Chapter 33
JAYDEN
“Ohmygod! Ohmygod! Ohmygod!” Finley’s screech pierces the air as the SUV skids with the hard slam of the brakes.
The three of us lurch forward, eyes locked on the stone wall ahead.
Eli moves first, bracing between the Defender’s seats to check on her. She’s statue-still, hands in a white-knuckled chokehold on the wheel.
“Oh, shoot,” she trembles when he pries her fingers free and kills the engine. “I’m sorry.”
“Can we listen to reason now?” Eli groans, cocking a stare at me.
He’s far too chilled considering we almost collided headfirst into the cabin’s foundation. Meanwhile, my guts are strangling my windpipe.
“Maybe stick shift wasn’t a good idea, after all…” I glance sideways. Finley’s frozen, hands hovering over the wheel, eyes glassy.
“I don’t think the transmission is the issue here, JJ. I think that—”
“I suck.” Normally, I’d make a dirty joke. Not now. My heart’s click-clacking between my tonsils like a Newton’s cradle. She pants through a thin whine. “What if I can never get the hang of driving and—”
“You will, Fin,” Eli cuts in, large hand sliding from her shoulder to her neck, kneading tension. “We’ll revisit driving when we return to LA.”
“It’s all about confidence,” I offer.
Eli gives me a soft, chiding smirk while he tells her, “Something you’ll build up with time.”
Finley rolls her eyes like we’re feeding her platitudes. I shouldn’t have suggested we teach pedals and stick on the drive. The snow’s cleared, but the gravel’s slick, and Finley’s too skittish.
“Eli’s right.” I catch her hand and press an apologetic kiss to her knuckles—because this was my terrible idea.
Enveloping her hand in both of mine, I squeeze as Eli adds, “You’ll figure it out, and you’ll be whizzing around LA in no time.”
“Hell, you might even teach Slow Poke a thing or two,” I chuckle, finally getting a quiet laugh from her as Eli pinches that spot by my hip that makes me giggle. “Seriously, stop doing that.”
“Did you just… giggle?” Finley guffaws.
Her shoulders are shaking with her amusement, blue stare brightening to a summer hue.
“Yeah, he did,” Eli declares, surprising me with a quick kiss to my forehead before he’s out of the car and opening Finley’s door.
She’s in his arms before I recover from the breezy affection. The way he is so open about us around people leads me to think he likes staking his claim. He wants them to know who belongs to him. And I like it.
This isn’t a feeling I’ve ever had before. Longing to be owned by another is completely new to me. However, as I watch him fold Finley into his chest, I ache to be in that hug. To kiss her with his same veneration. To be kissed by him with equal reverence.
I scramble over the console, back the car onto the drive, and join them. Finley turns to me, lips glossy and kiss-swollen, jaw pink from Eli’s scruff and the cold. I tug her close and skim a kiss over her flushed skin, savoring the warmth as it seeps through the cold bite of the wintry breeze.
“Eww,” Isla squawks from the porch. “Get a room!”
At her remark, I suck Fin’s bottom lip into my mouth and hook the pocket of Eli’s down jacket, tugging him flush to Finley. With our girl sandwiched between us, Eli wraps his arm around us. As his palm presses to the flat of my back, he laughs at the slurry of snow powdering over us.
“Break it up, lovebirds! It’s girl spa time,” Kailey hollers over Isla’s grumbles as a packed snowball clumps the back of my head so hard my teeth snag on Finley’s lip.
A low groan vibrates from her, the low, needy kind that shoots straight to my cock.
Another snowball smacks the side of my face when I flip the girls off. It only spurs them on, which has Finley in stitches and Eli chuckling when we finally pull apart and go inside.
We’re running up the stairs, still laughing, when Dad steps out of his office. His expression stops me cold. When The Sire joins him on the landing, concern carving his features, I know our day is about to take a sharp turn.
“I was coming to find you guys,” Dad says, schooling his face. “My guys got back to me earlier, and I’ve just finished going through the report they sent over.”
“Personally, I think we should enjoy the holidays and deal with all the madness afterward,” The Sire says, offering a big smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.
Eli stiffens, straightening to his full height beside me while Finley looks over her shoulder at the two of us. Eyes as big as her panic.
After we gave Dad her phone for him to courier to his tech contact, we haven’t addressed the messages she received. Every time Eli and I tried, she shut it down to protect the Christmas spirit.
Finley’s been adamant she’s okay, but her ashen expression says otherwise now. Coiling my arm around her, I tuck her into Eli and me.
