Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
EROS
Bonte sleeps soundly in my bed. Binx jumps next to her, cuddling close. He’s finally done with his room inspection, and I don’t think it’s up to code. I need more cat shit. I’ll see to ordering a few items. Not sure how long we’ll be here.
I didn’t expect her to fall asleep, but when she lay down on the bed, it was only a few minutes and her eyes had fallen closed, her breathing evening out. I’m sure today has been a lot for her. Especially after my mom dropped that bombshell about her being responsible for Bonte being in the hole.
I haven’t a clue what needs to be done about her father or, I’m sure, the FBI at this point.
If the bodies have been found, then they must think she’s missing.
I’m sure by now my father has done some of his own digging.
I want to stay here with her, but I also know there are things that need to be handled.
Not wanting to leave her to wake up alone, I scribble down a note and place it on the nightstand beside her.
“Keep an eye on her,” I tell Binx, who slow blinks at me. Bonte told me that’s a good thing when he does it.
I head downstairs to talk to my family. They may do crazy shit sometimes, but I know none of it is done with ill intent. Especially if my mom was involved. I might not love what she did, but I owe her an apology for how I spoke to her earlier. Doesn’t mean I’m still not pissed.
I should probably do that first before I go to see my father, knowing that’s going to be the first thing he asks.
I may be his son, but my mom is his world, and he does not tolerate any sort of disrespect toward her.
She could blow up the entire planet and he would go to bat for her.
I can’t blame him; I can now admit to feeling the exact same way when it comes to Bonte.
I take the back stairs that lead to the mudroom and kitchen.
My foot barely hits the bottom steps, and a hand wraps around my throat.
On instinct I do the same, my other hand grabbing his shoulder as my father does the same.
This isn’t the first time we’ve been in this predicament.
We have all trained together over the years.
Dad steps in, and I let him push me, my back coming flush to the wall. “You don’t talk to your mom that way.”
“I won’t if everyone keeps their hands off Bonte.”
“No one is going to touch your girl again. She apologized.” Dad's stare bores into me.
“I’ll talk to Mom.”
“Good.” Dad smirks, and I kick my foot out, grabbing his. He doesn’t release his hold, taking me down to the floor with him. “Nice break.” Dad chuckles, and we both release the other. “Getting too old for this shit.”
“What are you two doing?” Mom asks, hands on her hips, staring down at us. We both come to our feet.
“I shouldn’t have snapped at you,” I tell her.
“It’s okay, isn’t it?” Mom looks to Dad.
“Yes.”
Mom nods. “It’s what you’re supposed to do.” Mom is now full-on smiling, and so is Dad.
You always stand up for your girl. I suppose that is what they taught us by example.
Dad grabs my shoulder, pulling me in for a one-handed hug, which I return.
"Now you two go do whatever it is you need to do while I make dinner.
" Mom lets out a small huff. "Okay, while I oversee what we're having for dinner. I want it to be nice. We have guests."
"Guests?" I ask.
"Right, 'guests' is the wrong word, but I still want to make it extra nice." Mom's mouth turns down. "I didn't want to scare her any more than I already have. Not sure what I was thinking."
"You were thinking you'd never get Eros to willingly meet her, and that was a sure way to make it happen." Dad pulls Mom into his side.
That is true.
"Bonte will come around. She's on overload right now. She’s crashed out in bed."
"Bonte, that's her real name?" I nod at Mom's question. "You know, your father’s dad was a bit crazy too."
Dad had watched his father kill his mother. It's how he came to live with Mom's parents. They'd raised him as well.
"I think everyone in this family has some crazy in them," I mutter.
"Just saying." Mom shrugs. "I knew she'd fit with us. It was in her eyes."
"Are you saying she's crazy too?" I shake my head.
"Gosh, I hope so."
I crack a smile. My mom’s responses never cease to amaze me.
"Come on. Let's talk," Dad says before dropping a kiss onto Mom before we both head to his office.
"Where did Mac and Naomi go?"
"They're around, but I wanted to fill you in more on what's happening, or rather, what's not happening."
"What does that mean?"
Dad takes a seat behind his desk. “We’d already been digging into Blair.” He pauses. “Bonte?”
“I’m not sure which she prefers, but I’ll ask.” I’ve been calling her Bonte, and she seemed fine with it.
“All right, but I was digging before she was yours.” I nod in understanding.
It’s the way of things. When you get close to the family, you’re checked into.
Plus, all the other shit that had been happening around my brothers and Kinsley had them digging deeper.
“Once I heard you took off with her, I started checking the feeds in her building.”
He turns the screen partly so I can view it with him. “There is this strange gap of missing footage. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”
“I know a lot of things.”
“Isn’t that the fucking truth?” Dad chuckles.
Ever since I was a kid, I sucked up information.
It didn’t matter what it was. I read a shit ton.
“Here.” He pushes through the feed, and that’s when we see the man enter her condo.
He’s got a hood over his head, and you can’t make out who he is, but we all know it’s Bonte’s dad.
“How long was he in there?”
“Thirty minutes.” He speeds it up; only this time when Silas comes out of the condo, his hood is down, and he looks directly into the camera. You can see blood spattered across his face. Then he smirks before he takes the stairs down. “He wanted them to know he was there.”
“Did Mac or Naomi fill you in on anything about her relationship with her father?”
“No, I wanted to hear it from you.”
