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The silence around us waits for me to break it, waiting for me to react. But I don’t know how.

I look at Atom, whose eyes are wide. I slowly turn to Grandfather, and the smile is back on his face as he nods softly.

“Yes. My daughter was your mother.”

I don’t know what to say. How to act. So many things have been thrown at me since I came into this house that I don’t think I can handle another one.

“Wait,” Atom says, pulling me out of my head a bit. “You’re telling me you made your daughter and your son get married? That’s sick, man.”

Grandfather shakes his head and sighs as if truly over Atom, but he makes sense.

“Hiroshi is not my son. He is the result of my wife’s indiscretion. Something I did not mind, as it gave my father what he wanted, someone who he thought would keep the family name going, and that was enough to give my father the peace to pass over.”

“He didn’t know?” I ask with wide eyes.

“I found it best not to tell him. It was at that time that I found out that your grandmother was removed because of being with me. I was not too fond of my father in the end and did not visit him often. I hardly spoke to him, so he went to the grave with his own thoughts. I raised Hiroshi as my own because I was simply grieving the loss of my kokoro too much to care. Then I found your mother and things changed.”

“That’s why you wanted me to marry Benji. You thought of me before Reina, despite everyone thinking it should be her because she was pure Japanese.”

Grandfather nods. “Yes. It is always why I agreed to let you go. But I had people look after you. Gina was meant to keep eyes on you at all times, but because of her schedule and because I did not want suspicion coming out about why I would care about you, I had a tracker put in you.”

“A tracker?” I gasp.

“Yes.”

“But how?”

“When I found out you were in a car accident, I bribed one of the doctors. You thought you were getting a shot, but really they injected a tracker into your arm.”

“You put something inside me?” This seems almost trivial compared to everything else I’ve learned today. I’m shocked but not hurt. How can I be when it led to me being free?

“If you cared so much, why not immediately go after her when she was taken? Why make her wait and have the Hounds do it?” Atom growls.

Grandfather shakes his head. “I did not know if her being in the area was of her own doing or not. The tracker was not meant to show high levels of stress, only location. Once she was there for longer than I would expect for a vacation, I sent Gina out. Your people found her, and then things moved quickly from there.”

“Except for the whole part of her not being a priority for your people.”

“We had people watching Gina. I could not chance them seeing too much into it.”

“What if we failed and she remained there?” Atom says with a scoff, and I place a hand on his knee to calm him. Or me. Not sure which. All I know is that the hand on my back goes still when I reach for him, then picks up the same soothing circle pattern on my lower back like it has been since he first placed it there.

“Gina was given a three-hour window once she got rid of her tail. She circled back and destroyed everything there. If Natalie was still there, then she would have been brought home. But she was not what we found there.”

I still, but Atom keeps asking questions. “What was it?”

“A body. We were able to send word to her family once we found out who she was. Gina got rid of the body.”

“Got rid of it? But why? Shouldn’t the police have been notified, or the body sent back to her bro—family?” Atom’s added pressure on my back stops me from revealing that I knew the woman and knew Psy was looking for her. Don’t know why he wants to keep that a secret, but with all the other secrets going on, I guess I’m entitled to one as well.

Still, just tossing Ava away makes me sick to my stomach. The woman went through so much. She at least deserved a nice place to lie for eternity.

“The police were who had you, my dear. And bringing a body back was not something Gina could do. She was on foot to get out of the country alone. But do not worry, she did not leave empty-handed. She found out who took you.”

“Who.” Atom says it more like a statement than a question, demanding answers without asking for them.

“A member of the Devils Damned. I believe your friends and a man named Duke are not close, yes?”

“That’s an understatement,” Atom mutters, then looks away with a tight jaw.