Chapter 35 Scarlett
scarlett
“Why does he think his dad pulled him out of the car?” I ask, my voice shaking like a leaf. A waiting room full of worried faces turns towards me. “You pulled him out, right?” I press, eyes locking on Miller's.
When he looks up, my stomach bottoms out. Something in his gaze, haunted and full of pain, pain I’ve seen in the eyes of the man in the hospital bed a thousand times before, steals the breath from my lungs.
“Your eyes,” I whisper, my head tilting to the side. “Why are your eyes blue?”
He exhales forcefully through his nose, and his trembling hands push through his hair. “I had to hide, Scarlett.” His voice splinters. “I had to keep them safe.”
“W-what?” I feel the color drain from my face, leaving my skin clammy. The room tilts, but someone catches me before I hit the floor.
Miller guides me gently to the chair he was sitting in. Then he turns to face the firing squad of Lucas’s teammates. “I failed his mom,” he says, voice low but steady. “I couldn’t fail him, too. I had to save him. He’s lost too much.”
“That doesn’t answer why your eyes are blue.”
He sighs, head hanging heavy in front of him, before he pulls out a picture from his wallet. It’s got two men side by side, but there’s no doubt they’re the same person. The eyes are unmistakable.
His hair in the picture from years ago is the same color as Lucas’s, blonde and wavy.
His beard could be a carbon copy of the one sitting on Lucas’s face, and his nose was straight.
But the man standing in front of me has short, brown hair, a beard that doesn’t grow in some places, and a nose that’s crooked like it’d been broken one too many times to fix.
The room lets out a collective gasp.
My head snaps up to his, my breath catching as I see him, really see him for who he is after all these years. “Why?” The words tumble from me as I exhale.
“When your dad tried to kill me,” he says quietly, “I knew he’d come for my wife next.”
“But you were married to Kerry!” The words explode from my chest.
His lips twist, “I wasn’t. She was a friend of your Nana’s, helping me hide in plain sight.”
Abby hops off her chair, going nearly toe to toe with the man we’ve all loved for years. “You let him suffer for twenty years while you sat by and watched?” The accusation makes him flinch.
He swallows hard, “I’m not proud of it, I was in rehab for almost a year before I was able to walk again on my own, I lost count of the number of surgeries I had, then they had to skin graft due to the burns.”
His voice breaks on the word burns. “I don’t look like I did before.
That was partially done on purpose, the other part, well.
The fire from the crash did more damage than anyone should be able to survive.
” He shakes the picture in his hand. “I wanted to be there for him, that’s my boy.
It was the only way to keep him safe. After they threatened his mom, I knew I couldn’t come back. They were watching.”
“Why not just hand over all the information to the authorities?” Reed asks.
He squats down in front of me, the sincerity in his gaze nearly breaks me. “Your Nana and I worked together on her will. I should have known your father would try to keep it from you. I’m sorry I didn’t get to you sooner. But know that we did what we did to get you away from him.”
He holds his hands out, palms up, the same gesture he used when I was little and crying over who knows what. “We needed to get you away from him before anything happened, or you would have gone down with him. Even if you were ignorant of what he was doing.”
He runs his hand down his face, pulling his skin and rubbing his beard the same way Lucas does.
“You had evidence this whole time?” I whisper, eyes welling with tears. “You’ve sat on this for two decades and did nothing with it?”
He nods, rubbing his thumbs over the back of my hands.
“Yes, Anna and I planned to get you here when you turned eighteen and hand everything over. She didn’t want you caught in the crossfire.
I just wanted to protect my son, however that looked.
” He looks down at the floor, shoulders shaking with the force of his inhale, “I’m sorry it got this far. I should have done more, sooner.”
My throat tightens, “I-I told him you didn’t pull him out of the car.” I let my head fall forward, my hair blocking me from his view, “I told him he imagined it.” I dig my palms into my eyes. “God, he’s going to hate me.”
He pulls me into a hug, one that’s been one of my greatest comforts over the years. “I’ll handle it,” he murmurs into my hair.
“I could never hate you, Lettie.” That voice, I spin toward it.
Lucas sits in a wheelchair in the doorway, pale and disheveled. His eyes are droopy, barely able to keep them open. But they’re alive. So alive.
The doctor stands behind him with an exasperated look on his face. “Do you know how strong he is? Ripped out his IV and everything attached to him.”
“Monroe!” Abby hisses.
He shrugs, grinning half dazed. “The party’s out here.” His eyes float to his dad, softening in a way that I don’t know if he’ll break or yell. The air thickens between them, “We’ve got a lot to talk about.” Miller nods.
“Wait,” my voice breaks the spell they’re in, and I internally kick myself for it. “What do we call you, now? Anything but Miller is going to be weird as hell.”
Laughter ripples through the room, small but needed. “Miller’s my mom’s maiden name. You can keep calling me that if you want. If not, Jackson or… Jax.”
The doctor clears his throat, “Can I take you back to your room now? We need to run some tests.”
“I’m fine here, doc,” Lucas says, his eyes bouncing between his dad and me.
A soft chuckle leaves Miller, Jackson? Hell, that’s going to take some getting used to. “Son, let the good doctor make sure you’re okay. For the sake of the rest of us, please.”
Lucas freezes, lips parting, I’m sure at the term son. Miller called him that so many times over the years, but now, he knows the truth. “Come with me?” he asks softly, eyes hopeful, boyish like they were when we met.
I watch as Miller lights up, but that stops the second Abby’s brothers walk in. “Let me talk to them first. I’ll come back as soon as I’m done.”
“You’ll still be here?” Lucas asks, I hate the hesitance in his voice. Like, he doesn’t want to believe this is true. That it’s actually happening.
“Yes,” he says firmly. “‘Till I actually kick the bucket, you’ll have a hard time getting rid of me.” Lucas flies out of the wheelchair he’s been in and throws his arms around his dad.
“JEEEEEESUS Monroe,” Sammy yells from the corner. “You have a nice ass, but we don’t need to see it.”
Lucas flips him the bird without missing a beat.
The soft laughter from before is replaced by a thunderous roll of it.
Then, as the doctor wheels him away, Lucas glances over his shoulder.
His eyes find mine. He doesn’t say a word, but he doesn’t need to.
I see it all. The relief, the ache, and the thousand things we’ll have to unpack later.
And finally, for the first time in weeks, I let myself breathe. Because he’s here, he’s alive. He’s still mine.