Closer enough to do it, he pressed the end of the gun in my forehead, but I didn't flinch, not when it's about the safety of my son that we're talking about, so, I glared up at him with death in my eyes as he tried to scare me. "Don't think I wouldn't have the guts to do it, you will find yourself tragically surprised."
"How about we tell daddy that he's a dad?" His grin was worthy of the Joker.
I swallowed, then he took my phone from his pocket and called a strange number from New England, in facetime, and fear crept inside of me for a total different reason, my head back to pounding with threat of another seizure that I did my best to fight it. "No," I hissed, "Jameson, stop this game."
"Are you scared of him?" He purred. "You weren't when you fucked him."
"Jameson," I hissed.
"You fucking piece of shit, where are you? What number is this?" A familiar voice yelled at the phone and I froze, my entire body on high alert, it was the same, but at the same time, it wasn't, it was deeper, raspier than before.
"I'm in London," he chanted happily, "with the mom of your son."
"The what? What son?" He yelled. "What the fuck are you talking about?" The cunt turned the camera to me, showing him how I was tied and with the gun pointed to my head, and though I tried to not, when I looked at the screen and met his green eyes, a horrified gasp left him, "Ruby."
A look at the tattoo on his neck told me who he was, given how Hayes was always terrified of needles and found tattooed hideous, but he once commented on how his brother wanted to do lots of tattoos. "Rhyot," I said, my voice shaky.
"And Rhett!" The fucking piece of shite chanted and I glared up at him with wrath burning in my eyes. "Your 10-year-old son," he added.
"What?" His voice broke. "Ruby? What is he talking about."
I stayed silent, unable to face him, glaring at Jameson, "She had a son. He happens to look just like you, no wonder she never came back to the States. How could she when she's been hiding a copy paste of you."
"I've never been with Rhyot," I hissed, because he doesn't know that I know, that he lied to me. "He is not my son's father."
"Fuck," he cursed on the other side of line and I'm sure something in his voice was trembling. "Fuck. You have... you have a 10-year-old? You have son?"
I clenched my jaw, feeling my eyes burning, "Yes," lying is helpless.
"Ruby," there was a plead in his voice, "look at me." Believe me, I wanted not to, but I couldn't, and when our eyes met, the unsaid emotions I found in his eyes would have made me stumble had I been standing up. "Trust me, just this once."
It's a bold request, given how much he lied to me, "Just this once," I breathed.
"Just this once," he exclaimed, then he hung up.
What the fuck?
"Will your Prince Charming come to your rescue or will he not?" Jameson sang and began to play with my gun. "Why don't we play a game, Ruby? Weren't you always the number 1 in everything? Why don't we try this? Are you still smart as before or that little Crowther parasite steal your intelligence in the womb?"
What did this cunt just call my son?
"How about it, uh? Uh? Uh?" He jumped like a maniac, which I'm starting to believe to be the case, he was crazy before but this batshite. "It's Russian Roulette, how about it? Are you up to? Are you up to?"
From what asylum did this freak escape? "Are you insane?" I hissed.
And the bastard actually pulled the trigger on my head! "Ugh, you won."
I couldn't help not gasping, "If I don't like your answers or find them wrong, I'll pull the trigger. There's one bullet in here, you could get shot and die," he giggled as if that amused them profoundly, and I cringed. "Now, tell me, when did you and Rhyot fuck?"
What the... shite... he is actually serious. "May 26th of 2015."
But he pulled it again, no bullet, "Wrong. You gave birth on March 27th."
"Then you should have been clearer and asked when I got pregnant instead," I hissed through clenched teeth and he clicked his tongue, rolling his eyes.
"When did you get pregnant and where did it happen?"
"June 18th of 2015," his eyes widened, "on the male locker room at school."
"On my birthday?" He gasped but thankfully didn't pull the trigger. "Damn, that's nasty, Ruby. It really was Rhyot," he giggled, "because Hayes was on my birthday that lasted, pretty much, the entire day. Why did you get with him? I mean, nobody liked him, I thought you hated him."
Swallowing, I confessed, "I didn't know it was him."
He didn't pull it, "You really thought you had gotten pregnant of Hayes?"
Breathe, breathe, breathe. "Yes," my voice was shaky. "I thought it was him."
"Damn," he didn't pull again and almost closed my eyes with relied. "Rhyot, that bloody bastard, he tricked you. Was it when he was faking to be Hayes, in the private classes he skipped? Was that when you fell for him?"
"Y...yes," I confessed, trying to gain time for Rhyot to come to us, trusting that he will. "I didn't know Hayes had misses my classes though. I thought... I thought he was showing me a part of himself he hadn't shown anybody else. I didn't... I hadn't noticed the different patterns then, because it never passed through my head that his... that his older brother Rhyot would ever take his place in my private classes to cover for him. To me, he hated me as much as I hated him, I didn't think he could have put himself in that position."
"So, when you confessed to Hayes...?" No pulling triggers.
"The love that I confessed to feel, was the love that harboured for the Hayes that I would see sometimes, the Hayes that would bath before my classes and meet me in his private study on time, who would use cologne, and clean clothes to meet me. The Hayes who wasn't as loud as always, who would be subtle but sensual with his flirting... and who took me and my teachings seriously, without making stupid-arse jokes at every five bloody minutes. I thought... I thought he had trusted me enough to show me the good side of him, and that's the one I feel for, that's the person my heart wanted to confess to. That was the man I gave myself to, the father of my son."
He whistled and pulled the fucking trigger, and this time, I flinched, and my body took a second to understand I wasn't shot, "You really aren't as smart as I took you for, Ruby," he scoffed. "Had you known the twins better, you would've known the one you fell for was Rhyot, not Hayes. Hayes hates baths, he hates colognes, he hates being on time, he hates silence and quiet places, he doesn't know what being subtle means, he never took teachings from a younger person seriously, and his jokes, are not," his voice rose up, "stupid."
Oh... oh, shite. Now I get it. I get what's happening here.
My eyes beamed with understanding as I looked up at him, "You're in love with Hayes Crowther, aren't you, Jameson?"
"What do you know about love?" He screamed at me, and I felt my heart nearly stopping when I caught sight of the person standing right behind Jameson, and before Jameson could pull the trigger again on my head.
"Press that trigger one more time and I'll explode your brains, Jameson!" Rhyot hissed every word like a death threat, and I felt like crying when I saw more six people coming from behind him, all with guns in hand, and seeing how the tall men that came at his right looked east-Asian, I imagined he could be the Niklaus that Leah mentioned to me, to have befriended him in Harvard. "Test me, Jameson, and I'll teach you beforehand what happens the fuckers who mess with those who belong to me."