Page 14 of Monochrome (ORCA #4)

CHAPTER

FOURTEEN

ETHAN

“Unca E, Afina said we are having a sleepover at her house!” Jude had come running the minute Nero, Eli, Julius, and I had walked through the front door of the Hunter family’s massive house, Lily right behind him.

“They have a pool here, Unca E! Can we go swimming?” Lily jumped up and down, tugging on my arm, and I tried not to wince.

The painkillers I’d taken when Julius’s brother had taken me back to my house to grab what we’d need to stay for a while had dulled the pain a little, but it would be a day or two until I felt human again, even with my faster shifter healing.

“Why are you wearing a hat?” Jude cocked his head and studied me, his little eyes narrowing.

“Why’s your eye all purple?”

“Let me see!” Lily nudged Jude out of the way, looking under the bill of the hat I’d shoved on to hide the cut and bandages on my head.

I’d taken a quick shower to wash away the dried blood, and I’d changed my clothes, but I didn’t want the twins to see the cut and worry.

“I had a little accident, but I’ll be fine.”

Both of the twins wrapped their arms around my legs and squeezed, and I felt the telltale prickle of tears behind my eyes.

If things had gone differently this afternoon, I might not have ever seen them again.

Ignoring the pain still radiating through my body, I knelt down, wrapped them up in a hug, and kissed the top of both their little heads.

“I love you guys. So much. So, so, so much.”

“Love you too, Unca E.” Lily kissed my cheek, and Jude hugged me a little harder.

I held them until they started to squirm.

“Can we show the pool now?”

“How about we take your stuff up to your room first?” Julius held their suitcases, one in each hand, and the twins tried to grab for them.

“I’ll carry these upstairs, but you can unpack as soon as we get there.”

Jude and Lily raced up the huge staircase and stood staring down at us from the top as we made our way up slowly.

Julius nodded toward the hall that stretched toward the left side of the house.

“Your room is this way.”

The twins skipped ahead, looking into each room we passed, obviously unbothered by the change of scenery.

“Next one.” The twins fought to open the door and tumbled into the room.

The sun was starting to set, and Julius flipped on the light as we crossed the threshold.

The room was set up with two sets of wooden bunk beds.

The bottom bunks of each set had already been made up with fresh sheets and blue and white striped duvets.

The walls were pale gray, and a large picture window looked out onto a wooded section of the Hunters’ property.

The space was plain but homey, and the twins immediately picked their beds and grabbed their suitcases from Julius.

I’d brought some of their toys, and their favorite blankets and stuffed animals were tossed onto their beds.

Lily was digging through the clothes I’d packed, yelling with triumph when she found her hot pink bathing suit.

Julius had told me his house had a pool, so I’d tossed their swimsuits into their bags.

She started putting it on over the leggings and T-shirt, and I couldn’t stop the laugh that spilled out.

It felt good to have the twins to focus on instead of ruminating on everything that had happened earlier.

Being their parent was a challenge, but I loved them to the moon and back, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

Funny how a brush with death could really put things in perspective.

A knock on the doorframe made me turn around too fast, and I couldn’t keep the wince off my face.

Athina stood just outside the door, looking concerned.

Lily, now tangled in her clothes and bathing suit, ran over to her.

“Can we go swimming, Athina? Please.”

“I think that’s up to your uncle.” She looked from Lily to me.

“Felix sent me up to get you and Julius. Everyone else is in the basement. I don’t mind taking Jude and Lily swimming, if it’s all right with you.”

“Please, Unca E! Please, please, please!” Jude had found his swimsuit too, and was waving it around.

“Okay, but you have to be good and listen to everything Athina says.”

They nodded.

“We will.”

“Promise?”

“Yes!”

“Okay. Have fun.” They started running around the room, cheering and bouncing on the beds, and I turned back to Athina.

“Are you sure you’re up for this?”

“No problem.”

“If there are any issues, let me know.”

She nodded.

“They’re waiting for you.” Her solemn expression didn’t bode well, and my stomach flipped over.

I followed Julius out of the room, and he pushed the door to the next room open.

