Chapter Seventeen #2
“Okay, but you know I’m not going to stab Rocky.”
“I know,” he emphasizes slowly, speaking hushed like me. “Still doesn’t mean I think he’s good for you.”
I crinkle my nose. “It might be the other way around.” I peer back as Rocky searches for any cell signal in the hidden parlor. “He’s a better boyfriend than I am a girlfriend.”
Nova frowns. “I don’t believe that.”
“You don’t want to believe it. It doesn’t make it any less true, Nov.”
“When have you been a bad anything to any of us?”
I cradle this compliment close to my heart, easing a little. “This relationship is just new territory for me, I think.” I’m trying to balance being a good best friend to Hails and a good girlfriend to Rocky. He deserves the same loyalty I give her, but it’s been conflicting.
Nova shoots Rocky a harsher look, then asks me, “Did he tell you you’re a bad girlfriend?”
“No. No, it’s just my insecurities at max level.”
“Fuck them.” Nova nods to me.
I nod back. “Yeah, fuck them.” I intake the power in those crude, simple words. He wraps an arm around me in a stiff Nova hug. It makes me smile.
I love my brothers. One of which is still MIA. “What time did you tell Oliver to get here?” I ask Rocky on my way back to the couch. I plant my foot on the armrest and hike up my light gray cotton shorts, exposing more of my thigh.
“Ten minutes till.” He pockets his phone, then takes the knife from me. I let Rocky wrap the leather belt strap around my thigh. He positions the knife on the outer side of my leg.
As he tightens the buckle near the inside of my thigh, a flush coats my body. My pulse picks up speed, and I have a sudden flash of Miami.
His hands against my thigh.
His eyes meeting mine behind his lashes like now.
Ten minutes till. I shake out my feelings. “Why that late?”
“We agreed to let Hailey sleep.”
“He was with Hailey?” My brows spring, and I smile excitedly over at Nova. He acts far less interested in our brother’s romance.
“Yep.” Rock finishes holstering the knife to my thigh. “And so was Jake.”
My face falls before scrunching. “Wait, what?” Like, I know Hailey is having sex with both of them, but…not together. “Like all three were in the same room or the same bed?”
“I didn’t fucking ask, nor did I want to.” Rocky glares. “Let it go.”
“The juiciest part of tonight?” I make a face at him. “How am I just now hearing about this?”
“I’m sorry, I was a little more preoccupied with the fact that your dad is trying to set up Trent to marry my sister.”
“Mistake forgiven.”
He pushes my foot off the armrest.
Asshole. I stifle a smile right as Trevor arrives. He rubs his sleepy eyes, wearing expensive black joggers and a matching tee. “Get that thing away from me,” he mutters, recoiling from the gun noticeably sticking out from Nova’s slacks.
He tucks it farther behind his back.
Trevor collapses tiredly on the couch. “Wake me up when it starts.”
“You’ll know when it starts, shithead,” Rocky says, smacking his legs off the cushion so he can sit beside him. The countdown to five a.m. becomes more apparent.
My insides tighten. We stop having mindless banter. It’s quiet and uneasy until Oliver appears.
“Open sesame.” He knocks on the bookcase wall. It’s already swung open. Nova still guards the entrance, so as soon as Oliver tries to pass through, our brother stops him.
“What the hell?” Nova mutters.
My back goes pin straight at Oliver’s face. He has on dark sunglasses, and the side of his cheek is sliced red, the cut barely held together with butterfly tape.
“Was that not the passcode?” Oliver quips. “Abracadabra? Alakazam?” He waggles his fingers.
“Who cut you?” I question.
“Myself. Shaving.” He shows more of his cheek to Nova. “Stitches?”
Nova inspects it. “No. It’s not too deep.”
Oliver subtlely releases a breath. Not far behind him are Jake and Hailey. She aims right for her brothers.
All she says is “Tinrocks on the couch.” It’s a perception thing as much as maybe a comfort for her to be beside Rocky and Trevor.
Varrick will notice how we position ourselves in the room. It’s probably best if we just stay close to our siblings.
She sits beside hers. Nova isn’t budging from the doorway, so us Graveses end up spreading out. Oliver leans a relaxed shoulder on the wall. I choose a buttoned chair and tug down my shorts to hide the knife that peeks against my thigh.
“Jake should sit in the other chair beside Phoebe,” Hailey says. “Varrick already knows you dated.”
I think my mom was likely right that Varrick is also aware Rocky and I are together for real. He gave him a skeleton key to my room tonight. It’s kind of proof, isn’t it?
Still, I keep my distance from Rocky.
Hailey and I exchange cautious looks. Especially as she holds a one-eyed, floppy-eared lilac bunny. Her ugly bunny from Easter.
