Grave seems to just… shut down. He doesn’t get pissed off, doesn’t look hurt. He simply puts an emotional block into place to cope with the revelations. “So itwasmy fault that she died.”
I share a look with Everett and Maverick, my heart bleeding in my chest for the man, at the injustice of it all.
Jax’s face twists with fury. “No, it’s that fucking monster’s for killing his sister and keeping you a secret from me. I swear to God, Grave; if I had known, I would have taken you from here. But by the time I found out… the damage was done. You were a fully grown man, and he’d twisted your mind until you were inexplicably loyal to him. I couldn’t very well demand you come live with me, so the best I could do was try to put some distance between the two of you.
“I insisted that you not step foot in this hellhole again, and he conceded. But it was too little, too late. If I had told you what I’d discovered, I worried it’d do more harm than good. So I tried to make things better where I could. Set the truce into motion so there’d be less risk of you getting killed in the crossfire, move you away from King, hoping that being around others would help you think clearer, would protect you from whatever the fuck he was doing to you inside of this house.” He looks his son dead in the face, his own twisted with regret. “And when my men reported that you were in love with this girl, I thought maybe saving her from the same things you suffered would be a better apology than anything I could say.”
Leaning into Maverick, he bands an arm around my stomach, and I use him as support to stay upright as the adrenaline begins to wear off. “She isn’t some gift to be given,” he states, voice hard. “She’s a goddamn person.”
“It’s fine,” I murmur, not wanting to fight about the wrong things, not right now when we have bigger problems. Facing Ev, I ask, “Did you find it?”
His face falls as he shakes his head once before his features harden with determination. “It’s fine, we were already planning to run. It’ll be a bit before someone reports the bodies anyway; neighbors don’t exactly stop by with brownies often.”
Jax straightens to ask, but his guard beats him to the punch. “What’s he got on you?
Mav’s chest rumbles in annoyance. “Enough to put us all away a few lifetimes.”
The guard simply shrugs a single shoulder. “Oh, that’s easy then. It’s trickier when there’s a trigger in place to give the signal to slaughter family members in retribution. This, I can help with.” At Jax’s nod, he starts walking towards the door.
“Where are you going?”
He turns back with a devilish grin. “I think you all underestimate how close King was with his lawyer. If he wanted evidence released to damn you upon his death, he’d have picked the person angry enough to go all out.”
The door closes behind him as he leaves to take care of it, completely trusting that we won’t kill his boss, that this olive branch is worth enough none of us would be stupid enough to risk it. That, or he saw the same look in Jax’s eyes that I did; hope. Finally, something he’s able to do to help his son.
Everett comes to stand in front of me, frowning. “Are you okay?”
I manage a rueful smile, knowing I must look like I’ve been through Hell, but that I survived to come out the other side. “Told you I’d make a convincing hostage.”
He smiles softly, bending down to kiss me for a brief moment, a small reprieve before we have to deal with everything. Sighing at Julian’s body, he turns his attention to Maverick. “Clean up isn’t the issue, but people are going to notice he’s missing. How should we play this?”
Tentatively, I raise a hand. “I sort of already set a plan into motion.” Even Mav loosens his hold and steps to the side so that all four men can look at me with a mixture of confusion or surprise.
“If the only role I’m fit to play is the damsel in distress, then I’m going to give the performance of a lifetime. Everett, give me your gun.”
“Istill can’t believe that worked,” Maverick says with a shake of his head.
Leaning against him in our massive new bedroom in Jax’s estate, a squeak of surprise slips out as Grave flops onto the bed, grabbing my ankle and dragging me away from Mav. “Easy to overlook the height difference from the shot trajectory after seeing the pool room.” He hauls me on top of him until I’m straddling his hips, but he simply uses his fingers as drumsticks on my thighs.
“They’d already seen my wrist, knew he was spying on our conversation that was supposed to be a simple check in. Red flags galore when the police knew what kind of man he was; they just couldn’t prove it before.”
Everett comes into the room and my face lights up. He’s been so busy these last few days getting caught up on how Jax runs his businesses, that we’ve hardly seen him. Just like the others from the house that used their newfound freedom to move on, Maverick made it clear that he’s done. Worried that he’d convince us all to move away to start over and take his son with him, Jax offered him a legitimate job to entice him into staying.
Now, I barely go two steps without tripping over my appointed shadow, Maverick my personal bodyguard. No pulling jobs, just ensuring that none of it spills over to me.
“They finished going through Daniel’s records and Julian’s house,” Everett announces, scratching the back of his neck nervously and we all tense.
Mav releases an exhausted sigh, sitting up. “Spit it out.”
“One of the rooms you marked in Julian’s house was nothing more than a dusty old bedroom, the only thing in it a small photo album. Jax leafed through it, and, well,” he trails off, flicking his gaze towards Grave, looking sad. “Apparently they were mostly of Amelia, and the final pictures-“ he rakes a hand through his hair “-she was older than she should have been for someone that’s been dead well over twenty years.” Grave tenses beneath me, his fingers stilling on my thighs.
“With enough money, identities can be altered, people hidden,” I whisper in horror, recalling my conversation with Julian, when he used his cousins as a reason to ban people from his house.
“Fuck.” Maverick gets to his feet. “I take it they found an address when going through Daniel’s shit?”
Ev nods before turning to Grave. “If you want to go with him to hunt her down, he’s leaving in an hour. I’ll be staying behind to help keep things running while he’s gone.”
Grave’s been trying to give Jax a fair shot since the night his world imploded, but things are still awkward, to say the least. When you’re already twenty-six, it’s difficult to simply accept a stranger as your parent, to make up for lost time when it feels impossible.