“This is my room. I had Nero drop your stuff in here. I figured you’d want to be close to the twins. I’m going to move into the guest room on the other end of the hall as soon as we’re done with whatever is happening downstairs.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

He cocked his head in question, the look so much like the one Jude had given me earlier that I almost laughed again.

“I don’t want to kick you out of your room.” A huge king-size bed dominated the large room.

It was plenty big for two.

“Unless you don’t want to, I don’t mind sharing.” I tried to sound casual, but I couldn’t imagine anything better than falling asleep next to Julius.

I wasn’t sure if it was the trauma of the accident or a combination of everything I’d learned and experienced since Julius had walked into my life, but I was falling hard and fast for him, and I didn’t want to put on the brakes.

Julius smiled. “I don’t mind.” He leaned in close, his breath tickling the shell of my ear, sending a shiver of heat and awareness down my spine as his palm traced over my hip, pulling me into him.

“I’d love to have you in my bed. In my arms.” His lips brushed against my cheek, and I was a heartbeat away from pulling him down onto his bed and picking up where we’d left off the night before, even if it might be a little uncomfortable given our bumps and bruises.

I was willing to endure a little pain to feel Julius’s body against mine.

Before I could make a move, Jude and Lily streaked down the hall, breaking the moment.

“Let’s go see what my brothers want.” Julius gestured for me to head into the hallway first. “I am going to warn you, when we’re all together, it can be a lot. I’m sorry. I feel like I’m dropping you in the deep end of the meet-the-family pool.”

“At least I already know Eli and Nero, so there will be a couple familiar faces in the crowd.”

“That’s true, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Julius led the way down into the basement, which didn’t really feel much like a basement at all.

Nearly the whole back wall was glass, and in the distance at the end of the property, I could see a beach and a quiet inlet.

Almost all the interior walls in this section of the house were glass, and we walked past the indoor pool where Lily and Jade were splashing around while Athina looked on from the side, her feet dangling in the water.

It looked like there was also a hot tub and a sauna in the pool area, and for a fleeting second, I thought about asking Julius if we could say fuck it to this meeting with his brothers and head to the hot tub instead.

I could almost feel the jets working against my battered body.

I must have made some sort of noise because Julius squeezed the hand he was holding and spoke like he’d read my mind.

“We can use the hot tub later.”

Farther down the hall, we passed a movie room, wine cellar, and a bar room with a pool table.

At the end of the hall, a set of pocket French doors were open, and I could hear the hushed murmur of voices.

A crowd of people were hovering around a four-monitor display on the wall while a Black man with glasses typed furiously on a laptop from where he sat behind a huge corner desk.

An interactive whiteboard like the ones we had in the conference rooms at Grove Core took up one wall.

A large black leather sectional divided the large room.

Several other people were seated on the sofa, watching the monitors from the couch instead.

A giant flat-screen television was mounted on the wall, and glass-fronted cabinets under the TV were filled with gaming systems and games, some I recognized from when I was a kid.

“This space used to be mine, but since Felix moved in, he’s more or less taken over.” Almost everyone in the room turned to look at us, everyone except the man at the computer, who just lifted a single middle finger in greeting.

“Felix, I assume?” I nodded to the man in the chair.

“The one and only.” Felix stopped typing and turned around.

He had dark-rimmed glasses perched on his nose.

“It’s nice to finally meet you, Ethan.” He held out a hand, and I shook it.

Julius made the rest of the introductions, and I tried to keep everyone straight.

Julius’s cousin Hadrian—who was Marcus’s brother—and his mate, Ben, were on the couch with Julius’s brother Cal.

Jack, Nero, and the last of Julius’s brothers, Quin, were standing around the monitors.

Marcus was in the desk chair next to Felix’s, and Eli was perched on his lap.

Quin’s mate, Dimitri, who had big bright green eyes just like his sister, Athina, was sitting on the edge of the desk, bent over a sketchbook.

“Well, since the gang’s all here, let’s get started.” Felix swung back around and started attacking the laptop keys again.

He pulled up different screens on each of the wall-mounted monitors.

