“Jax?” I whisper.
He drops his hands to his powerful thighs, his gaze lifting to mine, and there is no blame there. His blue eyes are nothing but unbridled torment. “Hunter was my brother.”
“I know that,” I say catching his hands. “Nothing that happened tonight, and no DNA test, changes that. You grew up with him. You were—”
“His brother,” he says, his voice roughing up, his mood shifting, sharpening like a blade ready to strike. “This is all a game someone is playing, and I’m going to find out who that someone is. And I’m going to make them pay.” There is something I can only call brutality in those words, his need for revenge back, and it’s a living, breathing being all of its own. His words “make them pay” stirring memories of when we first met. When he’d wanted someone to pay for Hunter’s murder. I understood that need then, as I do now. If it were Chance that had died, I’d want answers; I’d want peace. Maybe I’d even want to make someone pay.
A muscle in his jaw flexes. “I told Savage I need a copy of that test.”
He wants the test. I shouldn’t have destroyed it. Of course, my father would say, “Regret not what makes you look like an ass. Just don’t do it in the first place.” Based on that DNA test, he lived a life of being an ass, and so am I right now. I’ve denied Jax answers. I’ve made this worse for him.
Feeling as if I’m suffocating in my own decisions, I try to stand up. Jax catches my legs. “Emma—”
“If someone told me that Chance wasn’t my full brother, I wouldn’t believe them. I’d want proof. I should have known you would, too. I just—I wanted—”
“You wanted to protect me.”
“Yes.” I flash back to the encounter with Randall, and his threat. “Jax—”
“And you wanted to protect your brother.”
My chest is tight. “Yes, but—”
“Which one of us do you think killed Hunter, Emma?”
I blanch, “What? No. No, I don’t think—”
“The only reason you would feel like you needed to protect us is if you felt like one of us was guilty. Do you think that I killed my brother?”
“No. I don’t think you killed your brother. When we met, you told me that you wanted revenge. You wanted answers. That’s not a man who killed his brother.”
“You just wanted to protect me,” he repeats.
“Of course I wanted to protect you. Stop saying that like it proves that I think you’re guilty. It doesn’t. I need to tell you about the party.”
“You wanted to protect me, but you told me about the test. That means—”
“No,” I insist. “No, don’t keep going there. Let this go. It doesn’t mean that I thought you were guilty. But someone wants me to believe that you killed Hunter.”
“Or that Chance killed Hunter.”
“Yes.” My stomach knots. “Whatever the case, I showed whoever is behind this that I’m with you. They can’t divide us.”
“You didn’t show them that you stood with me or Chance,” he says. “You showed them that you thought one of us was guilty. That’s why you destroyed the evidence.”
“That’s not where my head was,” I argue, but quickly concede. “But—right. I can see how it seems like that. I screwed up.”
He takes my hands and leans in closer. “I did not kill Hunter. I loved Hunter. And I didn’t want, or need, what was his.”
“I know that,” I whisper.
“You thought one of us was guilty.”
“You just won’t let this go,” I say. “My brother isn’t a killer either.” But I’m also thinking of the threats Randall made. He wanted me out of here in a bad way and that doesn’t sit well. I need to talk to my brother. I try to pull away from Jax, but he holds onto me. “Let go.”
“Emma—”
“Let go.” My voice lifts. “Let go now.”
He releases me, and I stand up. “I need to go.” I try to turn away.
He pulls me back around to him. “You need to go? Go where?”
I press on his unmoving chest. “I need to see Chance.”
He cups my face and forces my gaze to his. “We need to take a deep breath. We need to think. We need to fact gather.”
My eyes start to burn. “You think he did it.” I don’t give him time to reply. “He didn’t kill Hunter. He didn’t—” My voice cracks and the tears pooling in my eyes infuriate me. I don’t cry. Crying is for “little bitches” as my father often said. I’m angry. I’m angry at whoever put this between me and Jax. I’m angry at whoever is playing this game. “He didn’t do it.”