She stitched her prenatal vitamins into the back cotton. If she didn’t leave the stuffed animal upstairs, then maybe she’s afraid Varrick corralled us all down here to search through our rooms. Or to have the housekeeper do it for him.
I didn’t even consider that until now.
It’s fine. I don’t think I left anything important in mine.
“Sixty seconds.” Nova counts down. We have all considered the possibility of being stood up. We’ve considered how this could be a trap. We’ve considered everything.
We even contemplated storming Varrick’s bedroom to hold this “meeting” there, but we agreed it’s better if he believes we trust him enough to agree to his time and location as we would’ve done for the godmothers.
If it weren’t for Nova propping the secret door open, I’d be more panicked our dad planned to gas all of us. Take us out in one blow. But he really has no reason to kill us. It’s not like we plan to turn him in to the Feds.
We’ve been cooperative.
Nova crosses his fingers at his side, indicating to us that he sees Varrick. I really did believe this was a setup. Because I’m more shocked when my dad saunters into the dimly lit parlor.
He smiles back at Nova after slipping past him. I detect notes of appreciation…admiring Nova’s forethought? Guardedness? Caution?
He picks up a wooden stool. Places it in front of us. Then takes a casual seat. “Now. Let’s get started.” He nods to Nova. “You can close that, Son.”
“I’m not your son,” Nova says, but he does shut the secret door, enclosing us in this musty space.
“Biologically, you are. In every other way, you can blame your mother for that.”
Nova glowers at the ceiling to stop from retorting.
“She kept your existence from me,” Varrick says in a softer tone, but it’s also clear he’s disgruntled with my mom. Could this really just be his revenge plot? Take us as assets from the people who deceived him?
Hailey stares at the purple bunny in her hands. Okay, what my mom did is not comparable to Hailey keeping her pregnancy a secret now. Hailey hasn’t lied for twenty-five years about a baby, and my mom only did that to protect us from Varrick.
Supposedly.
She did. He’s a murderer.
Jake and Oliver are good guys. Hailey will tell them eventually.
“Yeah,” I cut in snidely. “She did keep us from you. I wonder why that was.”
He opens his palms. “I don’t know what she told you, but I’m sure she felt she couldn’t trust me, even if I’d told her exactly what I planned to do and when I planned to do it. I never lied to Elizabeth. Unfortunately, that trust wasn’t reciprocal.”
Rocky leans forward. “Could that be because you planned to kill children?”
“You mean you and your two brothers,” Varrick says as easily as if we were discussing the stock market.
“I didn’t plan to kill Christian and Josephine’s kids.
The three of you weren’t supposed to be in the backseat when I ran your parents’ car off the road.
I only realized the kids were with them later.
Everett and Addison were tailing me, which—how do you think they were tailing me in the first place? ”
We’re trained not to fill in the blanks.
So no one says a thing.
He nods to himself, staring around at each of us. “They knew the plan to eliminate Christian and Josephine. They got cold feet. But you can thank them for pulling you out of the river, Brayden.” He locks eyes with Rocky.
I can’t believe Varrick is admitting, out loud, to murder.
He cups his hands together, elbows resting on his thighs while he slightly manspreads. “You can thank them for a lot. They taught you well.” He studies our postures, likely the same way we’re examining him.
Hailey blinks out of a stupor. “They were on vacation,” she says. “Christian and Josephine. They were leaving for a family trip. Of course they’d have their children in the backseat.”
The insinuation is clear.
He’s lying.
Varrick eyes her for an extra-long beat. “Correct.” He smiles at a thought. “You really are Addison’s daughter.”
“Not biologically.”
“But in every other way.” He speaks quickly, likely sensing Rocky about to interject. “Christian didn’t enjoy traveling in the car with his kids. He planned to have the nanny drive them separately. That was until she came down with the flu. Which I didn’t know at the time.”
It’s a convenient twist on the story our parents told.
Rocky sits backward, reaching an arm behind Trevor, who’s been staring Varrick down without blinking, like a real psycho.
At least he’s ours.
“Let’s say you’re being honest,” Rocky decrees. “You never planned to kill children. How does that change the fact that you premeditated the murder of Christian Wolfe?”
“And Josephine Wolfe,” I add.
“William Wolfe.” Hailey includes Rocky’s grandfather.
“Daphne Wolfe,” Nova says. Rocky’s aunt.
“Brent Wolfe,” Oliver finishes. Rocky’s uncle.
Varrick loosely threads his arms together. “It doesn’t change the fact. I did kill them.”
I’m flabbergasted. “Are you…?” Out of your fucking mind? I want to spit out, but I swallow the words and back down.