I tell him what Bonte shared with me.
“That makes a whole lot more fucking sense now.”
“Why?” I ask.
“First off, two agents showed up and went in and came back out. Then more showed, and the Feds appeared. I switched to the street camera, and I could see them coming and going. Quickly but discreetly. They removed the bodies, but there is no report or anything. It's as if it didn't happen."
"Shit," I mutter, my mind starting to spin with possibilities of why.
"Ronan went to check the place out for himself. That's how we got the message on the wall." Dad flicks to a picture. Where is she? is written across it. "I'm sure they'll be back to do cleanup, but bodies start to stink."
"Did Uncle Ronan find anything else there?"
"There were two messages."
"Show me." I want to see the other. He clicks over.
I'll paint this city in red until I find her
“I believe him,” Dad says, leaning back in his chair. “And I don’t think he has anything to lose if he doesn’t have a daughter.”
“I do too. Bonte speaks of him with love. He was very different toward her than the rest of the world. She got to see a side of him that I’m sure no one else ever has.”
“Does she know he killed her mother?”
“Fuck, Dad, that really hits close to home.”
“She wasn’t a good person.”
“And he’ll kill anyone that he deems a threat to her.
” Shit. I sink down into the chair in front of his desk.
“You think he’ll kill to draw her out?” I can’t send her out there alone.
That’s never fucking happening. The man might not mean harm to his daughter, but crazy is crazy, and you can’t predict that.
“Likely.” He nods.
“I still think we’re missing something. How long has he known where she is? Has he let her be because he considered her safe?”
“I’m wondering the same.”
“I want to know more about the people she was put with.”
“That won’t be easy.”
“When you go into WITSEC, how much do they wipe clean? Is it just the surface stuff or do they scrub everything? What if you have fingerprints in any systems or DNA? Do those things get wiped out?”
“Shit, I don’t know. What are you thinking?”
“That we need to go back before they scrub that place and lift prints and DNA. Even if it’s gone from the databases, there is so much of the ancestry DNA. I’m sure we could backtrack.”
"He could be watching the place."
"So?" I shrug. "I'm sure he already knows we have her."
"What if he sees her out with you and happy?"
"I'm not using her as bait. Besides, he doesn't like that shit," I remind him. More than a few agents ended up dead that way.
"But you're not trying to lure him out to kill him, are you?"
"I hammered a nail into the Chief of Police's hand because he wasn't keeping his house in order. If Bonte’s dad sticks to our city, he'll keep killing."
Dad leans forward. "Are you saying you're going to kill her father?"
"Are you saying you're not?" I toss it back at him because I know that's already in his head.
"If he takes his ass to the other side of the country, I don't give a shit what he does."
"I don't think he's taking orders, Dad." I rub my skull, not sure how to handle her father. "I'm not getting thirty steps ahead. I still think something is up with the agents. I want to dig there."
"You're going back to her place?"
"Yes."
"All right, but you'll take Jax with you, and I'll be watching."
"Aren't you always?" I ask, standing.
"For now." He smirks. "I'm not done with you kids yet."
I give him a nod. The comment would have pissed me off a month ago. I'm more than capable of handling myself, but everyone still worries about my temper. I haven't lost it in a long time, but if anything could push me over into that red haze of madness that takes ahold, it would be linked to Bonte.
Before we head out, I check on my girl, who is still soundly sleeping. I leave her another note along with a tray of snacks and drinks. I don’t want her to wake up and feel obligated to leave the bedroom alone. I don’t know how pissed she might still be with Damon and Kinsley.
When I make it back downstairs and to the west garage, Jax and Damon are already there.
“We good?” Damon asks.
“You got a thing for Blair?” I ask him. It’s a stupid question, but fuck. I can’t help my jealousy. I’m not used to this shit, and it’s messing with my head. At the cabin, we were all alone, and I didn’t have to think about anything else.
“Are you fucking for real?” Jax asks. He and Damon are closer obviously than the two of us. They even play football together, a sport my mom pushed them into. She never tried that shit with me, but I’m starting to see Mom knows best before we often do.
"You think if I had a girl, which I don't, and don't push that shit onto me. But if I did, would I let her go off to a cabin with anyone?"
"Not much you could have done to stop me."
"All right." Jax steps between us. "Stop fucking with him. We don't need Thanatos to come out and play." Damon takes a step back.
"I don't have a thing for her. She's cool and all, but I was using her." I lunge for him. Jax grabs hold of me. Jax is as tall as I am, but I'm broader and built more like Damon. "Let me finish."
"Breathe, bro." Jax pushes at my chest, so I take a step back.
"We shared information. I got her to keep an eye on Kinsley so I could feed Jax information and he wouldn't lose his mind, and I would give her random information she could use for an article for the school blog, newspaper, or whatever the fuck you call it."
"All right."
"But know I gave her information for stories, but she never did anything. I was starting to think she wanted to be close to the Marino name. Why? Not a fucking clue, but that's what I know."
"You think she's up to something?" I ask him.
"Don't know."
"She's not."
"Can we get on the road?" Jax inserts himself again. He's always been the peacemaker. Often more levelheaded than all of us. Damon is the devil in the details. Pays attention to everything. "Because it doesn't matter if she was up to anything."
"Correct."
If she was, that was in the past. Either way, Bonte is staying mine no matter what I have to do to make everyone understand that. Including her.