Jax catches an escaping tear with his thumb, wiping it from my cheek. “Easy, baby. It’s going to be okay.”
I catch his hand. “Would Hunter commit suicide?” I ask.
“No.”
“You’re certain?” I challenge.
“With every fiber of my being. I knew my brother.”
“And I know mine. He didn’t do this, Jax. I know he was asking about the castle. I know he had connections to your brother but our families have been connected for years. He didn’t kill Hunter.”
“But someone did,” he supplies. “You get that, right?”
“I get that. I believe that. But if you think it was Chance, really think it was Chance, there’s no way that’s not a problem for us.”
“I didn’t say Chance killed Hunter. This is a game someone is playing and if it divides us they get what they want. Because clearly that note and DNA test were left for you to turn you against me.”
“It feels like it’s working. It feels like the end of us.”
“No, baby. If you think I’m letting you go that easily, you’ll soon know better. Someone took my brother from me. They don’t get to take you, too.”
There are footsteps on the porch, and his hands come down on my arms. “This doesn’t end us. You don’t get rid of me that easily, woman. Someone is afraid of what we know. They’re afraid that together we can figure it out. And they’re right. We will.” There’s a thunderous knock at the door.
“Obviously that’s Savage,” I say, because the man explodes into the middle of everything.
“Yes,” Jax agrees. “That will be Savage. Whatever he says—”
“Don’t drown him like I did the DNA test?”
A hint of a smile plays on his lips, a stark contrast to the torment of moments before, that gives me hope. Hope for what, I don’t know. Just hope. “That,” he says, even his tone is lighter now, “would be interesting to watch you attempt, but no, let’s not drown Savage.” He kisses my forehead and tries to walk away.
I catch his hand. “Randall was here tonight. He used the company invitation to get in. He threatened me. He told me that if I didn’t come back, he’d come at you. He gave me seventy-two hours.”
A sharp, hard energy crackles around him but his voice is low, controlled. “You mean your brother gave you seventy-two hours.”
“It doesn’t feel like something Chance would do. I really do need to see him, Jax.”
There’s another knock on the door and Jax responds with a lift of his voice that cracks like a whip. “Wait, Savage!” before softening his voice to speak to me again. “What else?”
“Randall said you had a secret that could destroy us. Can’t you see that I need to talk to Chance?”
“We need more time to talk and think,” he counters. “Promise me. Wait. This feels dangerous to me.”
“It is. He said he’d hate for me to end up dead.”
Jax’s lips thin. “Did he now?”
“Yes, but—”
He cups my head and kisses me. “Nobody is going to hurt you, Emma. Nobody. We’re not done talking about this but I need to get rid of Savage.”
He releases me and with long, confident strides, he crosses to the door, leaving me wanting to pull him back. Leaving me feeling like every time he walks away it might be forever. Hunter is dead. Someone killed him. And I didn’t drown that DNA test. It was silly for me to think
that would work at all. The person who gave me the test has a copy. And the damage intended by giving it to me has yet to be realized.
CHAPTER SIX
Jax
I’m furious, anger pounding inside me.
Randall threatened Emma.
Or was it the brother she loves and protects who threatened her through Randall? Is that what this comes down to?
I open the damn door, and, as expected, Savage awaits with a scowl on his face. “We need to talk,” he announces, motioning for me to step outside on the porch.
“Not a chance in hell,” I murmur, aware that Emma will read all kinds of wrong things into a private powwow between me and Savage. I don’t need to strike lightning into the middle of the shitstorm someone has ignited around us. “Inside,” I say, inching back into the living room, allowing him to enter.
I’m also aware of the fact that Emma is, in fact, no longer in the room because I can hear the sound of running water in the kitchen, our kitchen if this mess doesn’t blow up in my damn face. It’s pretty much already blown up in my damn face. Savage steps into the house, and he’s like having the WWE in my living room, consuming more space than one man should. He shuts the door, locks it and holds up a finger, a silent demand in the action that he doesn’t give me time to reject. He steps closer, but I take the initiative.
