And he has never, not once, declined my call.
I call him again.
One ring.
Voicemail.
One ring. That means he saw my name and put the phone face down, or he's somewhere he can't talk, or?—
I stop that thought before it finishes.
"H." Miles's voice is very quiet. He's watching me from the chair, the laptop still open in front of him. "What do you know?"
I look at my brothers. I don’t say anything to him.
"Hayden," Mason shouts. "What do you know?"
I put my phone in my pocket, and I look at all of them.
"I think," I say slowly. "We need to talk to Dad."
The three of them look between each other, and we all walk out of the games room, and make our way to dad’s office.
I knock on the door.
"Come in," he shouts, he knows it’s us, there isn’t anyone else in the house.
“Boys,” he raises a brow as we all walk into the room. "Sit down."
Dad looks at each of us in turn, then stops at me and a small smile tug on his lip.
"You tried calling him," he says. Not a question.
"Multiple times," Miles says. "Goes to voicemail after one ring."
"The system locked us out," Declan says. "Prints, credentials, everything."
Dad nods slowly. Like none of this is new information. Like he knew the shape of this conversation before we walked through the door.
Mason leans forward in his chair. "Dad, where is he?"
Dad is quiet for a moment looking between the four of us. "I know where he is," he says.
The room exhales and tightens at the same time.
"Then—" Mason starts.
"I said I know where he is." Dad looks up. "I didn't say I was going to tell you."
Mason goes to say something but stops when Dad continues.
"He's safe," Dad says. "That's all you need to know right now. He's not in danger, he's not hurt, he's not—" he stops. "He's dealing with something and he'll talk to you when he's ready to talk to you."
"That's not good enough," Mason says.
"Mason." Miles, quiet warning.
"No, I'm serious, he goes dark for two weeks, locks us all out, Autumn hasn't heard from him, andhe'll talk to us when he's ready.Is that supposed to be enough?"
