Chapter Thirty-Eight
Frankie
T he moment Theo shuts the door behind us, I know something’s off.
The thing is, Theo’s never quiet. He’s the guy who hums when he walks, who whistles when he’s nervous, who once narrated my entire breakfast routine in a David Attenborough voice just to see if he could make me spit coffee. He's chaos wrapped in charm, noise bundled up in a hoodie; but now, he’s stone .
No humming. No smirk.
Not even an off-color joke to cut the tension.
“Theo?”
He doesn’t answer, and my chest tightens as I watch him head to the kitchen table and pull out a chair for me.
“Okay,” I say slowly, sitting down. “This feels… ominous . Are we about to file joint taxes or hide a body? Because I didn’t emotionally stretch for either.”
He doesn’t smile. Not even a flicker.
Shit.
Theo sits across from me, and it hits me how still he is, how serious . I’ve only seen him like this once before—when Jax took that shoulder to the ribs and couldn’t get up for a full minute—but this feels so much worse.
“I didn’t want to do this today,” he says finally. “Not when we’re still on such a high. But… I can’t sit on it.”
“Sit on what ?”
I watch as he pulls a folded piece of paper from the front pocket of his hoodie. “I got the report back,” he says quietly.
My blood goes cold. “You mean… the IP stuff? From the comments?”
He nods.
“So you found something?”
Another nod. Slower this time—like it weighs something.
“That’s… I mean, that’s great, right?” I say too quickly, my voice pitching up. “You’ve done exactly what you promised, and you—we—I…”
I trail off. The words run out, and my brain stutters.
Because I can’t figure out why he’s not smiling.
This is what he’s been chasing for weeks; months, even. Proof. A lead, a name, an answer. He should be smug right now. He should be rubbing his hands together and saying told you I could crack it, sweetheart .
But he’s not.
I try to laugh, but it catches halfway up my throat. “Okay, you’re freaking me out. Theo. Say something. Just—say anything .”
He finally looks at me, and it’s not relief I see in his eyes. It’s something so unfamiliar from him, something so strange.
It’s sadness . Tight and reluctant and soft in a way that makes it worse.
“Is it Marcus? Denton Vale?” I ask, voice cracking.
“No,” he says, his voice quiet; and my brain just… stops .
“ What ?”
“It wasn’t them. The comments, the troll accounts, it’s… It’s not them.”
“But… all of it lined up,” I say, hearing the desperation in my own voice. “The timing, the escalation, the match tension, the rivalry, Marcus freaking exists —”
“I know,” Theo cuts in gently. “And I was so sure of it. We all were.”
“If it’s not them, then who ?”
He doesn’t answer right away—just nudges the paper closer.
My eyes roam over it greedily as I take it from his hands. It’s a basic report; all clean formatting and black text on white paper. No bells, no whistles: just data.
Half of it means nothing at all to me. There’s lots of timestamps, usernames and emails, and then, halfway down the page—
Originating IP: 86.144.7.228 Location: Burnby Lane, Oakford Device: Laptop, Residential Registered Account: C. March
My stomach turns to ice.
No . No, no, no .
I know that address. I know that street. I used to write it at the top of school forms, practiced it in cursive when I was seven, just in case I got lost and someone needed to call her.
Burnby Lane. Oakford.
Home .
I blink hard. The letters blur, the words smear, and my brain flails, desperate to stitch this into something that makes sense—but it doesn’t.
“No,” I breathe. Theo watches me as I shake my head. “This—this has to be a mistake. Maybe—maybe someone spoofed the location. Maybe it’s a neighbor. Maybe the Wi-Fi is unsecured—”
“It’s not.”
I shake my head. “You don’t know that.”
“I do.” His voice is calm. Devastating. “We checked it. They’d already checked countless times before I got wind of it, and then I checked it three times myself. That’s… that’s the originating IP, Frankie. That’s the router. Same time stamps, same machine. Same house.”
I can’t breathe.
“How could she—why would she—?” I choke on the words. “It doesn’t make any sense .”
“I don’t know,” Theo says, and it’s the worst part—that he’s not defending her. That there’s nothing to defend.
He sighs and rubs the back of his neck. “Some of the posts came from a secondary email. I’m pretty sure it’s Nigel’s.”
The name makes my skin crawl.
“Oh my god ,” I whisper, and then louder, sharper: “Are you kidding me?!”
He winces. “The rest were burner accounts. But Frankie, I’m telling you—all of them came from that house. From your mom’s Wi-Fi.”
My whole body locks.
This is the woman who made my lunches and reminded me to wear sunblock and told me not to believe everything I read online. This is the woman who cried when I left home and said she was just worried I’d get hurt.
And now she’s the one who’s been handing out knives?
“No,” I whisper again, but it’s not denial this time.
It’s the start of something breaking.
“Was it her?” My voice is barely audible. “Or him?”
“Most likely?” Theo says. “Both.”
Something inside me splinters.
The comments, the cruel jokes, the DM requests pretending to be advice, but really just tearing me down. Every moment of doubt, every inch of shame I’d been trying to shake off for weeks.
It wasn’t strangers. It wasn’t even Denton Vale.
It was her .
“All this time…” My voice barely makes it past my throat. “Every horrible thing I read—every insult, every doubt—it came from my own mother ?”
I can’t tell if I’m going to cry or throw up.
“I thought it was strangers,” I go on, too fast now, voice climbing. “I thought it was trolls and jealous girls and Denton Vale and that idiot Marcus with his banana-peel morals and weirdly smug face—”
My breath hitches.
“I trusted her,” I choke. “To not like it, maybe. To not get it. But I didn’t think—my god , I didn’t think she’d sabotage it. That she’d sabotage me .”
