Chapter 18 Xave
XAVE
“Still want to go into town and cause some chaos later?” Jace asks, spinning his desk chair in a slow arc with his feet.
“I’m not sure they’re ready for more chaos after last time,” I tell him. “And I’m pretty sure Carter will lose his shit if he has to spend the night covering for your shenanigans again.”
He gives me a smirky grin. “I’m just trying to give him stuff to do. You know how destructive he gets when he’s bored.”
I huff out a laugh. “Yeah, but unlike some people”—I give him a pointed look—“Carter only destroys math equations and codes, and the odd gadget he decides to pull apart, when he gets bored. It’s not like he leaves a trail of mayhem in his wake like someone else I know.”
Jace gives me a look that’s all wide-eyed innocence. “Are you saying I leave a trail of mayhem everywhere I go, and therefore I’m the one who needs to be kept distracted?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I said.”
He makes a harrumph sound. “Oh, ye of little faith.”
“More like ye of twenty-one years of experience being your cousin.”
He grins, all traces of his confusion and fake innocence gone. “Yeah, that would do it.”
We fall silent for a few beats.
“So are you here to babysit me since my brother has decided he’d rather spend all his time with Myles, but still feels the need to act like my keeper?” Jace asks, his tone deceptively casual despite his pointed words.
“I’m not here to babysit you,” I tell him, but I understand why he asked.
I haven’t been spending much time with any of my cousins lately, and while that’s not unusual for us, now isn’t the best time for me to be absent.
Jace doesn’t do well with idle time, and he’s not used to dealing with things alone. He needs Jax to balance him, the same as Jax needs Jace to help keep him in line, but Jax hasn’t been around either. And Jax has been lying to him.
It’s obvious something is going on between him and Myles, and that whatever it is goes deeper than just hooking up, but the few times Jace has asked him about it, Jax denied it.
And the twins don’t hide stuff from each other, ever.
So between Jax never being around and his lying about what’s going on, Jace has been on edge.
And that’s when he’s the most dangerous.
Usually Killian and I would step in and make sure Jace doesn’t go off the rails, but Killian and Felix have their thing going on, and I’ve been spending most of my time watching—and fucking—Damon, so Jace has been left alone.
Although I’m pretty sure he has something going on too, considering the random fights he’s been getting into. It’s not unusual for Jace to fight, but hiding who he’s fighting with isn’t like him. Neither is how evasive and defensive he gets when any of us even broach the subject.
Seems like we’ve all got shit we’re keeping to ourselves.
Thankfully Jace has kept the chaos and mayhem to a minimum so far, but there’s only so long that will last before he acts out and or gives in to his true nature. And I’m the one who’ll have to answer for it when it does eventually happen.
He gives me a long look, his gaze so intense I have to resist the urge to squirm under his scrutiny. “Are you going to keep lying to me like my brother is? Or are you going to tell me the truth about what’s going on between you and Damon?”
I study him for a few beats. There’s a chance he’s bluffing and is just trying to bait me into confirming his suspicions, but with how volatile he is right now, it’s better if I don’t risk it and just come clean.
We might be family, but that doesn’t mean Jace won’t hesitate to fuck me up if he thinks I’ve betrayed him. And I’m not too proud to admit that both Jace and Jax could end me before I’ve even worked up a sweat defending myself.
“How did you figure it out?” I ask.
The corner of his mouth tips up in a dark smirk. “I know you, and I know when you’re hiding shit from me.” He points to his computer behind him. “And I have access to all the security cams on campus.”
I can actually feel the color draining from my face. “You’ve seen us on the cams?”
His smirk deepens. “Yup. And because I’m the awesome person that I am, I scrubbed the videos.
Gotta say, cousin, it’s not like you to be so careless.
” He raises his hands in a gesture of mock surrender.
“I’m not judging. I’d be all over that if I had someone like him offering what he is and doing what you’re doing, but you’re thinking with your dick and leaving evidence behind, and that’s not like you.
” He tilts his head to the side, his look intense.
