Chapter 29 Sawyer
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
SAWYER
He leaves us alone in this room and everything I want to say balls in my throat. I don’t know what to do. I want to hate him. I want to scream. I want to hurt him even a little bit the way I’m hurting.
Instead I look at our sister. “Is she okay?”
“They gave her some sort of sleeping medication. She’ll be fine. Koda and Tagar are taking her back home tonight.” I nod, looking away. “Sawyer—”
I shake my head. Whatever he wants to say I can’t deal with it.
“I don’t want to hear it.” I scrub my fingers through my hair.
I can’t fucking believe this. What am I going to tell Jane?
We have a sister. And a brother. Holy shit.
We have siblings. While we wait for Kenji, every single thing that has happened these last few months plays like a reel in my mind.
“I can’t believe you lied to me. After everything.”
I refuse to look at him, but I feel him looking back at me.
We’re going to die here and it’s all my fault.
All because I let this asshole into my life.
Part of me wonders if Ivan would have found me anyway.
It hits me then. “Fuck.”
“What?”
I want to glare at him. Just his voice sends shocks of pain to my system. I’ve had heartbreak before, but this is . . . I don’t even know. It’s a pain so sharp it’s stealing my breath.
“The obituary.” I say. “That’s probably why didn’t want an obituary. Jane used a picture and everything.” Something my mother never did. She went by her nickname and never used her last name. It makes sense. The only thing that makes sense.
It’s why she was so adamant about not having one. It was almost to the point of angry determination until I finally agreed. I’d thought she was feeling unwell, but no. She was terrified.
Even dying she wanted to protect us.
The last few months she was alive things changed.
She became more paranoid. I thought it was because of how ill she got, but she was afraid.
Afraid, yet she never told us. Maybe she didn’t think Ivan would find us.
How would he? We’re adults. How would he even know.
Still, why not tell us? She had to have known this was a possibility.
Or maybe not.
My head hurts.
Then it all flashes before my eyes. Truly, it all hits me. Flashes of understanding like a reel in my mind.
In high school, we weren’t allowed on field trips.
In college, when our restaurant was set on fire, my mother was frantic with terror. She expected the person who did it to come for our home.
No. She thought they’d come for us.
She kept to herself. Didn’t go anywhere. Her restaurant was her life because it brought people to her, since she was afraid to leave those walls.
It was him. It was all him.
She expected him to find her and their children.
Her own personal boogeyman.
My mother loved people, loved to feed them. She never left her home for longer than she needed to, had most things delivered to us. Her restaurant was her sanctuary, the place she could socialize and be a little bit of the person she wanted to be.
She got pregnant with me. Took his daughter, stole that statue for some reason, and started a new life away from him. I thought she was reclusive and paranoid.
I’d been so stupid.
“My mother was afraid of him.” I can’t believe this. “All my life I thought she was overprotective. She was hiding us from him.” I swallow. “She was hiding me from him.”
What would have happened if she hadn’t run? Would I have ended up like Koda? Aiden? Stuck in a life of violence. Forced to serve a hateful man. What would have happened to Jane? Would she have been used as leverage like Katya?
“I’m sorry,” he says softly.
I know he is, and that . . . I don’t know. It’s breaking my heart even more. I don’t know what’s real or not. I don’t understand any of this. Is he really sorry, or is it just more lies. He could have told me, right? He could have let me in.
Instead, he kept it a secret. He lied to me.
To save his sister.
No. Our sister.
A door opens, distracting me from this spiral I’m falling down, and Kenji walks back in with Koda. I look at him. He looks a little uneasy.
There have been rumors here and there about Kenji Morozov. His family owns a nightclub a couple of hours from here. It’s all rumors, but the man in front of us is nothing but real and scary, despite how young he looks.
My eyes slide to Koda.
“I’m going to talk, and you two are going to listen.”
I try to focus, but all I can see is Ivan on the floor. Bleeding. He barely moved. He did that without a thought.
Now we may be next.
Aiden hugs Katya tighter. I want to be angry, but when I look at him, I just feel pity. He’s hugging her as if she’s going to float away from him. I’m still unclear what’s going on, but there’s one thing I know for sure and that’s Aiden will do anything to save his sister.
I think about Jane and the lengths I’d go to for her.
We’re so close in age, it never felt like she was older than me. I’d do anything to protect her. I have done everything to protect her.
It just really sucks that Aiden chose to lie to me.
“She’ll be fine,” he says to Aiden. “The drug should wear off soon.”
“I’m going to take her tonight. I’ll watch her here,” Koda says softly.
Kenji sits down at his desk then rests his hand on the elephant. “That’s my mother’s,” I say, and Kenji’s eyes harden on me.
“No. It was my mother’s.”
“What?” Aiden asks.
“Ivan used to work for us. He stole it.”
“How much is it worth?”
Kenji shrugs. “It’s priceless, and worthless.
It was a present from my father the night they got married.
Ivan stole it from my mother. I don’t even think he knew how much it meant to her.
She’s gone now. When Koda came to me and told me what was going on and what Ivan was looking for, I knew I had to step in and take it back. I’ve looked for years.
“Fantastic, you have your weird-ass sculpture. Can we go?” Aiden snaps.
Kenji’s hard eyes land on Aiden who seems to shrink back. “It’s a safe, not a sculpture,” he says.
“That’s what Ivan said. It’s a safe.” I look at Aiden then pull my attention back to Kenji.
Kenji smirks. “Ivan didn’t want the elephant.
He wants what’s inside. My mother used to tell him it was worth a lot of money.
I think he found out it was worthless. He went to all the trouble to take it, if he returned it.
My father would have gut him alive. So he probably kept it hidden.
It’s a great hiding spot. Koda told me what he was really after.
