EIGHTEEN
Irush out of the Tower with no idea where I’m going or what I’m doing. Men haul the bikes onto a flatbed truck and secure them down. The van with the bodies has its door wide open. Other cars are parked here and there among the madness. It’s like I imagined everything that happened upstairs. But then, why would I dare to believe that the world would stop for me?
I spot Aiden standing at the back of a nondescript mummy-mobile. The twins sit in the trunk, swinging their legs. Casey has Aiden’s ears yanked as far as they can go from his head as she balances on his shoulders.
My heart hurts as much as it warms at the sight. I look from them to the bridge and back again. The pull to leave—to walk away from the three of them — is so strong, I think I take a couple of steps before the guilt kicks in.
I love them. I raised and protected them when Mum couldn’t or wouldn’t. She might have birthed them, but I’ve been as much as a mother to them as she has. More maybe. It’s not them I want to walk away from, it’s everything. But those kids don’t get to walk away. Their worlds have fallen apart today, just like mine. None of us deserves this.
It will force Mum to raise them alone now, or with Carlo, if they work out their shit. For the kids’ sake, I hope they do. Carlo is a good guy. Fierce but good. They’ll be lucky to have him as a dad.
Fuck. How different would it be to have Carlo as a father? Jesus, I can’t think about that right now. I need a distraction. The kids probably do too.
“Jules, are you okay?” Dax asks, hovering at my elbow.
“Yeah. I’m…yeah.” I can’t even bring myself to lie. There are bodies piled up inside the van as I pass. “I can’t believe you did that. They were threatening me but shooting them was a bit extreme. What the hell happens now? Are the police going to come? Am I in trouble?” He spins me to face him, his arms anchor around my shoulders. He runs his hands up and down my arms as if warming me. It only makes the early morning chill more acute.
“Jules, they’re not dead.”
“They’re not?” They weren’t? They certainly look dead; glassy, lifeless eyes and loose limbs.
“No,” he laughs. “Tranquilizers. These men will go straight to the police station. The man in charge will come with me and Aiden’s men.” Dax inclines his head and looks over my shoulder at Aiden standing behind us.
“Then you’ll want him.” I point out the one who mouthed off at me earlier. “He’s the Dickhead.”
“He’s the what?” Dax asks, his eyes as wide as saucers.
“Uh, the head guy. He said he was anyway.”
“What else did he say?” His gentle humour vanishes. Suddenly, Dax is all business.
“That he could do worse things than knocking me unconscious,” I mumble, but in a louder, more confident voice, I add; “He wanted me to go with them. He knew you were protecting me.”
“He did, huh?” I nod but watch the realisation wash over Dax’s face. He frowns at me and shakes his head. His expression grows dark and tense, his eyes thin to mere slits, and his jaw juts forward as he grinds his teeth together. I’m in trouble.
“Aiden told me you lied to him, Jules,” he continues in a dangerously quiet voice. I hold my breath. “This is not a game, you know. We’re not messing with you. You’re just lucky that we expected something to go down.”
“You did?” I ask with an exhale. “Wait…” My mind whirs as I realise they knew this was going to happen and they let me walk into it, totally unprepared. “These are Hanson’s men. Has that got something to do with you?”
Dax nods. “David Hanson works for Barry Franz. He handles the skin and sex trade and keeps it all off the official books. Franz owns Diverprop.”
“Barry Franz? Our landlord? But Diverprop is a HUGE company, it runs everything in the Vale. It’s Trevainne’s biggest competitor.”
“Yes, it is. He’s a lot more than a landlord, Jules. He’s the kind of scum that floats. Franz’s at the head of all this bullshit and the man who is looking for you because of the contents in that letter.”
“So, all of this shit…Dad blackmailing Mum, TJ calling me, Dad forcing me to call you to make a deal…all of it was because I saved Tom?”
“I didn’t know they’d contacted your father. My sources said they only had your name and the name of the Tower. We expected an ambush, but not Eric’s involvement.”
“You knew something would go down…were you using me as bait?” I growl through clenched teeth. My anger seems to surprise Dax; he rocks back a step before lifting his hand to stop me saying anything more.
“Now, Jules. We weren’t one hundred percent sure…”
I don’t give a shit whether it was one or one hundred percent. A guess, an inkling, is enough. They knew, and they’d let me walk in and spring the trap. If Dax thought I was going to calm down with his ‘Now Jules,’ he was sorely mistaken. It wasn’t just me he’d put at risk.
