Chapter 33
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
“FAR FROM HOME (THE RAVEN)” BY SAM TINNESZ
ANATOLE
We’re moved to what is called a pod in general population, basically still individual cells, but there’s a common area with a TV and places to sit. There are a couple other guys milling around, but I ignore them and head straight to the phone on the wall.
I dial Jus’s mobile number, and he picks up on the second ring.
“Hello?”
“Jus, it’s me, Ant.”
A small sob echoes over the line that makes my chest ache. “Thank fuck! I’ve been so fucking worried, Ant. Are you okay? Are Nox and Steele okay? Where are you?”
All the questions come rushing out, and I have to clear my throat of the emotion that’s blocking it.
“We’re all okay, we’re at Middle River Regional, and they’ve put us together. Steele and Nox are right behind me.” I look over my shoulder to see them standing there, arms crossed and making sure no one interrupts my call. “How are you, Jus? Last night must have been scary.”
“It was fucking terrifying! But Miss. Blossom has been working to help you guys. Tina took all the others out for the day but said I could stay back if I didn’t pester Miss. Blossom.” I chuckle. He definitely pestered her. “Tina made that fried chicken again tonight, she knows it’s my favorite.”
I swallow again, licking my cracked lips. “How’s Blossom, Jus?”
He sighs. “She’s so fucking sad, Ant. Like, she tries to smile and be light for the young ones, but her eyes are always red like she’s crying.”
A band tightens around my chest. I just wish we were there to fucking hold her, tell her it’ll all work out somehow.
“You look after her, yeah? And tell her…” I have to be careful because these calls are recorded. “Tell her thank you. She’ll know why.”
“I will, Ant.” The sound of his inhale is loud. “You are coming back though, right?”
“Yes, we are coming back, Jus. I promise.”
He exhales. “Okay.”
“I need to go,” I tell him, that lump growing in my throat. “You be good, help Tina and Blossom and make sure not to give them shit. Okay?”
“I don’t give anyone shit, bro.” It’s such a bald faced lie that a bark of laughter falls from my lips. It echoes strongly in the room.
“And stop fucking cursing.”
“I will when you do, big bro,” he sasses back, and my smile hurts.
“Love you, Jus. See you soon, okay?” My voice is thick, and it’s painful to push the words out, knowing that I can’t hold him either.
“Love you too, big bro. See you soon.”
I hang up before he does, because if I don’t, I won’t and these calls are expensive as fuck.
“He good?” Steele asks, and taking an inhale, I turn around, meeting his eyes and knowing mine are glassy from unshed tears.
“Yeah. Tina and Blossom are looking after him,” I reply, all of us moving together away from the phone and towards a group of chairs around a table. “He says Blossom is sad. And crying a lot, though she’s not showing it in front of the kids.”
“Of course she isn’t,” Nox comments, his brow furrowed. “She’ll be killing herself over this, thinking it’s her fault when it’s her cunt of a sperm donor’s.”
“I know,” I sigh, and I can picture her blaming herself, convincing herself that she’s no good for us, when that couldn’t be further from the truth.
We sit there in silence, not knowing what to say but I can practically feel how hard we’re all thinking. How we’re all wondering if my promise to Jus was an empty one.
“STILL HAVE YOU” BY FREYA RIDINGS
BLOSSOM
I’m in the kitchen, tidying because I just need to do something with my hands otherwise my mind spirals, when Jus walks in. He sits at the counter.
“Ant called.” I freeze, my heart turning summersaults in my chest. “He asked if you were okay.”
Tears spring and fall before I can pull them back, and Justin’s brow furrows. He looks down at the counter, giving me a minute.
“He said to tell you they’re okay.” I nod, unable to speak as I try to get my emotions under control. “And he said to tell you thank you. That you’d know why.”
My heart feels like it expands and constricts all at once. Like there’s barbed wire wrapped around it, that digs in when it gets too big.
“He sounded— he sounded like Ant. You know? Like himself.”
“That’s good,” I manage to choke out, and he looks back up at me.
“He told me not to give you shit, as if I would ever do that.” There’s a twinkle in his eyes, which shines brighter when I laugh.