She’s between us, her hand gripping Eli’s when she asks Dad, “Do you know who did it?”
Nodding, he edges around The Sire, backing into his office. “I can show you the report now, or we can wait until the holidays are done.”
“Now’s good,” Eli says, pulling Finley with him.
I watch them go into the office, my feet glued to the hardwood floor as my heart wrenches up into my throat for the second time in minutes.
Except, this time, there’s a pang of disappointment and jealousy at how quickly the two of them band together.
Like it’s just the two of them against the world, and I’m here, on the outside, looking on.
I know it’s my insecurity rearing its ugly head. I know that it’s a habit of a lifetime for them to seek each other out for strength and comfort. They’ve depended on each other for so long, it’s second nature.
My insides knot tighter with the faint smile The Sire gives me when I walk past him. His hand squeezes the back of my neck the same way it used to when he met me in the tunnel after a loss when I was a kid.
“Deep breath, Peanut,” he whispers as we shoulder through the door together.
Breathe? Who needs that right now? I shoot him a look that he answers with a wink as he crosses the room to the window seat.
Eli and Finley take the armchairs opposite the fireplace.
Dad perches on the edge of the loveseat to the side of them, leaning over the coffee table where three neat stacks of files are laid out in front of him.
It’s highlighter and tabs galore, like his case files with post-it notes on the front of the manila folders scrawled with a prioritized to-do list.
He taught me control and how to take command of situations when they feel like they’re spiraling. Dad’s the logical parent who understands the importance of emotions, but more so the importance of controlling them. Something that has served my career well.
Dragging Finley’s armchair beside Eli’s, I perch on the joined armrests. The height advantage allows me to feel more in control of the situation, despite Dad’s drawn face as he places a file in front of Finley.
Opening it to the first page, he points down at a number he’s highlighted in red with a red tab beside it on the edge of the page.
“Do you recognize this number?” He asks her, grabbing her phone from the top of the file stack. After unlocking it, he pulls up her contacts and scrolls down to point out Bar Guy.
“No, I don’t know it.” Finley chokes on her words when Eli gives her a gruff questioning glance. “I don’t know how it’s in my contacts.”
“It’s registered to the same physical address the IP from the forum posts traces back to.” Dad keeps his tone level. “At least four numbers you’ve received texts from pinged the tower closest to that address.”
“I promise I don’t know whose it is. I swear.” Finley’s words catch in her throat as she shakes out her trembling hands.
“Baby,” I murmur, cupping her face and lifting her stare to mine. “Breathe.”
“I don’t know who Bar Guy is, JJ.” Her trembling hands claw into my thigh. “Why would I give my number to another man when—”
“Relax, Fin,” I say as Dad adds, “The number in the phone is registered to Ryker Hallman.”
Fuck.
“What?” Finley sputters.
Eli pushes up from his seat with a vicious growl. “Motherfucker!”
Shit.
“There’s more,” Dad says, opening another file.
When he opens it, my heart stops. The image from The Chronicle’s article glares back at me in all its sickening ugliness.
“Lex and I are working to get the source details.” Dad flips to a printed screenshot of the email sent with the images and paragraphs. I don’t read it. Once was enough.
Eli braces over Dad’s desk. His breathing is erratic, and now that he’s taken off his jacket, I can see how tight his muscles are beneath his sweater.
Maybe we should’ve seen the holidays through before we dove back into this ghastly mess.
“The Chronicle is being difficult about giving us the IP address from which the email was sent. So, Lex has reached out to an acquaintance for help. However—”
“It was him,” Eli says.
His vapid tone sends a chill through me.
“We’re speculating so… yes,” Dad answers.
“Of course it’s him,” Eli barks, his hands slapping down on the desk.
“I know it is. The photos of us that Cecelia gave me a while back, that was him, too. Last time I saw him at the training facility, he had an envelope just like the one the photos were in. It makes sense. It all fits so perfectly.”
“Plenty of people use those mailers. It could be coincidence…” I’m lying to myself while desperately attempting to defuse the anger rolling off him.
Because I’ve only encountered this side of Eli once—when he beat the shit out of Presley. Right now, I need stoic Eli. The man who thinks before he acts and—
“Eli’s right,” Finley whispers. When I look over my shoulder to look from Eli to her, she shrugs. “It makes sense.”
Fuck me.
I wish she hadn’t spoken, because the scowl on his face when he turns towards us makes my blood run cold.
“His number is on your phone. Why?” Eli stalks closer. “How does he have your number, Finley?”