Unhinged (Necessary Evils #1)(57)

Once he punched in the information, a profile popped up giving Noah his genetic makeup, his ancestry in percentages, but there was also a button that showed familial matches within the database. There were three. All girls. The three matches were siblings to each other but appeared to be Noah’s first cousins on his mother’s side.

They lived in Mexico City.

Noah had family. In another country. Adam swallowed the lump in his throat. What if Noah decided to leave him, to go be with a family he’d never known existed? Now that the information was in the database, it was there for anybody to see. Any of them could contact Noah at any moment and tell him about his newfound family.

Shit. He closed out the profile and toggled back to Calliope’s email.

I fast-tracked Noah’s DNA test. I put it on your credit card. I figured you wouldn’t mind. I did some checking based on the results and found the boy’s mother, Josephina Hernandez. She has two sisters, Juana and Veronica. Both have children, but Juana has a son who went missing when he was just two years old. I’m pretty sure she’s Noah’s mother. She now lives in Killeen, Texas with her husband and three other children. Noah has a family.





Texas was much closer than Mexico City. Still, the thought of losing Noah weighed heavy on Adam as he walked up the stairs to dress. He needed to tell him. He had to know. But part of him longed to keep it a secret. Noah’s mother had moved on. She had a new life and a new family. Noah was his.

Adam dropped to sit on the end of his bed.

Noah spun, holding up a shirt. “We definitely need to stop and get my clothes. All your stuff makes me look like I’m shrinking.” He frowned when Adam didn’t immediately respond. “What’s wrong?”

Adam cleared his throat. “Calliope had a hunch about your dad. One she followed up on.”

Noah crossed the room to stand between Adam’s splayed thighs. “And? What could be worse than what we already know about him? My dad was a rapist and child killer. How much worse could it get?”

“He wasn’t your dad.”

Noah sucked in a sharp breath. “What?”

“You were kidnapped from Mexico City when you were two years old. Either by Holt or by somebody who gave or sold you to Holt. He wasn’t your father.”

Noah dropped to his knees in front of Adam, looking up at him, face pale. “That’s not true.”

“We ran your DNA.”

“What? How?”

“I took your hair while you were sleeping and Calliope sent it to an ancestry website to see if we could find any familial matches.”

Noah blinked rapidly, like he was attempting to process this information, his expression pained as he asked, “Why didn’t you just tell me?”

Adam cupped his face. “Because if we couldn’t find your family or if it turned out you were put up for adoption or sold by your mom, I didn’t think you needed to know that.”

“So, you just wouldn’t have told me?” Noah asked, not exactly accusatory but close.

Adam swallowed. “Probably not. It would have done you less harm not to know. But you weren’t given away or sold. You were taken. You have a family. Cousins. Siblings. A mom. We have their information if you want to get in touch.”

Noah’s face was hot beneath Adam’s hands, his eyes wet with unshed tears. He pushed Adam’s hands away and stood, wiping at his eyes with the back of his hands. “What I want is to go see what’s in that storage unit.”

“Are you mad at me?” Adam asked, unsure if he’d somehow betrayed Noah.

Noah shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t know how I feel. I get that your heart was in the right place, but it wasn’t your decision to make and you promised me I would be able to make my own choices outside the bedroom. That’s what you said.”

Adam crossed the room and hugged him, even though he stiffened in his arms. “I know. You’re right. I wish I could say I felt bad about it, but I don’t. I didn’t want to be the reason you were hurt again. Yes, it was selfish and stupid, but I thought I was making the best decision I could to keep you safe. I’ll always do the thing that keeps you safe.”

Noah relaxed in his arms but didn’t return his embrace. “I know.”

“Are you going to leave me?” Adam asked, the thought turning him cold inside.

“What? No. I can be mad without leaving you. I’m probably going to be mad at you a lot because you do boneheaded shit like this and then don’t even have the capacity to feel bad about it.”

“That’s true,” Adam agreed, dropping his cheek to the top of Noah’s head.

Finally, Noah’s arms came around him. “You cannot lie to me about the big stuff, Adam. I know people keep things to themselves and hide little white lies, but you can’t keep this kind of shit from me. It makes me feel stupid and unimportant.”

Adam stepped away from Noah, tipping his chin up. “You are the single most important thing to me. You’re the only thing that matters to me in this whole fucking world. Tell me you believe that.”

Noah stared at him with wide eyes, swallowing audibly. “I believe you believe that.”

Adam kissed his forehead, pulling him back into his arms and holding him tight. “Then I’ll just have to prove it to you.”