Chapter Fifty-Five
AURELIA
A conservatorship.
Last week, I completely severed ties with my uncle, cutting him out of everything.
So Uncle Mars retaliated by petitioning the probate court to appoint him control over my personal and financial affairs, claiming I was the victim of psychological abuse.
Stockholm syndrome.
He’s claiming I have Stockholm syndrome and am currently under the influence of my kidnappers, and now the court is ordering me to an evaluation to prove that I’m not.
There is no hope of winning. It doesn’t matter if it’s true. It only matters what it looks like.
It would be easy enough to prove that Thorin, Khalil, and Seth were the search and rescue team tasked with finding me.
From there it was only a matter of connecting the dots.
They show up here as my new bodyguards after I went missing for months and reappeared out of thin air.
It would be impossible to convince the world, much less a judge, that they weren’t involved.
And then there’s the fact that I’m pregnant and clearly conceived before my return to the States.
The only thing I can do is tell the same story that I gave the sheriff. That my uncle hired men to kill me—which he did—and my bodyguards heard my plight and saved my life by shielding me from him—which was only partially true.
The only problem is I have no proof.
The men he hired are dead, and my uncle could easily claim that he sent them there solely to find my body and bring me home for burial. We’ll still end up looking like the bad guys and my uncle the hero.
I’m screwed with a capital F.
“We can’t wait until after the baby is born,” I tell my guys once we’re alone.
We’re in the apartment instead of the house because I couldn’t stand being in the car long enough to make it there.
I’m pacing the length of the living room, my toes sinking into the plush carpet, the city lights through the large windows winking at me, and my hand on my aching belly as my mountain men watch me from their seats with worried frowns.
“I have to kill him. I have to kill him now.”
“We actually can’t kill him now. You’ve already been served the papers. Marston George being murdered hours later will only land you the number one spot on the suspect list.”
“What about Logan Abbott?” I say.
Thorin sighs with impatience, and I pivot to face him looking so out of place in the white tufted chaise with shaggy throw pillows all around him.
“Yes, I know what you’re thinking. There are probably dozens of Logan Abbotts out there who want him dead and no one who will mourn him, but you’re the one with the most compelling motive, wolf. It’d be an open-and-shut case.”
“Other than firing him as your manager, no one knew of the rift between you,” Khalil points out, “and even then, he had more reason to hurt you than the other way around. This petition will have everyone looking at you.”
“I don’t care. I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care. He can’t do this to me. I can’t—aaaaargh,” I groan as I bend over to relieve the cramping in my stomach. “Gaaah, I can’t wait.”
“Aurelia, sit down,” Khalil demands.
“No.” I start pacing again, but wince when I’m hit with another cramp.
“AURELIA, SIT DOWN!” Khalil roars.
I jump and then feel tears immediately welling in my eyes. “Don’t yell at me,” I wail. “I’m scaaaared.”
“Fuck.” Khalil jumps up from his seat and takes me in his arms. “I’m sorry, Goldilocks. Hey, stop that. Please stop crying,” he begs when I sob harder.
I couldn’t stop even if I wanted to. “I don’t know what to do anymore. He’s already taken everything, and he still wants more.”
“He hasn’t taken us,” Thorin reassures me as he comes to stand behind me and rub his hand across my back. “We’ve got you. We’ll fix this. Marston George will die.”
“In the meantime, how can we make this better for you? What can we do right now?”
I sniffle and lift my head to see Khalil, who asked the question. “Cheeseburger.”
Once the guys bring me the fattest, juiciest cheeseburger they can find, and I fill it with fries and chocolate sauce before devouring it in a handful of bites, it feels like I’m thinking clearer.
Enough to say, “I know what to do.”
Khalil and Seth, who are sitting on top of the counter together, staring at something on Seth’s phone while I eat, look up. Thor is sitting next to me with his fingers linked on his abs and his head tipped back as he naps sitting up. His blue eyes pop open, and he regards me with a steady patience.
“What do you mean?”
“I know how to deal with my uncle without breaking a single law.”
“How’s that?”
“My uncle has been misappropriating the funds I entrusted him with, and he’s likely been doing it for years, but on a much larger scale since learning how hard I am to kill.
If we can find the proof, we can hand it over to the Feds and ruin him for good.
