Chapter Thirty-Five
Estelle
I could hear the distant pull of the ocean from beyond the glass. Waves stirring the shore like a secret. High sun poured in through floor-to-ceiling windows. I’d never imagined homes like this, because for me, they might as well have existed in another universe.
But now I was sitting in one. On a massive cream sofa that swallowed half the room. With my palms damp, my spine too rigid, and my gaze locked on the empty hallway like it might deliver a monster. Or a miracle.
Tomorrow was court. Or was supposed to be.
Leo's custody hearing. I'd prepped testimonies, character references, income statements. I'd stayed up past midnight weeks ago rewriting my statements with exhausted hands, ready to fight like hell for the little boy who made the world worth surviving.
But all morning, Jax had been calm. Irritatingly calm. He—Connor—Adrian... they weren’t nervous. They rolled up from wherever they’d gone, freshly showered, hair damp, smug in that relaxed, predator-ish way that made my stomach twist .
Jax had barely said a word. Just kissed the top of my head, told me to relax, and whisked Leo and me through the mansion like there was nothing hovering over us.
Like yesterday didn’t happen.
Like Damon didn’t exist.
And now I sat here silently, changed into one of Jax’s shirts, dread rolling through me even while the house soothed me with crashing waves and the scent of him all over me.
I was rehearsing answers to questions Damon's lawyers might ask.
“Why do you think you're more suitable than his father? How will you support him financially? What makes you think a single woman with no family can raise a boy?”
My stomach was in shreds.
Behind me, I heard footsteps. Heavy and unhurried.
Jax swept into the room wearing one of his crisp button-ups, sleeves rolled up, his forearms bared. He wasn’t trying to smile. He didn’t have that familiar smirk or calculation in his face. My stomach sank even further, fear crawling up my spine in response to whatever he was about to say.
“Estelle,” he said quietly, then sat beside me, knee brushing mine. “You need to see something.”
He moved with purpose, pulling a sleek black laptop from where it sat nearby. When the screen turned on and glared to life, it lit his face with a cool light, casting his jaw in shadow.
He opened a folder labeled with my name.
My heart fluttered, cold and loud inside my ribs. I had no idea what this could be.
And then document after document slid across the screen. Certified seals, damage control, transfers in hard, legal ink. Damon’s signature was on all of them—messy strokes that were barely recognizable—but they were there.
Under property titles, custody petitions, financial statements, and account closures.
Custody was transferred to me, property was left to Leo, a will with his name—a will that explicitly severed every legal tie Damon had tried to sink his claws into.
Every war I thought I’d have to fight tomorrow had already been won.
“Damon signed them,” Jax told me softly. “Yesterday.”
I stared at him, my heart in my ears. “What?”
“He signed everything yesterday.” Jax’s voice didn’t falter, didn’t waver. “After some... persuasion.”
I stared at the screen, my mind struggling to process what I was seeing. “The hearing…?”
“Won’t happen.”
I turned my head slowly, meeting his eyes. “Why?”
His eyes were everywhere and nowhere—cut glass and ocean, steady and dangerous. “Because it’s already over.”
A hard silence bled between us.
He closed the laptop with a soft click and set it aside like it wasn’t a grenade disguised as a laptop right now.
It was me who spoke next, voice thin but alive with too many questions. “You disappeared yesterday.”
“Yes.”
“You came back... calm. So did they—Connor and Adrian.”
He didn't answer at first, only reached for my hand, curling warm, strong fingers around mine.
“I needed their help. It’s over now,” he answered finally. His voice had new edges, rougher, weightier. "No one's going to hurt you again. Not Damon, not his men. Not anyone."
Something in his certainty cracked the last of my pride. I pressed my palm to my mouth and sobbed, silent at first, but my shoulders shook with the effort of holding the sound inside.
I’d never let myself fall apart like this in front of anyone, not since Leo moved in. But this was different—this was safety and terror and relief so huge it was almost pain.
Jax didn't rush me. He squeezed my fingers and slid to his knees in front of me, his arms gentle and massive as he folded them around my entire body. I buried my face in his neck, breathing in salt and warmth. He smelled like the ocean.
The golden god was kneeling for me. The untouchable, wealthy heir who everyone else fell to their knees for.
He kissed a tear near the corner of my mouth before whispering. “I never want you to feel fear again.”
