Castle | ✔️

Epilogue

Two Years Later

CASTLE

It's been a long time since my half-brother and sister died, and since then I've recollected most of my memories.

Saying that it was a wild ride would be an understatement of the century.

Right now, I have everything that I worked hard for, wealth, the family name, including my beautiful wife and a one-year-old son, James who was now sitting in my lap, staring at me with his golden-brown eyes, identical to my own. He gave me a mischievous smile.

To achieve all of this, I've made some sacrifices in life, gotten my hands dirty, but I guess that's part of it. If you wanted something badly, you couldn't let values, the right, and the wrong, come in the way.

You needed to own that shit, and that's what I fucking did.

We all have skeletons in our closets. Some keep them hidden under their beds. I have mine too. I kept them locked in a chest, and the chest was buried somewhere deep where no one else can find them.

My son and I were sitting in our private theater, watching one of my old tapes. Didn't understand what was going on much, but he pointed a finger at my father who was young in the tape.

"Daddy!" He said, pointing at the screen.

I laughed, "that's your late grandfather, buddy." I showed him the thirteen-year-old me. "And that's me."

Millie hadn't seen these tapes, and I hadn't shown them to her for good reason. They weren't meant to be shown to my wife.

You'll find out the reason pretty soon.

The birthday song played on the videotape on the wide screen. Devin stood in the center cutting the cake wearing some fancy designer outfit shipped from Venice. Dayana was on the side. They were laughing, their friends clapping for them.

I stood on the other side looking gangly with some loose clothes on. I was a little skinny then, and Theo was in my arms, staring glazed-eyed at the towering cake and the lavish birthday party.

That was the first time Aster Montgomery noticed us and took pity on us. Theo and I. We were born to Lorna and Christopher Gates, but of course, Aster didn't know that. She thought we were kids to a single mother at first. Devin and Dayana were heirs to this billion-dollar conglomerate.

I wasn't born a Montgomery. I stole the name.

Which was only possible because of years of patience, planning, and perseverance.

Father loved both the women. Was that his crime? I think so. He chose the rich woman over my mother, even though he was married to my mom first.

Aster fed Theo and me, she clothed us, gave us a roof over our heads, and finally we were adopted.

The journals were fake. There were no journals written by Aster or Lorna.

Theo wrote them in a similar hand to get Millie on our side, and I guess he'd succeeded. He'd woven a new story, where he and I were born into the Montgomery family. The facts were the same, only some things were different.

Aster was a home-wrecker. She destroyed my family, so I took everything from her, including her house and wealth.

Chris and Lorna were only working on this property when the entitled Aster Montgomery seduced my father on purpose and stole him from us. He remarried her with the condition that Theo and I were included in the family. Aster accepted us with open arms despite the dislike Daya and Devin showed to us at first.