I open my mouth to speak but he must sense the lies in my eyes, my boy is more perceptive than I wish he was.
“No more lies. Please.” His voice breaks and my heart cracks right along with it. He approaches me, walking around the desk with his Pokémon slippers dragging across the floor until he stops directly in front of me. “Dad,please.”
I don’t know what does me in more. It could be the anguish in his voice, or it could be the fact that he called me dad for the first time. Either way, it makes me open my mouth again, this time to tell him the truth.
“Your mom is – “
“Atlas, does Jacksonville mean anything to you?”
Jax’s words cause me to grab my phone, Abel looking at the tiny device like it could answer all his prayers. I quickly unmute myself, “What’s in Jacksonville, Rosco?”
He mumbles, the soft sound followed by a grunt. “It could be nothing but…”
“But what!” He’s testing me again. I know whatever comes out of his mouth next could change everything.
“One of Aldo’s old warehouses came back online. From the security cams, it looks like there’s been packages being delivered for the last two months.”
The keyboard starts clacking again on the other end, so I turn to Abel, his eyes wide as he listens in on my conversation. He couldn’t know what this means but he can tell it’s something to be excited about. “Go get the others, please. Tell them I said now.”
His eyes turn hopeless as he nods, “Is it mom? Is she in Jacksonville?”
I give him a small smile, reaching over to ruffle his dark hair. “I don’t know yet, Bel, but I promise we’ll figure it out.”
He returns my smile before running out the door. I hear his footsteps on the stairs as he leaves to search for the others.
Jax’s voice almost startles me as it comes through the speakers. “Most of the packages seem to be décor, like if someone was trying to build a really ugly bedroom. They’ve all been addressed to a Vivianne. We never paid much attention to it before because we were only watching for Wade’s name.” He snorts and I can practically see him shaking his head. “The packages stopped about a week ago. I’ve got the name of the delivery company, someone off the books by the look ofit. I’ll send it over.”
Jacksonville.What the hell was Wade doing in one of my father’s warehouses? Did we have it wrong? Has Wade and my father been working together this entire time?
My phone beeps with an unfamiliar address plus a name and phone number. “Got it. Call me if you find anything else.”
The phone beeps at the same time Roman rushes through the door with Kortez and Wyld hot on his heels. I see Abel’s head peaking between them, anxious to hear what I have to tell his…what is he going to call them?
This is not the time.
They all file into the room, Roman and Wyld sit on the bed on the opposite wall while Kortez props his shoulder up against the doorframe. Abel comes to stand beside me, his small hand searching for mine and squeezing when he finds it.
“What did you find?” It’s Wylder that speaks, his voice calm and collected despite the chaos raging around us. Kortez holds his knife in his hand, flipping the blade around and catching the handle on every spin. Roman looks like he’s about to combust, his body shaking as he rocks back and forth on the mattress. They’re all looking to me for answers. Luckily, this time, I have some.
“Jax found something, an old warehouse in Jacksonville my father had shut down. He also gave me the name of a driver who had made some deliveries there. Kortez, see what you can find.” I toss him my phone, watching as he catches it with his free hand and reads the text that came through.
White covers his knuckles as he clenches the device. “This is where she is?”
“I think so. It’s an old spot of Aldo’s but…I think this is it.”
Abel squeezes my hand again and I do it in return, but my eyes are cataloguing the way Kortez is reacting to the message. The knife begins to slip from his hand and he catches it with a grip around the blade, blood immediately pooling between his fingers before it drips to the ground. Abel gasps next to me and manages to break me out of my trance.
“Kortez!”
His eyes shoot to mine, then over to Abel and back to me. “She’s there. I don’t need to look into the driver.”
I narrow my gaze, suddenly feeling like the man who’s had my back for the last ten years is not the man I thought he was. “How do you know that, Kortez?”
He tosses the phone back to me as more of his blood drips down staining Eve’s beige carpet. “I’ll tell you on the road.”
When he walks out the door, I’m not the only one left speechless.
Chapter 42
