No Pity For A Mother's Tears
img img No Pity For A Mother's Tears img Chapter 2
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Chapter 5 img
Chapter 6 img
Chapter 7 img
Chapter 8 img
Chapter 9 img
Chapter 10 img
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Chapter 2

"Before we go," Alex said, turning to lock the garage, "there' s something you should know."

Richard and Catherine Davies stood by their Bentley, radiating impatience. They clearly wanted to get their newly found, grimy son away from this embarrassing place as quickly as possible.

"What is it, son?" Richard asked, forcing a smile.

"I have people with me," Alex said.

Catherine frowned. "People? What people?"

Alex gave a subtle nod toward a beat-up pickup truck parked a block away. Two men in plain, unassuming clothes got out and began walking toward them. They were large, moved with quiet efficiency, and their eyes missed nothing. They were his security detail.

Richard' s eyes widened slightly as he took in the men. They were not locals. They had the unmistakable air of highly trained professionals.

"They work for me," Alex explained. "They' ll follow us."

A flicker of surprise, then calculation, crossed Richard' s face. Perhaps this long-lost son wasn' t as destitute as his hands and his home suggested. This added an unexpected, and not entirely unwelcome, layer to their plans.

"Of course," Richard said smoothly. "A man needs to be careful these days. Whatever you need."

Alex then turned his gaze back to them. "One more thing. You want to see where I live. But I' m warning you, you' re not going to like it."

Catherine let out a small, tinkling laugh. "Don' t be silly, darling. We' re your parents. We want to see everything about your life. We want to understand what you' ve been through."

Her words were sweet, but her eyes held a condescending pity. They thought they were prepared for a humble shack. They thought it would reinforce their narrative of rescuing him from a life of squalor.

"I live in the house I grew up in," Alex said. "It' s just down the road."

"Then lead the way," Richard said, gesturing grandly toward the Bentley. "We' ll take our car. You can ride with us."

Alex shook his head. "I' ll walk. It' s not far."

He started down the dusty road without waiting for their reply. The two bodyguards fell into step a respectful distance behind him. The Bentley idled for a moment, the couple inside clearly baffled, before it began to crawl along the road, following him.

The house was small. It was a simple, one-story home with a porch swing and a small, well-tended garden out front. The paint was faded, and the roof had a few mismatched shingles, a repair Alex and Grandpa Joe had done themselves one hot summer. To Alex, it was a home filled with memories of love and laughter.

To the Davies family, it was a hovel.

He heard the car doors of the Bentley open and close. He was already on the porch, his hand on the doorknob, when he heard Catherine' s gasp. This one sounded far more genuine than the one in the garage.

"This is it?" she whispered, her voice filled with undisguised horror. "You live here?"

Alex turned. His parents stood on the sidewalk, frozen, staring at the house as if it were a pile of garbage. Behind them, another car, a sporty-looking BMW, had pulled up. Two young women and a young man got out. His siblings. Sarah, Emily, and the adopted son, Mark. They took one look at the house and their faces contorted with disgust.

"Oh my god," said Sarah, the older sister, her voice dripping with venom. "Is this a joke? This is where he lives? It' s a shack."

Emily, the younger sister, wrinkled her nose. "It probably smells. I' m not going in there." She looked at Alex with open contempt. He was an embarrassment, a stain on their perfect family image.

Mark, the adopted son, just stood there, a faint, smug smile playing on his lips. He watched Alex with a look of triumphant pity.

Richard' s face was dark with anger and shame. He glared at Alex. "You lived here? Your whole life?"

"Yes," Alex said, his voice even. He felt a strange sense of calm. He had warned them. He had wanted them to see this. He wanted to see their true colors, and they were showing them brilliantly.

"This is unacceptable," Catherine declared, her hands clenched at her sides. The facade of the loving, grieving mother had completely crumbled, replaced by the cold, hard face of a socialite facing a public relations nightmare. "You can' t live like this. We' re taking you home. To the estate. Immediately."

"I need to pack a bag," Alex said.

"There' s nothing in that hovel that you could possibly need," Sarah sneered, stepping forward. "We' ll buy you new things. Things that are clean."

The raw, unfiltered disgust from his newfound family was almost comical. They weren' t even trying to hide it. They saw his life, the life his grandfather had given him, as nothing more than dirt to be washed away.

Alex just looked at them, one by one. His parents, horrified and ashamed. His sisters, openly hostile. And Mark, the cuckoo in the nest, looking perfectly content.

This, he realized, was the real family reunion. Not the tearful act in the garage, but this moment of pure, unadulterated snobbery and rejection.

And in that moment, any lingering curiosity he had about them died.

            
            

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