” Kenji presses something in the back before a mechanism whirls and the back pops open.
He pulls a photo from inside. “This I think belongs to you.” He hands it over to me.
I take the photo in my hand, my fingers shake. It’s a photo of my mother on the lap of that hateful man, a baby in her arms. “That’s Jane.” I smile when I see my mother’s face. My eyes prick with heat. I blink fast. “That’s my mom.” I swallow.
She looks so unhappy. Nothing like the woman that raised me. She looks so lost. How did she escape him?
“This is what that useless sack of meat wanted.” I look up and see a necklace in Kenji’s hands as he inspects it. “I don’t know where he got it or who he stole it from.”
“Why did she take the elephant?” My mother was careful. Why would she do something so reckless?
Kenji shrugs. “I’m not sure, but if Ivan hid this inside, I can imagine he never let it out of his sight.
Maybe it was her final act of defiance. Stealing something she thought he loved.
I don’t think she knew the necklace was inside.
” Probably not. We didn’t grow up poor, but having that necklace would have solved a lot of financial problems.
It could have gotten her better care. We may have been able to keep her old restaurant.
He leans over and hands it to me. “What?”
“It’s yours.” He smiles. “I just wanted the elephant back.”
“I don’t want it.”
“You might not want it, but . . .” He looks at Katya. “She can’t stay here. That necklace is worth a lot of money. Sell it.”
Uneasy, I take the necklace from him. Confusion hits Aiden’s face. “Where are you taking her?”
“I’m not sure yet,” he says. “You live in a car, so you’re in no shape to care for her yet.”
“You live in your car?”
“I wanted to save as much money as I could.” He swallows, not looking at me.
His hand keeps rubbing along Katya’s spine.
It’s like he’s afraid to let her go. “I was planning on leaving with her.” His eyes sneak up to Koda’s.
“I was going to escape. Ivan promised to pay me for this job if I stole the statue. He obviously wanted the necklace,” he says softly.
I feel that little tug in my chest and shut it down fast reminding myself that he hurt me. He lied to me.
“We’re giving you all a couple of weeks to figure out who’s taking her. We’ll be here until then, but we need to go back home.” Kenji looks at Koda.
“We?” Aiden looks at his brother. No, not his. My brother.
“I’m going with him,” Koda says.
That makes Aiden glare. “Are you insane?”
“Kinda.” Koda grins like the devil. “I’ve been working with him for months. When we moved back, I had Tagar set up a meeting between us. You’re not the only one who wanted to escape.” He looks at Katya. I really hope the drug wears off soon. I can’t stop looking at her.
When she came to the bakery she reminded me of Jane, and it’s now I see some resemblance. I’ve always wondered who my father was, but I could never even have begun to think it was someone like Ivan.
“I’m staying at The Charm Box with them,” Koda says.
“Don’t worry.” Kenji smiles. “I take care of my people, and Koda is a great asset. My best friend Lukas has already adopted him.”
“I’m going to be eighteen in two months. He can’t adopt me!” Koda glowers.
Kenji smiles. “Go get your friends and get out of my house. Two weeks. She’ll stay with Koda here until then.” Koda takes Katya from Aiden’s reluctant arms.
His bodyguard opens the door and I get up slowly, not waiting for Aiden, and walk down the hall. “In there,” the guard says.
I walk into the giant office and what the hell?
All eyes swing to me. “Um.”
“Hey, Sawyer! Doesn’t he look handsome?” I hear Aiden snort behind me.
“I’m telling you all the guys are going swarm you.
Watch out.” Noah pushes Tagar’s hair back a little.
“If you give me time, I can bedazzle an eyepatch. Oh! Brianna, one of my very best friends, is a seamstress. Talented beyond belief. I’ll talk to her. ”
“I’m straight.” He glowers.
Noah looks at him cupping his cheek. “Oh, sweetie.” He pats his head.
“Noah, they’re letting us out.” The guard behind me goes around unlocking our handcuffs.
“Why wasn’t he handcuffed before?”
Tagar glowers. “Because he kept unlocking the handcuffs.”
“I’m telling you, take notes from Jamie. I’ve trained him really well.”
“Noah.” Jamie rubs his wrists when they’re cut free. “Let’s go home.”
“Oh, really?!” He pouts. “But I’m having fun. We were going to set up a book club.”
“They’re leaving in two weeks, Noah,” I say.
“What? Okay, before we leave, I need everyone’s numbers. We’ll do this over the phone, but it is happening. Oh! Sawyer, what about a mafia book-club night at your bakery?”
I never want to see any of these people ever again as long as I live.
“Noah.” Jamie lifts Noah’s hands up, now bound with ties. “Why are your ziptied now!?”
“I was teaching Tiger.”
“Tagar,” the large man says.
“Showing him how to properly tie a knot.” Jamie shakes his head, trying to get it free with no luck. “You tied it too tight.”
Noah looks back at Tagar and winks. “See. What did I tell you?”
“Let me.” Devlin shoves Jamie out of the way, stepping between Noah’s thighs as he sits on the desk. Slowly he unties his binds, looking into his eyes the entire time. “Has anyone ever told you how gorgeous your eyes are?”
“Jamie does all the time.”
“So, nobody important.”
“Okay, enough.” Jamie tries to shove Devlin away, but the large man doesn’t move. It’s a little embarrassing. “Come on, Noah.”
Noah pushes Devlin away, hopping down off the desk. “Is everything okay?” he asks me. “You’re not hurt, right?”
“Yeah, everything’s fine. The statue was a safe. Everyone’s safe.” Oh, and I have a necklace worth who fucking knows how much sitting in my pocket, and on top of that, I’m in love with a man who broke my heart into pieces. “I’m fine.”
Noah gives my arm a squeeze. “Let’s go home.”