“Of course not,” I reply, my lips tugging up despite myself. “Though you really should work on your language, Justin. Cursing so much at your age.”
“I will when he does,” he quips right back, and a small laugh escapes me because that is not likely to happen anytime soon. “He’s coming back soon, Miss. Blossom. They all are.”
I look at him, my heart mending and breaking all at once for this boy who’s had every promise ever made to him broken, yet here he is, making one to me.
“I know.”
Justin gives me a nod, then gets up, takes a step to the door, pauses, and then comes back, wrapping his arms around me. Something in me loosens a little, and my arms come up to hug him back.
“Thank you, Justin,” I whisper, and he gives me a little squeeze before releasing me.
“Night, Miss. Blossom.”
“Night.”
He leaves, and I sit at the counter, Ralph’s words from this morning swirling in my head.
Your mother built you a weapon. She just hoped you'd never need it.
I think about Wilson —because I refuse to call him father anymore — sitting in his car, watching my guys be taken away. I think about all he did to my mother, the fact he tried to take my inheritance. The fact he never once has faced a consequence.
I see Steele’s head hitting the wall when that officer used his baton. Nox’s silence when slurs were aimed at him. Ant being shoved in the back of a police car as his little brother watched on with tears streaming down his cheeks.
I think about my mother, quietly gathering evidence for years, instructing her lawyer to continue to do the same after she died. I think about her protecting me from the grave.
I pull my laptop towards me, open it, bring up the email from a journalist from The New York Times who wanted an interview a couple of years ago.
I hit reply, but don’t write anything, not yet. I sit with the blank screen and the weight of what I’m about to do.
Wilson always told me that the outside world doesn’t need to know our business, not unless it would further our name, and this journalist wasn’t interested in that. They wanted to explore some project Wilson had been part of where the facts didn’t add up. Wilson vetoed the interview of course.
I was in agreement, I didn’t want the kids to suffer any backlash, any bad press. They’ve been through enough.
But sometimes things change.
Sometimes your world needs to be burned to the ground so something new and pure can rise from the ashes.
Sometimes light needs to be shone on the dark places, exposing them to the world and forcing people to face the consequences of their actions.
I place my fingers on the keys, and start typing.
“LET IT BE - LONG VERSION FROM THE MOTION PICTURE ACROSS THE UNIVERSE” BY CAROL WOODS, TIMOTHY T. MITCHUM
STEELE
Days pass and no fucking news from Dwight. He told us to be patient, that it would take time, most likely weeks. But being stuck in these cages of fucking concrete is making my skin itch.
We’re at the table we’ve claimed in the corner near the TV, the few others in general milling around, the low murmur of chatter over the top of some daytime news program.
I’m shuffling a deck of cards, there really is fuck all to do with your day in here other than play cards and shoot shit, when a name coming from the TV catches my attention.
Blossom Devonshire…
My head comes up before my brain catches up, and I see the moment Blossom, our fucking Flower, comes onto a small platform, mics in front of her, cameras flashing.
“Ant, Nox.” My words are clipped, and I nod at the TV when they look at me. Nox’s chair scraps as he turns it slightly to get a better look.
“Hey, turn it up,” Ant calls, and the guy with the remote does.
She looks stunning, but not quite like herself.
A dark navy knee length skirt with matching sleeveless blouse, gold jewelry, hair perfect in an updo and a light coat of make-up make her look like the rich heiress she is.
But it’s all armor, the public version of Blossom from the gala that night. Not the mother of wayward kids.
The headline scrolling along the bottom of the screen catches my attention.
brEAKING: Business magnate's daughter speaks out over false arrest of three men
My body goes still, my stomach clenching as I look back at her beautiful face and watch her lips part.
“My name is Blossom Devonshire. My father is Wilson Devonshire, a man many of you will know as a successful businessman and philanthropist. I'm here today because three innocent men are sitting in a jail cell in Augusta County because my father used his connections in the police department to have them falsely arrested on manufactured charges.”
All the breath leaves my lungs, the cards in my hands forgotten as her words hit me.
