I pull her into my arms and rest my chin on the top of her head, just breathing her in. It’s not perfect. It’s not going to fix how I feel right away, but it’s something.
“What’s in the box, sweetheart? What do you need my help with?”
Her breath is shaky as her arms tighten around me. “I need your help destroying it and… and I want to keep you all in the loop with everything. I can set it on fire myself, but I don’t know if it’s smart and your dad’s a cop so…”
“So,” I say gently.
She peeks up at me. “With or without the guys, I’d still want you.”
My heart swells for a second and I kiss her softly, gently. When she responds, pressing herself closer against me, I almost forget the box until the corner presses into my side.
“Let’s take care of this distraction first, yeah?” I ask.
She gives me a shaky smile and her eyes dart to the box like there’s a snake inside. She nods while sucking her bottom lip. “The less distractions, the better off we all are.”
Twenty-two
JAXON
Hope has been wound up for a bit apparently. Dimitri won’t leave her side. He keeps a protective arm around her,rubbing her hip even as we get back home. I don’t blame him after seeing what’s in the box.
Knox won’t stop pacing and I can’t sit still. Who do I have to break for what was sent to Hope? How do we really get rid of the evidence if the person who sent it might have the entire fucking corpse?
“You’re making Hope dizzy,” Dimitri hisses at Knox.
“It’s okay,” she answers, leaning into him and meeting his eyes.
Something passes between them, but I don’t have time to dissect that. We have important shit to figure out.
“We need help… someone we can trust. Any options?” I ask.
“My dad is out,” Dimitri answers. “We already know that.” When Hope gives him a look, he shrugs. “I should have made him pay for his inaction sooner.”
“If it’s just inaction,” Knox murmurs and stops. “Based on him dismissing Hope…”
“He was involved somehow. Especially if he’s not really investigating to the fullest,” I fill in.
Dimitri’s face twists, but he turns to Hope and kisses her temple softly. I don’t hear what he whispers in her ear and I don’t care at the moment.
Knox starts pacing again. “Hope was sent a fucking zombie hand and a bullet. That doesn’t mean it’s Coach’s. It could be a guess, a warning of some kind,” he says.
“Who else’s hand would it be? It’s not like we have a list of people we’ve killed,” I snort.
“My mom is just bones,” Hope murmurs.
“And it’s real,” Dimitri says darkly. “That smell, the way the skin is rotting, the dirt all over it. The only option is Coach.”
“Yeah, going off of guesswork isn’t going to help us,” I argue.
We go back and forth, talking out our options. We can’t get it tested without raising suspicions. We don’t know who sentit and there’s no return address. The only serious crime we’ve committed that anyone knows about other than Hope is killing Coach.
It has to be his. Who would send a random hand and a bullet to Hope otherwise? Knox and Dimitri aren’t convinced and Hope is wavering. I know that, but I think it’s time for the guys to have the full picture.
“It belongs to Coach,” I say, open my phone, and pull up the picture I got from Hope’s phone. “This is what Hope got yesterday. I deleted it on her phone, but I’m sure it’s Coach’s hand. They found him.”
Knox steps up but Dimitri is faster as he snatches my phone.
His jaw ticks, and he hands the phone to Knox. “Why didn’t you share this with us?”