“They were waiting for me, Dax. They knew where I lived, they knew to call me Jules and not my given name. What more do they know? Do they know about the kids? And what if I wasn’t alone when I returned, huh? What if I had the twins or Casey with me? What the hell have you got me into, Dax?”
His name echoes off the face of the Tower. The sun has risen high enough that the glare no longer bathes the lot in flares of light. I stare at him, defiant and so pissed the energy comes off me in searing waves.
“Listen!” he bellows, his voice so loud it is my turn to flinch, but if his pitch and volume intimidates the others, they don’t show it, they just kept on loading the van with the sleepers. Now that I look, I can see the darts sticking out of their clothing. “You were never really in danger. That phone lets me know where you are at all times, and Aiden had eyes on you the entire time!”
“From the hospital?” I sneer.
“From right behind you,” Aiden interrupts, his voice a smooth, calm reserve in the storm Dax and I are creating between us. “The second you took off, we followed in the car and came after you,” he explains. “Who do you think tipped off the Calvary?”
“You were there?”
“We were there. Oh, and you did good, kid.” He nods to the black van. The doors slam shut. “You’ve got a real pair,” he praises. I take a secret pleasure in his approval, or perhaps not so secret, when I turn with a raised brow and a smug smile for Dax.
“Too brave if you ask me,” Dax grumbles and then changes the subject. “How many people know you as Jules?”
“As opposed to Juliet?” I ask, knowing this conversation was coming.
“Yes. Think carefully.”
“Mum, Carlo, the kids. Uh, Charlie and Koko too. Oh, and you and Aiden. Everyone else calls me Juliet.”
“That’s it? Not your…not Eric or that little toad?”
“Dad calls us all by our full, given names. It’s a power trip thing. Gresh calls me Baby most of the time or Juliet because that’s what Dad does. My tutors all call me Miss Feelan or Juliet, as that’s the name I’m registered by. No one else knows me well enough to know my preferred name.”
“Throw Sylvie and Ben into the mix. You introduced her as Jules to them,” Aiden adds. “So, you’d better add our security that night and your driver, too.”
I interrupt, recalling one other option. “And Tom…I might have told him my name. I can’t remember for sure.”
“At the moment, he’s the only one we don’t need to suspect, given that he hasn’t woken up,” Dax reasons.
“You think one of your men tipped off Hanson’s crew about me?”
“It’s a possibility, but not something we need to think about right now.” Dax turns towards the car and the three kids sitting in the back. “You’ll be safe today. They’ll not risk another attack so soon and not while we’re with you. So, what’s your plan?”
“Plan?” He expects me to have a coherent thought no matter a plan? I can barely breathe, no matter take charge. I don’t know how I got here or braved Dad. If you asked me to do it all again, I wouldn’t be able to. Perhaps it’s shock or exhaustion? Or maybe it’s because my entire purpose has just been ripped out from under me.
For the longest time, I’ve aimed to be free of Eric Feelan and the Tower and the Vale. I promised myself I’d graduate and get a good job and take my family somewhere safe. Helping Mum to raise the kids somewhere decent drove me. But now? I still want all that for the kids, but is it my place to provide it, or will Carlo do that? Either way, Mum hates me and I have to admit I don’t like her much either. In a single morning, I’ve had my goals, drive, and purpose stripped from me and let’s not throw my identity into the mix or I might just blow.
Dax turns me around and takes me a few steps further away from the kids. “Listen, if you can’t be around them, I’ll get you out of here. Whatever you need, little gem. Forget about responsibility or duty. Think about what you want.”
“I don’t know what I want. I don’t know who—”
“You are who you have always been. A name doesn’t make a person. A date of birth doesn’t shape a personality. You are the same kind, brave, wonderful person you were when you risked everything to save the people you love. I’m so sorry for everything you are dealing with, Jules, especially the parts that are mine or my brother’s fault. I’m fighting the urge to wrap you up and just run off with you so you don’t have to put up with anymore bullshit,” he admits. It’s not exactly an offer, but if it was, I’d probably say yes. “So, you tell me what you want to do today, and I’ll make it happen.”
“Mum will need somewhere to go; hospital, most likely. I don’t know about Carlo or what he’ll do…and then there’s Dad…”
“I’ve got all of that under control. They are grown adults, Jules. They are not, and never were, your responsibility, no matter how they made you feel,” he reminds me.
“Then I want to get out of here.” I look at the kids. Will I even get a chance to see them if Mum takes them away? If she hates me that much, she’ll not let me near them. One more day with them isn’t a hardship. A happy day. “And I want to take the kids with me. Could I…Could I borrow some cash? I’d like to treat them. They’ve been through so fucking much.”