The room started to tip when I saw one of the monitors had an image I recognized.

It was a picture of the wreckage of my sister’s car from the night she died.

Julius wrapped a hand around my waist to steady me and growled at Felix.

“A little warning would be nice.”

Felix swung around again, took one look at my face, and his expression turned sympathetic.

“I’m sorry, Ethan. Some of what I have to show everyone isn’t going to be easy for you to see. I wish there were a different way to do this, but there isn’t. No one in this room will judge you if you want to step out.”

Murmurs of understanding and agreement went around the room, and Quin, who stood on my other side, patted my shoulder a little awkwardly.

“I’m good. Just caught me off guard. Go ahead.”

Felix nodded and turned around again.

“I was able to track down some footage from the night Tessa Li and her husband died. Several of the traffic cameras in the area were down during the accident, but I was able to isolate a decent angle on one.” He hit the Play button, and I watched in horror as a dark sedan plowed into the side of my sister’s car, crushing it against the concrete median, and then drove away.

The car that had hit her had been damaged, but not badly enough, given the force of the impact.

“The other car should have crumpled like a tin can.” Jack pointed at the screen.

“There’s not enough damage.”

“Exactly.” Felix stopped the video.

“Now look at this.” He tapped at a few keys, and the monitor next to the one now frozen on the scene of my sister’s death lit up.

I immediately knew what I was looking at.

It was the stretch of highway Julius and I had been on, heading back to my house from downtown.

As we watched, a dark, older model sedan crossed from the inside lane, moving fast, and plowed into the side of Julius’s car.

I watched as the car flipped and we crashed through the guardrail, eventually falling out of sight over the embankment.

“Holy shit.” Ben stood up from his spot on the couch and looked Julius and me over from head to toe.

“I can’t believe you both walked away from that with nothing more than minor injuries.”

Julius’s mouth twisted into a frown.

“We were really damn lucky. If we had kept flipping, I don’t think we would have been.”

Bile climbed up my throat, and I thought for a second I might vomit all over the rug, but Julius held me tighter, and I soaked up every ounce of comfort from him that I could.

If things had been even the tiniest bit different today, the twins might have lost yet another parent.

Dimitri slid from his spot on the desk, bent down, and pulled a bottle of water from a minifridge under the desk in one graceful motion.

He grabbed the hand Julius wasn’t holding and pressed the cold bottle against the inside of my wrist. “Breathe, Ethan.” He over-exaggerated his breathing until my inhales and exhales matched his.

I focused on the cold of the bottle and felt the edges of panic start to recede.

“There you go. You’re okay.” Dimitri’s soft accent was exactly like his sister’s, and something about that soothed me.

The room had gone quiet, and someone cleared their throat.

Felix zoomed in on the car that drove away after it hit us.

“What do we notice?”

“Play it again, Felix, and zoom in on the car. Can you bring up a shot of the car from the other video too?” This time, it was Hadrian who spoke, and he got up from the couch and came to stand behind the monitors, leaning in as Felix pulled up a picture of the car that had hit Tessa and rolled the video from our accident again, stopping it on a close-up of the car.

Hadrian gestured between the two screens.

“That’s a Dodge Charger Hellcat. It’s been heavily modified. Probably at least concealed ram bumpers, r un-flat tires , and crash-resistant glass. With those mods alone and the standard V8, that car would hit like a tank. But mods like that cost a shit ton of money. On the low end, you’re looking at least 30k.”

“That’s what we were thinking.” Marcus beamed at his younger brother and wrapped an arm around Eli, who was still on his lap and typing on the laptop in front of him.

“So, we did some digging. There are only a handful of people in this area who have the space and the setup for those kinds of modifications. So I followed the money. Looks like one of the shell corporations we’ve been watching paid thirty-seven thousand dollars for modifications to be made to a Hellcat two weeks before Tessa Li died.”

This time, I couldn’t stop the bile from rising, and I tore from the room, retching into the sink behind the bar.

Julius rubbed my back as I heaved, the reality of everything falling around me.

It hadn’t been an accident.

Someone had murdered my sister.

And today, they had tried to kill me.