Chapter 33
Unearthing the Past
The next morning, the suffocating weight from the night before splits open, replaced by a quiet, focused energy as everyone drifts into the dining area.
The kitchen feels thick and warm, smelling of the heavy breakfast Emily and Olivia have been putting together since the early hours.
While the food sits on the counter, the rest of the brothers are spread out across the room, hunched over their phones and laptops, running searches and cross-checking background data.
Between the steady tapping of keys, they keep the conversation fixed on Tessa, gently digging into her past to ask about the specific places she has visited with her mother when she is a child.
They want to know about any distant relatives her mother has been close with, or perhaps an old grandmother’s house where they used to hide out.
Tessa closes her eyes, trying to force her memory through the heavy fog of so many years, shifting between faded names and blurred details before finally shaking her head.
"I cannot completely remember," she admits, looking around at the expectant faces waiting for an answer.
"But I think my mother uses to visit a grandmother's house in Washington. Maybe. I'm just not entirely sure about the city."
Before anyone can press her for more details, the sharp creak of a door opening cuts through the kitchen chatter as Teajun walks out of his room, still holding his toothbrush, looking exhausted but completely sober.
He wipes his mouth, steps into the light of the dining area, and locks his eyes straight onto Tessa, his expression turning entirely serious.
"Hmm, there is another thing you should know," Teajun says, his voice rough and scraping against the quiet room.
"Your aunt... the one who keeps telling you she is going to Jersey City? She never actually goes there. The entire time, she is hiding out in California. Lucius and the rest of us do not tell you about it back then because your head is not in the right place. You are dealing with too much,
looking a bit unstable, so none of us wants to mess with your mind any further. But you need to know it today."
Tessa freezes, her fingers tightening against the dark edge of the table as the sudden lie drops like a physical blow in the small space.
"What?" she breathes out, the shock slamming into her chest as she struggles to align the betrayal with the past.
"My aunt... even the very last time we speak, she only tells me half the truth. She leaves out the most important part. She never once mentions that she skips Jersey City or New Jersey entirely."
Victor looks up from the far side of the table, nodding slowly as he gestures toward his screen.
"Exactly. That is why I pull all those records back then. The trail always points west, not east."
A sharp curse slips past Tessa’s lips as she mutters about her aunt, unable to believe how long she has been lied to.
Olivia and Emily exchange a quick look from the stove, stepping in to calm things down before the morning gets ruined.
"Okay, let's leave that alone for now and eat," Emily says softly, putting a warm plate on the table.
"And Teajun, go put a shirt on before you sit down."
Teajun mutters something back and turns around, his bare feet padding heavily down the long hallway toward his room.
As the rest of the men pull out their chairs, Emily leans over Victor’s shoulder and gives him a quick kiss on the cheek, a silent thanks for staying up late with the records.
Tessa watches them, but her eyes quickly snap to the mess of laptops and tablets scattering the dining table.
"First of all, clear this table," she tells them, stepping forward.
Without waiting for them to argue, she starts gathering the devices straight out of their hands, ignoring their small grunts of protest.
She carries the heavy pile across the room and stacks them neatly on the small tea table out of the way.
From his seat at the end, Lucius keeps his eyes locked on her, watching the quiet, protective way she takes charge of the room.
A wave of real happiness hits his chest, but his face does not move an inch, his old habits refusing to let him show what he is feeling.
Once the table is clear and breakfast is over, the men turn their attention straight back to the questions.
Tessa slumps in her chair, letting out a long, tired breath as she tries to pull up old details from her childhood.
"It is definitely Washington," she murmurs, looking out the window as the memories blur.
"It belongs to an uncle, or maybe my grandmother's place. But we only go there once or twice when I am a kid. I do not have my mother's old phone, I do not have a single address, and I have nothing left. How are we supposed to find anyone like this?"
A slow grin touches Alex’s lips from across the table as he catches the panic in her voice, leaning back with a short laugh that takes the edge off her worries.
"You do not need to stress your brain or carry that weight when you have us sitting right here," Alex says, his tone relaxed but full of absolute confidence.
"Finding people who do not want to be found are the only thing we actually know how to do perfectly."
Breakfast is over quickly, and they do not waste any time getting back to the screens.
They call up their hackers right away, giving them orders to pull up deep information on over a thousand people in that area.
They want everything—clear photos, where those people are living right now, and whose names are on the house deeds.
Since Alex handles big business laws and Lucius is a top criminal attorney, sorting through that massive pile of government data and tracking registries takes them no time at all.
But there is a bigger reason why this is so easy for them.
Lucius secretly controls a massive network of underground bases scattered all across the country.
He has kept those safe houses hidden from everyone for years, never wanting to reveal his full reach until it is absolutely necessary.
With that kind of power backing him up, finding one hidden family in a big city is not going to be a problem at all.
The men talk it over and make a quick plan.
They decide to go straight to the hacker base themselves to get all the papers, photos, and locations printed out.
That way, Tessa can sit down and look through them one by one until she finds her family.
Nobody cares how long it takes because time is not a problem for them.
Alex tells the crew to get the motorbikes ready for a quick ride.
He then pulls out his phone to call Kai, the hacker’s brother, and asks him where he is hanging out.
Kai just laughs over the phone and tells Alex to pick any spot.
"Let's meet at the restaurant," Alex says into the phone.
Kai laughs again on the other side. "Are we going to blast something today, sir? No problem, I am ready."
Lucius looks up from the table, his face completely calm because he already knows about the plan.
They are supposed to blast those small Italian mafia bases in Jersey and Brooklyn two days later, but Kai has already gone ahead and made the bombs early.
Lucius looks at his brother and nods. "So Kai has everything ready for those Italian bases in Jersey and Brooklyn?"
Alex shakes his head slightly, remembering the strategy they have mapped out earlier.
"Yes, but Teajun explicitly says we need to blast the base under the Jersey City restaurant first before we touch anything else."
Alex smiles and puts his phone away in his pocket.
"I am going to meet him at the restaurant now. You should take the others and go straight to the underground hacker base. Let Teajun stay back here to guard the house."
They do not waste any time. Within a few minutes, the loud noise of bike engines breaks the quiet morning.
Each man gets on a different fast bike. One jumps on a Yamaha R1, another starts a Kawasaki H2R, and someone else rides a Ducati Diavel.
Even Teajun leaves the house, revving his BMW S1000RR as he joins the others.
The brothers split up at the main gate to go to different places.
Lucius and Teajun ride side by side, heading straight to the hackers' underground base to print out the photos and papers for Tessa.
Victor has a different job to do, riding his bike back to Lucius’s old mansion to grab the files showing last month's court hearing dates and client names.
Meanwhile, Alex settles in for a long ride as he turns his bike toward the highway.
They are currently staying all the way out in Brooklyn, and Kai is waiting at the restaurant in Jersey City.
With the heavy morning traffic on the bridges, Alex knows it will take him at least an hour of fast riding just to reach the other side and check on the bombs.
Tessa stands by the window, watching the dust settle on the empty driveway as the sound of the engines fades into the distance.
The entire house is suddenly quiet, but she is not alone.
Emily and Olivia are still right there with her in the kitchen, clean-up starts after the breakfast.
But with the men now scattered so far across different cities, the three women are left on their own in the massive penthouse.
~