“These men — Anatole Reed, Steele Vaughn and Nox Kane — have committed no crime. They are good men. They are part of my family. And my father had them arrested because he wanted to control me, and he has never once in his life faced a consequence for anything he has done.”
“Shit,” Nox whispers, goosebumps peppering across my skin as she names us and what her father has done publicly, for the whole fucking world to see.
“I have documentation — gathered over decades — of my father's pattern of corruption. Of financial and emotional abuse. Of using his wealth and connections to make problems disappear. I am turning that documentation over to the relevant authorities today.
“I am also calling for an independent investigation into the conduct of the officers involved in the arrest, specifically the use of unnecessary force and the use of racially motivated language during the arrest of two of these men.”
I see Nox freeze at that, his lips parting as he stares at the screen, as she names what was done to us that night. My jaw tightens at the memory.
“My father told me the outside world doesn't need to know our business. He was wrong. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. And I am done letting him operate in the dark.”
My hands flatten on the table, my eyes glued to the screen as my lungs expand, and her promise flows over me like a soothing balm on a wound.
The press start shouting questions.
“Miss. Devonshire, are you saying your father is corrupt?”
“Miss. Devonshire, do you have evidence of police misconduct?”
She answers them with controlled professionalism, and my throat goes tight seeing her come into her own. Seeing her handling this situation like she’s done it a thousand times, when I know she hasn’t.
“Miss. Devonshire — what exactly is your relationship to these men?”
My heart stutters a beat when she looks into the camera directly, as if she’s staring into my fucking eyes.
“They are the men I can't imagine living without. They are a crucial part of our family. They make my life better just by being in it. They saved me when I didn't even realise I was drowning. I love them, without hesitation or reservation. Thank you.”
Then she’s gone, walking off as more questions are shouted at her. I catch a glimpse of Henry helping her off the platform, and my muscles lose some tension knowing she’s not alone.
Silence fills the common area as Ant, Nox and I just stare at the screen for several moments.
“Bloom,” Ant whispers, in an awe-filled tone, and I can’t blame him.
I have no fucking words for what she just did, how she just exposed herself like that. How she claimed us, not knowing if we’re going to claim her back after this, because if I know my Flower, she’ll think we won’t. But she did it anyway.
Nox huffs a small chuckle. “Well, I guess she told them.”
Ant laughs. “She sure did. Beautiful, brave girl.”
My tongue is thick in my mouth, my throat dry. I agree with him. With them both.
I love them.
She just stood in front of the cameras, being broadcast across the globe, and told everyone she loved us. No hedging, no careful language, no protecting herself from what people might say about her loving three men who are currently in jail.
The stone in my stomach is still present. The feeling that once again, my fate is being influenced by someone else’s power, someone who in the past has used that power for something that I’m not sure I’ll ever forgive.
But the weight is less heavy now, because something else is shouting louder.
They saved me when I didn't even realise I was drowning.
My brows dip. I didn’t know she felt that way. Didn’t know she saw us like that, as saviors. My chest puffs out a little at that word. At the fact someone sees me as something worthy, something that isn’t a burden but as something to be treasured.
And she said it before we’re even out. Before we could say it to her, tell her how in many ways she saved us, and not just by giving us a roof over our heads and opportunities we might never have gotten otherwise. She gave us faith in ourselves. She helped us be better men.
And she’s just claimed us not knowing if we will claim her back. Probably believing that we won’t because of her father’s actions.
That stone which was formed the night I found out about Liam’s money is still there, will always be there.
I love her.
That is there too, both of them sitting alongside each other. Both true and unmovable. And right now, my love for her is louder. My need for her settles that other stone. Not eradicating it. Not forgiving it. But helping it feel less sharp.
I catch Nox’s green-eyed stare, and he must read my thoughts on my face as only someone who’s known you for years can. He gives me a single nod.
Yeah, that nod says. Me too.
One of the other men in here, an older guy in orange like us, points at the now blank screen. “That your girl?”
“Yeah,” Ant replies, no hesitation, claiming her back even if she can’t hear or see it. It’s simple, like it’s the easiest thing in the world to say.
That’s our girl. Our woman.