I could hardly look at her. How could I ever face Matthew now? How could I tell him the truth about his own brother?
Brenda took a tentative step forward, wiping her tears. “Please,” she whispered. “I know I’ve ruined everything. But you have to understand… I did it for the girls. I didn’t want them to lose their father, even if it wasn’t the man they thought he was.”
I couldn’t even look at her anymore. My eyes wandered to the photo of Matthew on the wall, smiling at me, unaware of the devastating truth that had been kept from him for so long.
“I need to think,” I whispered. “I need time to process this.”
Brenda nodded, her shoulders slumping as if she had just lost the only battle that mattered. And in some twisted way, she had. But the war was far from over.
I couldn’t stay in that room with her any longer. I walked out, heading to the kitchen, trying to breathe, trying to steady myself. The girls… Alexa, Camila… they had no idea. No idea that their world was about to come crashing down, that the man they called Daddy wasn’t their real father.
I felt a deep pit open in my stomach. But what was worse? The lies that had been woven over the years, or the crushing reality that my own brother had done this to my family?
I had no answers. Only questions.
And a terrible truth that I wasn’t sure I was ready to face.
