I spot Aiden standing at the back of a nondescript mummy-mobile. The twins sit in the trunk, swinging their legs. Casey has Aiden’s ears yanked as far as they can go from his head as she balances on his shoulders.
My heart hurts as much as it warms at the sight. I look from them to the bridge and back again. The pull to leave—to walk away from the three of them — is so strong, I think I take a couple of steps before the guilt kicks in.
I love them. I raised and protected them when Mum couldn’t or wouldn’t. She might have birthed them, but I’ve been as much as a mother to them as she has. More maybe. It’s not them I want to walk away from, it’s everything. But those kids don’t get to walkaway. Their worlds have fallen apart today, just like mine. None of us deserves this.
It will force Mum to raise them alone now, or with Carlo, if they work out their shit. For the kids’ sake, I hope they do. Carlo is a good guy. Fierce but good. They’ll be lucky to have him as a dad.
Fuck. How different would it be to have Carlo as a father? Jesus, I can’t think about that right now. I need a distraction. The kids probably do too.
“Jules, are you okay?” Dax asks, hovering at my elbow.
“Yeah. I’m…yeah.” I can’t even bring myself to lie. There are bodies piled up inside the van as I pass. “I can’t believe you did that. They were threatening me but shooting them was a bit extreme. What the hell happens now? Are the police going to come? Am I in trouble?” He spins me to face him, his arms anchor around my shoulders. He runs his hands up and down my arms as if warming me. It only makes the early morning chill more acute.
“Jules, they’re not dead.”
“They’re not?”They weren’t?They certainly look dead; glassy, lifeless eyes and loose limbs.
“No,” he laughs. “Tranquilizers. These men will go straight to the police station. The man in charge will come with me and Aiden’s men.” Dax inclines his head and looks over my shoulder at Aiden standing behind us.
“Then you’ll want him.” I point out the one who mouthed off at me earlier. “He’s the Dickhead.”
“He’s the what?” Dax asks, his eyes as wide as saucers.
“Uh, the head guy. He said he was anyway.”
“What else did he say?” His gentle humour vanishes. Suddenly, Dax is all business.
“That he could do worse things than knocking me unconscious,” I mumble, but in a louder, more confident voice, I add; “He wanted me to go with them. He knew you were protecting me.”
“He did, huh?” I nod but watch the realisation wash over Dax’s face. He frowns at me and shakes his head. His expression growsdark and tense, his eyes thin to mere slits, and his jaw juts forward as he grinds his teeth together. I’m in trouble.
“Aiden told me you lied to him, Jules,” he continues in a dangerously quiet voice. I hold my breath. “This is not a game, you know. We’re not messing with you. You’re just lucky that we expected something to go down.”
“You did?” I ask with an exhale. “Wait…” My mind whirs as I realise they knew this was going to happen and they let me walk into it, totally unprepared. “These are Hanson’s men. Has that got something to do with you?”
Dax nods. “David Hanson works for Barry Franz. He handles the skin and sex trade and keeps it all off the official books. Franz owns Diverprop.”
“Barry Franz? Our landlord? But Diverprop is a HUGE company, it runs everything in the Vale. It’s Trevainne’s biggest competitor.”
“Yes, it is. He’s a lot more than a landlord, Jules. He’s the kind of scum that floats. Franz’s at the head of all this bullshit and the man who is looking for you because of the contents in that letter.”
“So, all of this shit…Dad blackmailing Mum, TJ calling me, Dad forcing me to call you to make a deal…all of it was because I saved Tom?”
“I didn’t know they’d contacted your father. My sources said they only had your name and the name of the Tower. We expected an ambush, but not Eric’s involvement.”
“You knew something would go down…were you using me as bait?” I growl through clenched teeth. My anger seems to surprise Dax; he rocks back a step before lifting his hand to stop me saying anything more.
“Now, Jules. We weren’t one hundred percent sure…”
I don’t give a shit whether it was one or one hundred percent. A guess, an inkling, is enough. They knew, and they’d let me walk in and spring the trap. If Dax thought I was going to calm down with his ‘Now Jules,’he was sorely mistaken. It wasn’t just me he’dput at risk.
“They were waiting for me, Dax. They knew where I lived, they knew to call me Jules and not my given name. What more do they know? Do they know about the kids? And what if I wasn’t alone when I returned, huh? What if I had the twins or Casey with me? What the hell have you got me into, Dax?”
His name echoes off the face of the Tower. The sun has risen high enough that the glare no longer bathes the lot in flares of light. I stare at him, defiant and so pissed the energy comes off me in searing waves.
“Listen!” he bellows, his voice so loud it is my turn to flinch, but if his pitch and volume intimidates the others, they don’t show it, they just kept on loading the van with the sleepers. Now that I look, I can see the darts sticking out of their clothing. “You were never really in danger. That phone lets me know where you are at all times, and Aiden had eyes on you the entire time!”
“From the hospital?” I sneer.
