August didn’t hesitate but Atticus did.
“Enough,” he said softly the moment the blade lifted. He set his palm to her forehead, checking her temperature, then glanced at August. “She’s alive. For now.”
August rose, fluid, wiped the knife clean with a practical swipe, and slid it home. He leaned close, his voice dropping so only Bev and the three men beside her could hear. “You wanted to be seen, Beverly. Consider it done. Every monster in this family just looked you in the eye and found you lacking.”
“Bring her to me,” Felix said. “We’re in the shed. Avi and I want some alone time with her before we end it.”
Atticus’s gaze flicked to the woman. “I don’t think she has much fight left in her.”
“Don’t worry,” Felix said. “I don’t plan on physically hurting her. I just want to…play with her a bit.”
“Copy that,” Atticus said.
He looked to Jericho. “Care for a moonlight stroll through the garden to help me transport our prisoner to her final destination?”
“Sure, Freckles. Anything for you.”
If Lucas hadn’t watched Zane’s childhood unfold, piece by painful piece, watching Jericho hoist the old woman into a wheelbarrow might have been grotesquely funny. Instead he was still raw, the images of her cruelty not yet washed out of his mind.
Once they were alone, August wrapped his arms around him. “What was that about?”
“He endured so much at her hands. Beating him back then might have been kinder,” Lucas said. “His only safe space was Gage, and the universe ripped that away from him too. How can anyone treat their children like that?” August didn’t say anything, only rubbed his back, firm and steady. “I know we deal with monsters every day, but this was different. This was?—”
“Zane?” August supplied.
Lucas nodded, chest tight.
“Zane has never been anything but kind. We call Noah the heart of the family, and he is. But if Noah is the heart, Zane is the soul. He gives the world the benefit of the doubt. He blames himself first and everyone else later. He’s the first to help, the first to volunteer. No matter how much success he has, he attributes it to someone else—Thomas’s contacts, Felix’s celebrity, Asa’s money. It’s just—” Lucas’s voice tightened. “It hurts.”
“You sure this isn’t dredging up your own ghosts? Your grandfather—” August’s words hit with the precision of a scalpel.
Maybe that was part of it. Maybe Lucas had more in common with Zane than he’d wanted to admit.
“Maybe,” he said, then let out a long, shaky breath.
August led him to the wrought-iron bench beneath the gazebo and pulled Lucas onto his knee. “Are you going to be okay?” he asked. “You don’t have to stay. You can go upstairs, hug our babies, or go talk to Cricket’s belly until she begs you to stop.”
“Is it weird that I need to see her die?” Lucas whispered, laying his temple against August’s. “Maybe this is partly about me. My grandfather died of natural causes and I never got to tell him anything. I never got to say what I felt. Even though it would have fallen on deaf ears. At least Zane gets the final word tonight.”
“In that case,” August said, “how should we pass the time until they’re ready to end this hunt?”
Lucas cupped August’s cheek and turned his head, capturing his lips. The kiss was quick, then deeper. Moonlight glossed August’s lashes; the air around them smelling faintly of crushed lavender and the dampness in the air that told them rain would come before morning did.
“I could return the favor from earlier?” Lucas murmured when they broke, voice low.
August arched an eyebrow. “Right here?”
“We’ve never fooled around in the garden,” Lucas said.
“What if we get caught?” August teased, sounding more challenged than worried.
Lucas kissed him again, soft and bold. “Then we can scratch it off the list.”
“We have a list?” August asked, mock-scandalized.
Lucas tapped his temple. “It’s all right up here.”
“Your mind is a wild and untamed place,” August said, amusement curling his mouth.
