Vaughn was here.
He could fix this. He could mend my defective heart. He could fight for me so I wouldn’t have to.
We have to save Jethro. Before they do something terrible.
His hands captured my cheeks, holding me firm as his mirroring black eyes drank mine. “Threads.” He pressed a kiss against my temple. “Threads. Fucking hell, you’re here.”
I sucked in a breath, fumbling with my seatbelt. I wanted to be closer to him. To let him erase my breaking pieces.
Because I was breaking.
Jethro had stolen my everything.
But this was my brother.
The brother I’d betrayed.
A sob latched onto my lungs, making me cough, making me relive what the Hawks did to me in the lake.
I coughed again. More tears fell.
V groaned under his breath, tearing off my seatbelt and dragging me into his arms.
My legs dangled as he crushed me to his chest. His heartbeat was steady and strong as I cried into his white shirt.
Steady and strong.
Jethro’s heartbeat had been irregular and terrified.
I cried harder. Not just for how royally I’d screwed everything up but for leaving Jethro when I’d promised I’d stay.
Please, please let him be alright.
“It’s okay, Threads. I gotcha. You’re safe now. Those fucking bastards will never come near you again. You hear me? Never.” His voice was harsh with promise.
He sounded so young compared to the scratch and scrawl of Jethro’s immaculate eloquence. Swear words were something Jethro only resorted to when he couldn’t control himself—whereas my brother used them as punctuation.
“Nila.”
My body stiffened at my name...at the way my father breathed it so lovingly.
V unwound his arms. I raised my head and looked into my father’s eyes. Archibald ‘Tex’ Weaver looked a hundred years older. His toned physique was gone, replaced by a sagging middle and even worse sagging eyes. His effortless style of slacks and shirts had been switched for baggy jeans and stained polo shirts.
His despair—the complete abandonment of everything he’d been—was better than any spoken apology. More poignant than any beg or plea for understanding.
“I’m so sorry, Nila,” he choked, tears glittering.
I was livid. I was distraught. I had so many unresolved issues toward my father but we werefamily. Forgiveness was utmost.
Another sob escaped as I shuffled closer. V never let me go. Instead, Tex came to us. He wrapped his strong arms around his son and daughter and crushed us to the bone. His cheeks grew damp with sadness, and his signature smell of Old Spice tore up my nose and ripped my brain into ribbons.
Oh, God. Oh, God.
The world spun.
Faster and faster andfaster.
In my family’s joint embrace—the same embrace where I’d found such comfort before—now I only found sickness and horror.