“Frankie—”
I push back from the chair too fast, and it screeches.
“I just—I need to—I can’t—”
My whole body feels too tight for my skin. My brain is doing laps, my throat is on fire, my heart’s beating so fast it hurts; and he’s just there .
Not rushing me, not pushing me, but waiting.
The first tear slides down before I even notice it’s coming.
“I don’t get it,” I whisper. “What more does she want from me?”
Theo moves; pushing his own chair back swiftly before crossing the room and pulling me into him.
“She hates me, ” I say, my voice cracking as he holds me close.
“No,” Theo says, gently. “She doesn’t hate you, Frankie.”
And I break.
“I went to college,” I sob into his chest. “I got my degree, I’ve got a job, I’m not sleeping on anyone’s couch, I’m not asking her for money, I’m not dropping out or screwing around—”
“I know,” he murmurs, voice soft in my hair.
“I’m bonded. I’m happy. I’m settled . And she still thinks I’m embarrassing. She still thinks I’m less than—she still— god , when is it ever going to be enough ?!”
“You don’t have to be enough for anyone,” he says, his arms tightening around me. “You already are . For you. That’s what matters.”
I press my face harder against his chest, and I feel him shift slightly so we sway—barely, but enough that it anchors me. His heartbeat, strong and steady. His warmth. The hand that strokes slow and sure along my spine.
And I know, even if I can’t say it yet, that he gets it. That part of him—the part he keeps hidden behind jokes and smiles and that flirty, golden bravado—knows exactly what it feels like to be the disappointment. To never be enough for the person who’s supposed to love you most.
He doesn’t say it, but he doesn’t have to. I feel it in every touch, every quiet breath.
Eventually, I calm. Eventually, I breathe again.
And eventually, I say it.
“I have to deal with this.”
Theo pulls back just enough to look at me, his thumb brushing under my eye.
“Yeah,” he says. “But not tonight.”
I nod.
He’s right. Tomorrow, I’ll burn it down. But for now—I let him hold me.
*
We’re still like that—Theo’s arms tight around my shoulders, my face buried in his chest—when footsteps creak through the living room.
A groggy voice calls, “Frankie?”
Theo looks up, his chin resting lightly on top of my head as the kitchen door swings open, and Rory steps inside. His hair’s a mess, his shirt is rumpled, and his sweatpants sit awkwardly low on his hips. He squints in the half-light, still sleep-drunk, blinking at the scene in front of him.
“What’s going on?” he asks, his voice scratchy.
Theo doesn’t answer. He just reaches across the table and hands him the sheet of paper.
Rory reads it, and I feel it: that sharp spike of shock through the bond. It cuts down the middle of his usually steady presence like a splinter in something solid. His jaw tightens, and his chest rises and falls harshly.
“Shit,” he mutters, low and shaken. “Frankie, I—I’m so sorry.”
I lift my face, cheeks damp, eyes stinging. My smile wobbles. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not.” He crosses the room in two strides and crouches, both hands resting gently on my arms. “You didn’t deserve this. Not one word of it.”
I nod. “I know. It just… hurts.”
The bond with Rory shifts—wraps around me tight, like the steady pressure of a hand at my back. He’s grounding me, holding me there.
“Yeah,” he says, softer now. “I’d be breaking shit if I were you.”
“She still might,” Theo mutters.
I let out a weak laugh, and Rory squeezes my arm gently. His thumb rubs once, and the emotion beneath his bond pulses—quiet, but steady.
“You don’t have to go through this alone,” he says.
The back door creaks open before I can answer, and Finn peeks his head in.
“Hey, uh… why’s everyone in the kitchen?” he asks. “Did someone start baking without me or—”
He sees my face. Theo. Rory. The paper in Rory’s hand.
“ Oh .”
He stops just inside the threshold, eyes scanning each of us.
“What happened?”
Jax follows behind him, silent and unreadable as always; but through the bond, I feel it—his sharp, immediate focus.
It’s already kicked in. He knows.
Theo releases his hold on me and passes Finn the same sheet as Jax moves beside me wordlessly, his hand brushing mine. His gaze flickers to my face, scanning and measuring, and I can feel it through the bond—the way he’s trying to figure it out.
“Is it Denton?” Finn asks, eyes scanning the page.
“No,” Theo says.
Jax doesn’t even need the paper. His jaw sets just as Finn reads the address line and exhales.
“Oh, Frankie,” he says softly.
I swallow thickly, my cheeks flushing pink. “Yeah.”
“Your mom ?” Finn whispers. “And… fucking Nigel ?”
I don’t answer. I don’t need to.
He crosses the space in two steps and slides behind me, arms wrapping around my waist from behind like he’s trying to hold me together with muscle and cinnamon and steady devotion. His bond sings through my skin—warm and protective, pulsing reassurance into every aching nerve. Meanwhile, Jax doesn’t speak, but his hand slides into mine; his presence is cool and solid and certain. But what hits me hardest is what I feel from him through the bond.
Not just rage, not just protectiveness; but grief. Quiet and controlled and aching on my behalf.
And then they’re all there; our whole ridiculous, impossible, perfect pack. And the bonds—they hum . With fury. With comfort.
With love .
And for the first time all day, I don’t feel overwhelmed, and I don’t feel ashamed—I just feel held.
We stay there like that for a long time. Nobody rushes me or tells me what to do, and nobody tries to fix it, either.
They just let me be.
And maybe comfort isn’t always words. Maybe it’s presence, pressure. A pack at your back, solid and unwavering in their support.
Right now, it’s everything I need.