“You all have. I’ll take care of that too. I’ll arrange for counselling for all of you when you are ready.”
“You don’t have to…”
“I know. It’s my choice. As for the money, Aiden will pay for everything today. Use him like a personal piggy bank.”
“I’d rather just borrow fifty. It’ll be easier to pay you back if I have a fixed sum.”
“Still running that tally?”
“Of course.” I try to smile, but it’s weak and slips from my face too fast.
“How about you let me pay you back for the run-in with these fuckers and for using you as bait?” He grins sheepishly.
“Only enough to call it even.”
“Absolutely.”
“Okay.” I turn back towards my family. TJ prattles animatedly with Aiden. Casey tries to climb over the headrests and into the backseat and AJ watches me fearfully. “Dax?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m going to take you up on that counselling offer. The twins…AJ…”
“I know. We’ve seen it too. We’ll get him, them, whatever they need.”
“Thank you. I mean it. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“So, do we have a wonderful, exhausting plan arranged to wipe out these little energy balls or what?” Aiden asks with a grin.
“You and Jules are taking them out for the day while I do all the boring paperwork. Use the personal card and make sure they get everything they need, and whatever else you think they’ll like. I’m paying Jules back for our fu—our blunder earlier.”
“Anywhere you’d like to go?” Aiden asks me.
“I’m drawing a blank. I’ll take ideas if you have any.”
“I might know a place that’ll keep everyone occupied and smiling. Come on, everyone in the car.”
I’m so out of my head that it takes a moment to realise that the mummy-mobile is for us. They strapped two booster seats and a baby seat in the back. There’s a bag that looks suspiciously like my backpack and another that resembles Casey’s diaper bag. Did Aiden grab these on the way out? No, he’d have brought mine from the hospital. God. These guys are ten steps ahead. I might as well just agree to everything if they’re going to sweet talk me into doing what they want anyway.
“What’s with the face, little gem?” Dax asks.
I point to the bags. “You must consider me a sure thing,” I grump. “You have it all planned out.”
“Think of me as a control freak. I like to be prepared for any eventuality, and Aiden is my overachieving enabler. Between the two of us, we’ll have everything covered. But I’d never consider you a sure thing, little gem. In fact, I’m looking forward to finding out how hard you’ll make me work for it.”
Aiden laughs behind me, closing the door on the already wrangled rugrats.
“I…er…I…”
“Come on, shortcake, let’s get this show on the road.” Aiden opens my door and nudges his head. I take another long look at Dax, realise I have nothing to say to his declaration, and climb into the passenger seat.
Before climbing in himself, Aiden circles to speak with Dax. I’m not sure if enhanced hearing is a natural talent I have or a trauma response to growing up with Eric Feelan as a father, but even with a closed window and the way both Aiden and Dax lower their voices, I hear their conversation clearly.
“Sneaky bastard,” Aiden whispers. “Hoping she focuses on that all day, huh?”
I lean toward the window to catch their reflections in the door mirrors. Dax’s grin belies the ease with which he shrugs off Aiden’s accusation. “Gotta make sure I’m in her head if you’re going to be playing saviour. Fair’s fair.”
Aiden snorts. “Asshole!”
“Dickwad,” Dax fires back with no real malice.
Aiden sighs and turns himself away from the car. I strain to hear him, my ear almost pressed to the cold glass, as he slips into seriousness. “You’re going to have to talk them into leaving. Do you have all the contracts ready?”
Dax nods, his expression solemn. “Yeah. I’ll meet you at Carlito’s later. I’ll call when I’m sure it’s safe to come back.” He nods to the car. “You got this?”
“Of course.”
Dax claps Aiden on the arm. “Good. Keep an eye on her. What happened upstairs was fucked up. We have a lot to discuss.”
“Call me at lunchtime. I’ll get them settled and fed, and then you can fill me in. Oh, and get Gregor working on that list.”
“I will. We’ll clean house. Go.” Dax waves and walks back to the Tower, calling out indistinct orders to his men.
“Ready?” Aiden asks once he’s belted in and secured. The engine turns over and thrums beneath our feet.
There’s so much I want to ask him and yet so much more I want to avoid. I check on the kids via the rear-view mirror and remind myself that this is one nice day with them and not about me.
“Ready.”
“Let’s go!” the twins call from the back. I nod and then lean back into the headrest as Aiden takes us away from the Tower and the Vale and everything I can’t bear to face.