“What do you know about Randall being here?”
“He came. He went. Emma freaked out and tried to get me to catch him when he did. It was too late. What don’t I know, aside from too much?”
“He threatened her. I’ll let her tell you more. How the hell did he get to her?”
“He was on the guest list. Unless you tell us that he can’t be here, we don’t know. Clearly we have a communication problem. I’d like to think that we’re about to fix that problem because these secrets and private conversations in the middle of a manhunt, doesn’t fucking work.”
My lips press together. He’s right. “You’re right. We’re ready to talk.”
“Thank fuck,” he says, “because I was about to beat the facts out of you. For your own good, of course.” He lowers his voice and changes the subject. “We tried to hack for that DNA test,” he says. “There’s nothing in the public records, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”
That’s predictably shitty, I think, my hands settling on my hips. “What about the camera feed?”
“Nothing. The person with the red coat is not on our feed.”
“Which means they knew the exact line to walk to stay within the power outage. That means it wasn’t Randall.”
“And before you suggest Jill, one of my men was at the party as a guest. He had eyes on Jill the entire night. It wasn’t her. I’m leaning toward that missing groundskeeper.”
“Or just the ghost of the castle,” Emma says.
I turn to find her in the kitchen doorway, her worried eyes meeting mine, and the message in her words are clear: she means my mother and no matter how much I want to keep this topic off the table, I can’t. “I made coffee,” she adds, disappearing back into the kitchen.
Savage scowls. “Is she shitting me? The ghost of the fucking castle? What fucking ghost? Because I don’t like that shit. Paranormal Activity scared the fuck out of me.”
“I don’t even know what to say to that, man.”
“Hey, we all have our things. I know a badass SEAL who almost got kicked out over spiders. Screamed like a pussy bitch every time he got near one. That doesn’t work in a jungle warzone.
He had to do some sort of shock therapy.”
Sounds like me with my mother, I think.
“Start talking,” he presses. “What fucking ghost?”
“She means my mother,” I say, my lips thinning. “She left when I was a small child, and we never saw her again. She wore a lot of red, and, no, I’m not going to share the story behind that. Just—” I scrub my jaw, “look into her. I need to know where she is right now.”
“Right, man. Of course, you do. Fuck. I get it. Everyone wants—”
“Needs,” I correct. “I need to know where she is. I don’t want to know. And on that note, if I don’t drink the coffee Emma made I might finish off a bottle of whiskey.” I start walking.
“I vote yes for the whiskey,” Savage calls after me, but I ignore him. What I don’t ignore is the whiskey that is still open on the bar. I seal it, store it, and enter the kitchen to find Emma standing at the window that looks across the darkness consuming the ocean crashing to the shore. The same darkness that claimed the last seconds of my brother’s life when he was pushed off of that landing.
Feeling the cut of that image in my mind, I round the island to join Emma by the sink where the coffee pot sets. Emma moves to my side, watching me fill a cup, while Savage just won’t freaking allow me a moment of space. He joins us and grabs a mug.
“The mother thing doesn’t add up,” he says.
I turn away from him and the pot that is now in his hand, stepping to the island behind us. Emma follows me. “Mother thing?” Emma asks, claiming a spot at the endcap, right next to me, her delicate brow furrowed.
“I told Savage her history,” I say. “He’s going to find out where she is.”
“Oh.” She blinks. “I have to say, I thought I’d have to work harder for that one. That was unexpected.”
“Hunter’s dead,” I say tightly, flashing back to burying my brother too soon after burying my father. Remembering the miserable rainy funeral. “Also unexpected.”
