. I didn't protect you, I didn't keep you safe. I failed as a mother. I failed you, both you and your sister." I mumbled as the once happy world as I knew it crumbled to my feet. I would have crumbled with it as well if Bryce wasn't holding me.

I'm a failure!

I cry harder at the thought.

I don't know if there is any coming back from this.

One child died and another is ruined. Bryce logical thinking is clearly out of whack if he thinks he should always keep secrets because it protects the ones he love. I see it all started with his father. Oh my sweet innocent angel, sacrificed himself over and over to protect me. Only it wasn't his job. He was just a child.

I knew Edward needed help, trust me I tried taking him to counseling sessions and so much more but he would never open up. He was clearly a disaster waiting to happen. A disaster that did happen. The only thing was I didn't see all the effects, it was like a hurricane affecting a country, but only being able to see what was happening around you instead of the entire country.

I dont know. There is just no explanation to justify what happened.

I failed as a mother and Edward failed as a father.

I remember a day when I came home after visiting my mother in South Carolina before she became sick and we moved there to take care of her.

The day I came home after the trip, I went to check on  Bryce. Ethan and Evan were at football camp. I knocked on his door and tried the knob after getting no answer. In walked into his room, and didn't see him. I was about to leave until I realized the light was on in his ensuite bathroom. I walked to the door and look at him horridly. His was trying to clean some cuts on his back. His face was busted, his eye swollen shut and his back bloody and him cleaning the many cuts. When I asked him what happened he had told me "I got into a fight with the school bully and fell. The glasses on the table in the cafeteria fell when I bumped the table in our tussle and I fell on them." I had demanded to know the name of the child he fought with to report this to the school but he told me, he was the one who started the fight.

Now that I think about it. Why was he never suspended, why didn't the school nurse see to him and why was I never called to the office?

The signs were clearly there.

Like I said I'm such a terrible mother.

Bryce let's me go and I see Edward is now back in his chair. I pick up my phone before anyone could realize and throw it as hard as I could and nabbing him smack in the eye. Damn I was aiming for his teeth and hoping he would swallow them and die.

"Arrghhh!" He yelled holding his eye. There was blood coming from a cut on his eyebrow.

The guard came over and started talking to Bryce, who I assumed told him it was fine over here since he walked back out the room.

"Why would you do that Elena?" Edward asked wiping away the blood with the wrist of his shirt.

"Just be glad you're in prison already or I'm damn sure I would be in here myself for premeditated cold blooded murder. I don't even know what you did to be here right now, but you've already done enough in my eyes, I hope you never get out. And if you do, you better watch your back because I will be coming for you. That's not a threat, it's a promise. I swear on my daughters grave.

"Are we done here Bryce? I can't stand to look at this despicable creature before me anymore. There is no way he could possibly be human. And to think I married him. The devil is a liar and he can have his minion back!" I can't be here anymore.

It hurts just to look at either one of them, to see how much I failed my children.

Evan hands me back my phone and I look at it to see the screen cracked.

Damn tough eyed bastard broke my phone.

I sit back down as Raelynn who has tears in her eyes, hold my hand pulling me back to have a seat as she rubs my back supportively.

My entire marriage and livelihood has been a lie.

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Ethan's P.O.V

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I'm at all loss.

I can't even formulate a straight thought.

My father is in front of me, in prison, cuffed and shackled, in a jumpsuit.

Bryce is rehashing how much he suffered and protected mom, while Evan and I stayed away from home partying and hanging at our friend's house to avoid dad.

I knew he was getting into fights and when Evan and I offered to visit his middle school and give the kids who were bothering him a high school beat down, he always claimed to have been the one starting the fights.

We all just thought he was going through a rebellious stage.

Now I learn that it was our own father that was hurting him and the hurt was actually intended for mom?

I look at mom and she looks beyond crushed.

Who wouldn't be?

Damn this whole thing is just fucked up. I want to kill the son of a bitch myself.

Mom looks ready to go but I need to know why he's here and how is Shantel involved into all of this.

Seems she has a bigger role than I thought.

"Bro I'm so sorry we weren't here for you. If I had know-" Evan was telling Bryce.

"But you didn't know. I don't blame anyone but him." Bryce cut him off.