“Now, are you going to tell me what’s going on, or are you going to keep lying to me? ”
“I’m not really sure what’s going on,” I tell him truthfully. “But it stopped being a job a while ago.”
“Are you still actually on the job?” he asks pointedly.
I shake my head. “Not for the past week. I gave Jordan my report the day after you told me what you found. I have no clue if they’ve connected Damon to the files, but Jordan seems okay with him being friends with Eden, for now, at least.”
“You know this is messy as hell, right?” Jace asks. “I don’t give a fuck if you’re just boner bros or if you’re a thing, but he’s a Keeper. You know that’s a giant complication wrapped up in a problem.”
He isn’t wrong. There are no official rules about dating or banging guys in other frats, but that’s mostly because the rules were written in a time when people did that sort of thing on the DL and no one talked about the fact that queer men exist. The “don’t fuck around with our rivals” rule is unspoken, and as far as I know, no one has ever been caught breaking it.
I have no idea what the consequences would be if anyone found out about Damon and me, but I imagine they wouldn’t be great for either of us.
“I know,” I say quietly. “And I’ve been trying to end things for the past week, but I just can’t.”
Jace purses his lips, his eyes piercing as he studies me like he’s trying to read my mind or see into my soul.
“There’s more to this than just getting your rocks off and fucking around,” he says, his gaze boring into mine.
“Are you going to tell me, or am I going to have to figure it out on my own?”
Letting Jace find out on his own is the worst-case scenario. I might as well tell him everything. “Something happened at the rave.”
He makes a “go on” motion with his hand.
Being as concise as possible without leaving anything out, I tell him everything, including what happened when we went into the smash room together, and how I went to Carter to get answers instead of him.
He doesn’t interrupt, and instead of being pissed I lied to him, he keeps studying me when I finish talking.
“What?” I prompt after a solid thirty seconds of him staring at me like I’m some sort of science experiment..
“You’re a bigger dumbass than I thought,” he says bluntly.
“Care to elaborate on that?” I ask when he doesn’t say anything more.
“Your boy was kidnapped from a rave and held for ransom. I get why you didn’t tell us about that and why you thought it wasn’t a big deal after the evidence Carter found for you.
But you didn’t think that maybe something might be up when he almost got offed here on campus a few weeks later?
Two attempts on his life in two completely different locations in less than three weeks seems pretty sus to me. ”
“I obviously considered it,” I tell him, barely managing not to snap at him. “But it’s not like we ever found a motive for why that guy attacked him, or even who it was.”
Jace stares at me in disbelief. “Did you not look at the drive I gave you?”
“I looked at it.”
“And you didn’t see the part where I found out who attacked him?” he asks incredulously.
Wait, what? He found Damon’s attacker?
“By the look on your face, I’m gonna assume that’s a no.” Jace rolls his eyes and spins around in his chair. “Get your ass over here, and I’ll show you.”
He already has what looks like a personnel file open when I wheel Jax’s desk chair over and sit next to him.
“This is your man.” He points to the screen. “Jeremy Reynolds. He was a steward at King House.”
The first thing that jumps out at me is that there isn’t a lot of information in the file.
His name and all of his personal info, like his birthday and height and weight and the like, are on it, but most of the other sections are blank, including his employment dates and any other information other than his job title.
His photo is of a generic white guy in his late twenties with brown hair and dark eyes, but there’s something about it that triggers my uncanny valley instincts. Something is off, but I can’t place what it is.
“Am I the only one whose Spidey sense is going off looking at this guy?” I ask.
“Nope.” Jace zooms in on the photo. “Check the top left corner.”
“What the fuck?” I mutter, leaning closer to the screen.
Just around the edges of the top left corner of the photo is a line of blurred pixels, and they’re the only ones on the entire photo that aren’t sharp and clear. “Why do they look like that?”
Jace taps a few keys, and the image shifts as it changes slightly. Then he brings up the original photo and puts it beside the new one.
The differences are small, and unless someone took their time comparing both photos, it would be easy to mistake them as being the same image. Kind of like how some fraternal twins can look eerily alike while still being distinctly different from each other.