Chapter 24 #2
Caia goes on. “Grace eventually opened up to Mom about what Braxton was really like—told her about the scams Bellamy ran to make money. The scams he ran, the animals he hurt. This—of course—pissed Mom off, and she decided to tap into her connections with law enforcement, and the state, to start really investigating everything going on at Braxton. And she wasn’t subtle about it. ”
Her brother closes his eyes, and the beginnings of a wry smile tug at his lips. “Is she ever?”
Caia smiles through the piercing pain in her gut at the thought of her mother sitting behind that ancient mahogany desk, talking to the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety on a landline because she’s too stubborn and technophobic to use a cell phone.
She tries not to focus on the image of her mother’s determined face, the stern but melodic quality of her voice as she kindly orders the man at the helm of the state troopers to do her a favor.
Caia knows that phone call must’ve been no more than ten minutes, and she also knows Paul Freeman was on the other end of it scribbling down notes and nodding furiously, adamant that he’d send his best men to do the job.
And Caia definitely knows her mother probably followed up that statement with something along the lines of Maybe send your best women instead, Paul.
We tend to do things better. And faster.
“No,” Caia replies after the painful visual has receded. “She isn’t.”
“They did what she asked,” Crew supplies, reaching up to rub his thumb and forefinger over his brow, smoothing the worried creases. “They always do.”
“And that’s when Bellamy texted Grace,” Caia replies.
Crew swallows thickly. His eyes open to mere slits, and he stares downward as he nods. A grim, curt movement, like it hurts to confirm. His nostrils flare. “She lied.”
“She was scared,” Caia cuts in. “I think she lied because she didn’t want to be forced to leave the only place she’s ever felt safe.”
“And now?” Crew turns to look at her, his gaze pointed, unforgiving. “Mom could’ve died because Grace was too scared to tell us that Bellamy was a real threat. If she would’ve just been honest, we could’ve had the bastard locked up before he even had the thought to go after them in Victoria.”
Caia’s quiet for a moment, allowing him to suck the venom out of the bite in his heart, to get the blame and resentment off his chest. Her heart aches, knowing Crew had to come to terms with Grace’s confession at the same time as learning their parents were in the hospital.
“You have a right to be angry, Crew,” Caia says.
Crew scoffs, mirthless and bitter.
Caia leans forward and grasps his forearm tightly.
“I mean it. I’d be pissed, too. But you have to see what’s happening here.
Grace is going back to Braxton. She’s probably there by now.
” Crew’s face slackens slightly, and there’s a nearly imperceptible twitch under his left eye.
Caia doubles down, knowing he’s actually listening now.
“She’s going back—and not just because she thinks it’ll keep everyone safe, but because she thinks you don’t want her anymore.
After all of this. By getting angry and blaming her, you’ve reaffirmed every terrible thing she’s ever thought about herself: She isn’t good enough.
She doesn’t deserve to be at Halcyon. She’s a liar and scammer and her actions caused animals to die and people to get hurt.
She’s going back to Braxton because she thinks it’s where she belongs. ”
Crew is quiet for a long time, and Caia notices his eyes dart back and forth quickly, a motion she knows means he’s watching something unfold in his head.
“If she goes back to Braxton, he’s going to hurt her. Maybe worse,” Crew says.
He looks away, off to some unknowable place, tension building in his jaw. Caia stays quiet. Having grown up in the same house as him, she knows when it’s time to speak, to advise, and when it’s time to let him puzzle it out on his own.
His shoulders slump slightly as he continues.
“I don’t like that she kept things from us.
” Looking down at his hands, he stretches out his fingers, only to curl them back into fists.
“I don’t like that she didn’t trust me enough to tell me what was going on.
I thought—” Crew bites off the sentence, seeming to think better of it.
Then, in a defeated, breathy kind of voice, he says, “I want her to trust me. Even when the truth isn’t pretty. Especially then.”
A soft smile tugs at Caia’s lips at the admission.
At Crew confessing his true feelings and, for once, letting his heart win the never-ending battle against his head.
His legs are long enough that they’re bent on the outside of the table rather than under it, and when his knee starts to bounce, she knows his mind is made up.
But since he seems to be in a forthcoming mood, she can’t help but ask. “Do you love her?”
Crew’s knee ceases its restless movement.
His head falls forward slowly, his chin dipped toward his chest. It hangs as if in prayer, a reverent, instinctual kind of reaction to such a question.
The answer is one they both know, but she wants to hear it anyway.
It feels like the right time to say it out loud—like a period at the end of a very long, very complicated sentence.
The corner of Crew’s mouth quirks upward, and Caia’s own smile grows at the sight, at the stubborn line of his mouth helpless and defeated by the joy arising in him.
Amid all the terror, he can’t help but smile when he thinks of Grace.
“I didn’t know it was possible,” Crew says quietly, with an awed, slow shake of his head. “To love someone this much.”
With a single, resolute nod, Caia says, “Well, all right, then.”
Crew glances up at her, then tilts his head. He seems to be waiting for her to finish that statement, and Caia rolls her eyes, throwing her hands up.
Men.
“Go get her, you dumbass.”