Chapter 63 Chase
As I stare down at Brodie’s smiling face, my muscles tense. That sick, twisting pull that comes every time I remember how we didn’t know who he was attacks. My hand twitches, wanting to hurl the frame across the room, but I don’t.
Quiet murmurs of conversations trickle out from the living room behind me. I catch the edge of laughter, but it’s hollow and forced. The kind that’s given for the sake of someone else. I know that person is Roman. We’re all trying to hold it together for him.
I glance over at my teammates. They lean into each other for support, smiling at Roman, who’s been a champ today as he draws on the floor in front of them.
None of us are okay, but we’re here together, helping each other carry the weight.
I force a smile when Roman looks up, because that’s what everyone else is doing. It’s like stretching a rubber band until it’s about to snap.
I wasn’t sure about coming today. Erin told me she’d support me either way. I went to the funeral but stood at the back near the trees, watching as everyone walked up to his grave to say goodbye.
I couldn’t… I couldn’t watch his coffin lower into the ground while pretending to say goodbye to someone I loved and hated at the same time.
He hurt all of us.
Bella has put a light-year between her and Huxley Bay.
Brax has kept most of the details about what happened quiet for Roman’s sake. There’s still a lot that he doesn’t understand. He asks questions, but Brax has only shared with his son what he deems is necessary and appropriate.
His brother died.
His father, though he had no relationship with him for fifteen years, turned out to be an even bigger villain than just a man who cheated on his mom. The officers tailing The Octopus that day lost him after going through a tunnel. No one knows where he is.
But we do know his real name and face now—Sebastian Emerson.
If I were him, I’d find a nice cave to hibernate in. Because I know Brax won’t let this go. He’ll spend the rest of his life searching until he finds his father.
Knowing Brax, he’s already started hunting him.
Brax is here, somewhere in the house, but he’s built an invisible wall between all of us, except Roman.
Physically, he’s present, but emotionally, he’s…lost. He’s holding himself together by a thread. It’s clear just by the way he moves. The way he avoids looking anyone in the eye for too long. The way he keeps his distance from Erin and me.
He’s hurting, and I get it. I wouldn’t want to look at me, either.
I brought this darkness into his life. I asked him for help with the drugs, even though I made peace with what I did for Elliot a long time ago. Now all that’s left is the ache of knowing the truth.
It has me thinking back to Marcus’s words. And while it does hurt, knowing that Elliot was innocent and that his only fault was hurting Jack, it brings me some peace.
However, it’s hard watching Brax struggle. I know the weight of this is destroying him, but I know I can’t save him from that. I can’t give him the closure he needs.
What I can do is show up for him, though, even if he pushes me away. I can be there for him on the days he can’t be there for himself.
Erin and I both will.
“Chase?”
I turn and find her standing in the doorway behind me, holding a black trash bag full of empty bottles and paper plates.
Her eyes are filled with vulnerability as I walk to her.
“I know you probably said what you did earlier for Roman’s sake,” she says, “but if you’re not ready to forgive Brodie… That’s okay. No one expects you to be.”
“There were just so many lies. I hate that part of me still misses him. I hate that grief and fury are one and the same right now.”
“I know,” she breathes, stepping closer, her hand brushing mine. “You showed up, Chase, for the people who are still here. That counts.”
The words hit hard. Too hard. Like she reaches inside and pulls a piece of me I’ve been holding together free.”
“Did you mean it?” I ask. “When you told Roman you forgive Brodie?”
“Yes, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt,” she says quietly.
I take her hand and kiss her knuckles.
“Can I be honest with you?” she whispers.“Always.”
“Today… I wished Bella had never met Brodie.” Her voice falters. “I wished she had run into you at Hendrick’s Bar. That you could have been her person.”
A tear slips down her cheek as I take her in—the girl with the biggest damn heart on the planet.
“I already told you,” I say, cupping her cheek. “You’re mine. Make as many wishes as you want. I’ll never love anyone but you.”
Her lips tremble slightly. “I’ll never love anyone but you either, Chase.”
I pull her into my chest. She fits there the way she always has—and always will.
“We’ll get through this,” I whisper into Erin’s hair. “One day at a time.”
Her grip tightens on me, and an ache settles in my bones. So does uncertainty. Because I know now that grief doesn’t ever leave. It shifts and morphs into a variety of things, but it doesn’t vanish. You learn to live with it. To move through it.
When I look at Erin, I know I’m not doing this alone. Not anymore.
“One day at a time,” she echoes in a murmur, voice barely a whisper.
I lean back just enough to see her face, among the tears that glisten. There’s strength there and hope.
Always hope.
For the first time since Brodie died, it doesn’t feel like we’re living around a bunch of lies that we have to survive. It feels like honesty—something that makes the past feel lighter, the future something we can reach for. And somehow, that feels like a beginning.
Our beginning.