She nods, understanding in her eyes. She gets it, and, somehow, in the short time we’ve known each other, she gets me. I don’t have to tell her that I need answers and that despite my initial resistance to my mother’s involvement, I’m willing to go down whatever rabbit hole necessary to find them.
Savage rounds the island, and takes up a space, directly across from me. “Back to your mother. Why do you think the person in the red coat was her?”
“I don’t remember ever saying that I do.”
“I do,” Emma adds. “I think it was her or I did at the time.”
Savage’s gaze jerks to mine. “Why?”
“It was the red dress,” Emma says. “It seemed like a way for her to tell me who she was.”
“It was a coat,” Savage corrects. “And because the person wore a red coat does not make her Jax’s long lost mother.”
“Someone wanted me or Jax, or both of us, to think it was,” Emma argues, her cheeks flushing red with her argument. “And who knows the grounds better than his mother?”
“Probably a lot of people since she’s been gone twenty years,” he shoots back. “Talk to me about the note that was left for you. Where and how did it get to you?”
“It was left for me when I was in the bathroom.”
“And we know who was in the castle,” Savage continues. “Jax’s mother was not there.”
“Randall was,” Emma reminds us, “though I can’t believe this was him. Not when he pointed a finger at Chance. And aside from that, I don’t want to lose focus on Jax’s mother just yet.”
“It wasn’t his mother,” Savage says.
“She would know a lot of the long-term staff,” Emma argues. “She could have had someone leave the note. Maybe she even knows a secret passage. Maybe she decided to show herself when she saw me on the beach alone but Jax showed up.” She eyes me. “You started calling for me. She ran away.”
“Well, that certainly fits,” I say dryly. “My mother was a master of running from her children.”
“You’re still her son,” Savage argues. “What’s her motivation to go to Emma and not you?” He grabs a pastry box, brought over by the kitchen staff, sitting on the edge of the counter, opens it and smirks with approval. But he keeps talking. Savage is good at the whole talking thing. “And didn’t the note accuse you of killing your brother?” He snatches a pastry from the box and pauses with it in flight to his mouth. “Seems like an un-motherly thing to do.” He takes a bite.
“She left him when he was a child,” Emma argues, her tone defensive, protective. “We just told you that. She’s as unmotherly as they come.”
“She’s still his mother,” Savage snaps. “I’ll say that ten times over and repeat it again. Because that matters. She wouldn’t go to you, an outsider and a member of the family that might well have killed her son, to accuse her other son of murder. Not buying that shit and the swampland that comes with it.”
“Maybe she was defending her dead son,” Emma pushes. “And she assumes Jax hates her.”
Savage smirks. “And she’d tell you that her living son might be the killer? No. Still not buying that and the swampland you’re selling, sweetheart.” He licks cherry filling from his finger and then pretty much inhales the rest of the pastry, before he adds, “Feels like there’s an agenda here we don’t know. They, meaning whoever the fuck is behind tonight, went hunting for a certain reaction from Emma tonight. The question is,” he continues, “did they get it?” He holds up a finger. “More so. What will they do if they didn’t?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Jax
Savage is right. Tonight, was nothing but a promise of more to come. I lean on the island and meet Savage’s stare.
“Strike or be struck,” I say. “Right now, we aren’t playing the game. It’s playing with us. We need to change that starting now.”
“Amen, brother,” Savage agrees. “Where are you going with this?” He motions with his hands. “Take me there now. Bring it.”
“Follow the facts to see the facts. They’re in front of us, but none of us, your team included, are following them. What do we know and where does that lead us?”
Savage shoves the pastry box aside. “Let’s do this. I fucking love a game of chase my fucking tail, where I actually catch my damn tail.”
Emma scoots around the island and shoos Savage further down, allowing her to stand directly in front of me, and she’s all in. She gets right to the fact-finding. “Let’s start with a recap of the most evident points. Randall came here and threatened me and you. He gave me seventy-two hours to go back to California, or he’ll come at you. Oh, and I might end up dead. He threatened us both.”
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