I managed to find my voice, throat raw. “You—you came back and it was just… quiet. I expected to talk about yesterday or the court case…”
He shook his head, his breath soft in my hair. “No, Estelle. We just finished it our way. My dad,” he hesitated, a vulnerability showing, “taught us—Connor, Adrian, and me—you don’t run from a threat. You fix it. You protect your family. That’s what I did.”
He pressed his lips to my forehead, voice rough with memory. “My dad gave me everything. A home, love, rules, laughter. He taught me how to throw my first punch without breaking my wrist.”
I nodded against his skin, heart warming at the image of his childhood. I felt no envy, only insistent warmth for the happiness little Jax must have felt as he grew up.
“He didn’t care who I brought home, what grades I made, as long as I was loyal and strong, and knew how to get up when life put me down.”
He paused for a second, ringed fingers gently carding through my hair.
“He raised Connor and Adrian, too, in his way. Not his blood, but his heart. He taught us to keep our word and to take care of what’s ours. We’re brothers by choice and work together to protect our family.”
I pictured Jax as a boy in a sun-drenched kitchen with Wade Easton himself presiding over teaching, judging no one, and loving fiercely and without pause. The life Leo should have had, the one I’d tried—impossibly—to mimic on my own, forever afraid of failing.
“Was it hard?” I whispered, not totally sure what I was asking, but it had to do with the protecting part, learning to ‘fix’ things, as he put it.
“Sometimes,” he admitted. “But overall, it was good. Safe. That’s all Dad ever wanted for us. To be safe and capable.”
I couldn't stop the next rush of tears, the ones reserved for orphaned dreams you didn’t know you still carried.
“I wanted that for Leo,” I confessed brokenly. “You gave him that. You gave it to me, too.”
He held me tighter. “You give it to me every fucking day, Estelle.”
The silence that followed was almost magical. The fear faded back into the walls, and all I could hear was the hush of the waves and our uneven breathing. For the first time in my life, I felt the shape of a future.
Jax pulled back a little, tracing the line of my jaw with soft reverence. “You know you never have to go back to the academy, right? I took care of the lawsuit. Damon's connections are gone. You’re free.”
Free. The word made my stomach flutter with hope. “I can’t just quit. I need to feel like I’m making a difference. I can’t just… sit around waiting for you to take care of me.”
Sitting around would drive me mad. I’ve always been on my feet, and that’s what I wanted to continue to do. “I love teaching.”
His eyes hardened with a new seriousness, but his thumb never stopped stroking my cheek. “You’re not going back to a place where you aren’t protected, not after what happened. I’ve already taken care of Leo’s tuition. There’s nothing you guys could want for.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but the look he gave me made me shut my mouth. He wasn’t finished.
“I can build a school, Estelle. For you, Leo, and kids like him. You pick the teachers, the curriculum, the playground. You can run it however you want.”
It was so insane I almost laughed.
But his blue eyes held mine, confident and sure, and somehow the idea didn’t seem that insane anymore. It rooted somewhere secret inside me, a bright impossible seed. “That’s… not real. It’s too much. No one just builds a school for someone.”
He shrugged like it was nothing. “I do. My dad would, if he thought it would keep you safe. I’ve got the money, the lawyers, the land—hell, half the city owes us. Say the word, princess.”
My heart tried to race away, but I reined it in, refusing to let panic spoil the spark of wonder. “Could I design it?” I asked, voice so tentative it felt like a secret.
He grinned, that slow, devastating grin that had leveled me from the moment we met. “You can do anything, princess. Anything and everything.”
I wanted to resist the fairytale of it all, but when he looked at me with that radiant pride, my resistance broke.
I slid off the edge of the couch and into his lap, curling into the safe harbor of his chest. He gathered me close, his hands roaming my back, his mouth pressing kisses to my hair and forehead.
I thought back to their adventure last night, the questions I definitely wouldn’t be asking, and how Jax literally took my life and spun it into a fairy tale.
“I hate how much I like this,” I murmured, running one finger through his golden hair. “How easily I went from budgeting groceries to sitting on my…”
I paused, glancing up at him before I said the word. He cocked one eyebrow, challenging me to say it.
“…My boyfriend’s lap in a thousand-dollar living room like royalty.”
He grinned slowly, voice dark. “You're not just sitting on my lap, princess. You’re on your throne.”
I leaned in, brushing my lips along his jaw until he tilted his head for me, greedy and excited. “That’s the dangerous part,” I whispered. “You gave me a taste of power, and now I don’t think I can give it back.”