"But still we're your older brother's, we should have been there to protect you and mom." I piped in.

I look at the man I knew as dad up until today. Now he is Edward, no longer dad or father, he doesn't deserve it. He hadn't said much apart from complaining about his eye. Thanks to mom, he was now only using one eye as the other seemed to have been swollen shut with all the blood from his eyebrow drying around it.

We were all just sitting there looking at him in disbelief still being rocked by Bryce's declaration. While Bryce and Raelynn were having a quiet conversation between themselves.

Boy was he holding secret. Some hell of a secret. And he still has more.

Bless his heart, it's just too much for one man.

As soon as they are finished I ask the next question that has been plaguing everyone's mind.

"Bryce I suppose there is more to the story. You said Shantel is not your wife, you were in Germany with her and dad is here. I am.not connecting the dots as it still doesn't make sense in my mind. First off if she's not your wife then why was she being called Radley at the hospital?" I asked puzzled as I I've ever been in my whole entire life.

He sighed and grabbed a hold of Raelynn's hand saying something to her before before turning back to us. I saw Edward tense up and look away.

Ahh hell what did Edward really do?

"I lied about a lot of things but that was never one. I only lied when I thought it necessary to protect everyone." He told me.

OK I get that, Bryce lies and suffers for the good of seeing everyone happy. Does he not realize he's not superman, he's not invincible? I get what he's trying to do but if he doesn't stop thinking like that, hes going to blow one day, there is only so much one person can bottle up, just like there is only so much water a bottle can hold before it runs over and make a mess of everything. Edward is that bottle of water and right now it seems like he's just leaving puddles everywhere.

"Ok, so she's not your wife, why is her name Radley? That what the hospital called her, it doesn't make sense." I say once again.

"She's my daughter." He declared.

I think everyone's mouth looks like a fish out of water gasping for air except for Bryce and Edward, they seem like the only two who understand what is going on here.

I laughed sarcastically. "I don't think this is the time for jokes. That line worked with Tomar, but I think Shantel is way too old for that lie." I told him.

"I'm not lying. She is my daughter, well at least legally she is or was. I adopted her and  became her guardian until she was of age."

"Why would you adopt her? You had sex with a minor? Bryce can you please explain, this is getting crazier by the minute." Raelynn finally asked.

"I have never had sex with or will I ever have sex with Shantel. Raelynn you're the one I love, you will always be the one I love and the only woman for me, please don't ever get me misunderstood. I adopted her to prevent her from going into foster care. To give her back some sort of normalcy." He explain.

What in the world is that suppose to mean. I want to pull my hair out so bad.

"So if you adopted her and never had sex with her, then does that mean Tomar is not a Radley by birth but instead by adoption?" She asked again.

"She is a Radley by birth." He stated.

"How can that be when you never had sex with Shantel? How can you biologically be the father?" Evan butt in.

"That's because he's not?" I think everyone's necks jerked into the direction of Edwards voice at the same time. "I am!". He said.

"What! Dad you had sex with a minor. Oh shit, I think I got it now. You raped her!" Evan accused yelling.

Before I could even pull my mother back for the second time, the chair was already flying across the room, Edward was laid out on the floor and guards were running into the room at the sound of the chair crashing into the wall.

Serves him right.

But we need to get the incredible hulk out of here before she ends up in a striped uniform herself.

~~~Author's Note~~~

CONGRATS TO ALL THOSE WHO FIGURED OUT TOMAR WAS NOT BRYCE KID BUT RATHER HIS SISTER!!!!!!

EDWARD RAPED SHANTEL??? I CANT WAIT TO READ ABOUT THAT IF ITS SO!!!!!

ELENA IS HURT BEYOND BELIEF!!!

WAS BRYCE RIGHT OR WRONG FOR TRYING TO PROTECT HIS MOTHER AND HIS FAMILY???

THE SECRETS ARENT OVER!! THERE ARE STILL MORE LEFT TO REVEAL!

POOR SHANTEL!!!!!!. IT SEEMS SHES INNOCENT IN ALL OF THIS MADNESS!! DID WE JUDGE HER TOO HARSLY? LOL OR DO I STILL KILL HER LOL?