He’ll be facing prison time, and no judge on earth will grant him a conservatorship after that. ”
“How do you plan to get the proof?” Khalil questions. “I doubt he just leaves the evidence of his misdeeds lying around.”
I hold up a finger. “Actually, he would. My uncle is greedy and arrogant. He knows that I know he’s been stealing from me, but his ego will never allow him to believe that I’m smart enough to follow the money trail.
And he’s right. I wouldn’t know where to begin to find the proof.
But I’m also disgustingly rich, which means I have a lot of resources at my disposal.
I can end him with a phone call, and I wouldn’t have to lift a finger beyond that. ”
“But all that does is put him in prison. I thought you wanted him dead,” Thorin says with a narrowed gaze.
“I do. And he will be. You just have to trust that I know my uncle better than anyone.” I don’t say more than that though because if my mountain me knew just how badly my uncle will react to being bested by his “dumb little niece” they’d never take the risk of me getting hurt.
So I make the call first thing in the morning, and I set the wheels in motion.
A few days later, the news of my uncle’s petition gets out, and the curiosity and enchantment people once had for my mountain men turn into half-baked theories and suspicion. The paparazzi have been even more relentless than usual.
“Aurelia! Aurelia! Can you comment on where you were last year?”
“Aurelia! What is the relationship between you and your bodyguards?”
“Aurelia! Blink if you need us to call the police!”
One even manages to sneak into the apartment building and catches me coming from the gym after yoga. Thorin snatched his camera, and I barely managed to stop him from using it to bash his face in. Instead, he broke it and then told the man to bill him.
Meanwhile, my uncle is living it up in Vegas, no doubt celebrating his impending win and control over me once more.
It’s been a stressful few days, and when my blood pressure spikes, Khalil has the bright idea for us to get away.
There aren’t many places I can go where I can hide, but the guys know of one that would do everyone some good.
They decide to take me home.
Home—where Khalil can finally see his parents again, and I can hide somewhere for a few days of peace. A town that almost sounds too good to be true.
It’s how we end up in Six Forks.
The town of Six Forks is tucked within the desert landscape of Nevada.
I’m instantly enchanted with it when I slide out of the rental and onto the driveway of the one-story bungalow.
The couple standing together on the porch give me pause though, and I glance up at Khalil to see him just as uncertain, so I shove down my own anxiety at meeting his parents and I take his hand.
Khalil lets me guide him toward the house and up the wide front steps.
I feel his parents’ curious gazes on me, but when I try to step back out of view and join Thorin and Seth at the bottom of the steps, Khalil’s hand tightens around mine and I remember my promise to be right there with him.
So I stay, and we face off against his parents together.
His mom, who resembles Khalil so much, even down to the coloring, is the first of us to move or speak. I feel Khalil tense up beside me as she comes to stand in front of him, her head only reaching his shoulder as she lifts a hand up toward his face and rests her palm on his cheek.
“Hey, Ma.”
His mother’s eyes are pained but warm as she stares up at her son, taking in everything that wasn’t there the last time she saw him. “Did you get it done, son? Whatever it was you needed to do?”
“Yes,” Khalil answers on a broken whisper. “It’s done. It’s over.”
His father, still dressed in a dusty white T-shirt and worn jeans from his construction company, is even taller than Khalil.
He’s a commanding and burly man with a salt-and-pepper beard and focused eyes.
He steps forward and pulls his son into his arms, and they do the manly clap thing before the older man leans in to kiss his son’s cheek. “Then welcome home, boy.”
“I don’t want to drive the knife in deeper,” I say later that night as I shuffle on my knees toward the head of Khalil’s bed, the mattress springs squeaking loudly as I go, “but your parents were definitely more excited to meet me than they were to see you.”
Khalil cackles but doesn’t deny it as he finishes snapping on his skullcap to protect the fresh stitch braids I gave him before we left LA.
He then gently pulls me down to sit next to him while I lean into him and lay my head on his strong shoulder.
His scent wafts over me, immediately calming me.
Khalil always smells so good—a little sweet, a little spicy, and minty.
“Well, you didn’t disappear without a word for ten years, so you have that going for you. And also, you’re famous. I think they were a little starstruck. My mom and pops are happy to see that I’m alive, but they’re not too thrilled with me right now.”