Page 63 of Risky Passion (Wolf Security #5)

Jaxson

Four Weeks Later

Thursday night dinner at Mom and Dad’s was a tradition my brothers and I rarely missed.

For years, it had been the one constant in our family, partly because none of us wanted to get on Mom’s bad side, and partly because of her legendary pork roast. Crispy crackling, golden potatoes, rich gravy .

. . the kind of meal that made all the shit that we dealt with every day evaporate for a little while.

The delicious aromas smelled like home. Onyx was sprawled out under the table, hoping for someone to drop a scrap. Which Mom always did. Onyx’s tail thumped against my boot every now and then, reminding me that she was there.

My brothers were in fine form tonight, as always, jostling to outdo each other.

Parker had a knack for stirring the pot, and Whitney, for all his supposed composure, never backed down from a challenge.

Across the table, Mom’s tired eyes flicked between them, her faint smile not quite masking the lines of twenty years of worry etched deep into her face.

Dad sat at the head of the table, silent as always, his fork moving mechanically between his plate and his mouth. He hadn’t been the same since Charlotte disappeared.

None of us had.

“Captain Watts announced his retirement today,” Parker said, leaning forward in his chair to share the breaking news. “Poor bastard. Guess Beatrice’s notes about his father being a child molester finally broke him.”

I poured more gravy onto my pork roast. “Can’t blame him. Finding out your father’s not the hero you thought he was would weigh heavily on anyone.”

Parker jabbed his fork in my direction, his expression sharp. “People pay for the sins of their family all the time, but this was bullshit. Captain Watts is a good man. Just because his father was an evil bastard doesn’t mean the chief should be poisoned, too.”

“I agree,” I said, leaning back in my chair. “But still, he’s probably struggling to deal with that rotten truth.”

I took a sip of beer, my thoughts drifting. “And he’s not the only one. There will be a lot of families dealing with this fallout. Eleven men have already been arrested at the wharf because of Beatrice’s deathbed confession.”

Parker gave an exaggerated eye roll, shaking his head. “Thankfully, Roger Newton wasn’t one of them. No one was more shocked than him about the arrests. He treated a lot of those blokes like family.”

“Everyone was bracing for Roger’s name to come up,” I said. “Thank Christ it didn’t.”

Parker reached for another roasted potato. “You’re not kidding. I think the whole damn wharf, and every cop who didn’t also get arrested, let out a collective sigh of relief when he wasn’t in her notes.”

“How many cops were dirty?” Dad asked, blunt as ever, his focus shifting from his plate to me.

“Three so far. Well, two cops and the office manager, Sally,” I said, my tone turning flat.

“I still can’t believe Cooper was crooked,” Dad muttered, his scowl deepening.

“Me neither,” Parker and I said in unison.

Cooper Heathcote was the senior officer Dad had visited countless times, demanding action on Charlotte’s missing person’s case. He was the man Dad had trusted to help bring her home.

“I hope someone’s taking over his files,” Dad said, his voice carrying that low, heavy weight it always did whenever Charlotte came up.

Parker nodded. “I’ve got his cold case files, Dad.”

“Including Charlotte?”

“Yes, Dad. Including Charlotte.” Parker met my gaze, and I caught the silent plea in his eyes: Don’t elaborate.

I knew the real truth. Parker should never have access to Charlotte’s official file, not without running into a conflict of interest.

But that hadn’t stopped him, or Whitney or me, from working on the unofficial records. The ones we’d pieced together over the years. The ones that still kept us up at night, chasing dead ends and clues that disintegrated like mist.

“Good,” Dad said, his voice low and his eyes fixed on his plate. “Maybe we’ll finally get some answers.”

“Anyone want another beer?” Whitney asked, shoving back his chair.

“I’ll take one,” Parker and I said in unison, and we chuckled. We were like that, Parker and I, always on the same wavelength. Same thoughts. Same words. Same unbearable weight of guilt pressing down on our shoulders.

It’s our fault she left that party alone.

We had never forgiven ourselves for that.

“It’s still so shocking,” Mom said, pulling me from my spiraling thoughts.

Her hands curled around her teacup like she was trying to draw strength from the warmth of the green tea.

“What happened at that orphanage. Those poor kids, what they went through. It’s just .

. .” Her voice faltered as she set her cup down.

“And everything that’s happened in the forty-six years since, triggered by what went on in that house of horrors,” I said, reaching for my beer.

“We’re still making arrests. Drug smugglers, human traffickers, people who took bribes left and right.

And we’re hunting down the bastards who let it all happen at the orphanage decades ago.

The ones Beatrice didn’t kill, anyway. ”

“Jesus,” Whitney muttered, raising an eyebrow. “They’ve got to be in their eighties by now.”

“Yeah,” I replied, my tone flat. “Unfortunately, a lot of them died before the truth came out.”

“Two killed themselves this week,” Parker added, shaking his head.

“Yeah. Right after the news broke about the documents I found at the orphanage.” Whitney grinned like he’d just hit the jackpot.

I bit back a laugh. If I had a dollar for every time he mentioned saving those boxes from the fire, I could finally treat myself to some premium beer.

Not that he ever remembered to add that Tory and I were the ones who helped haul them out.

She damn near died for those boxes, but I would let him take the credit.

It wasn’t often Whitney got recognized for his work.

My thoughts drifted to Tory. We’d called each other every day since Beatrice’s death, and we both had returned to our own homes.

Between work, life, and everything else getting in the way, we hadn’t caught a real break to spend proper time together.

But the calls, the texts, and the occasional spicy FaceTimes had my cock thumping to a desperate beat.

She was fun, sharp, and easy to talk to, and our conversations never stalled.

If anything, the distance was making us stronger. And making me damn horny. I hoped she was ready for me when I saw her tomorrow.

“What are you smiling at?” Mom asked, her eyes glinting in the dining room lights.

I forced down a smirk. “Nothing. How many cold cases have you solved because of Beatrice’s notes so far, Parker?” I said, yanking a question out of thin air to steer the conversation away from me.

“Only seven are completely solved,” Parker said, shrugging. “But there are heaps more getting attention again.”

“It may not be the closure those families were after,” Mom said, sighing heavily, “but it’s better than nothing.”

The weight of Mom’s words hit home, and we all fell silent as the clinking of our cutlery became the only sound.

Not a single Thursday dinner passed without Mom hinting at Charlotte.

It was subtle, showing up in just a look or a phrase, but it was always there.

Like she was afraid we would forget her .

We would never forget her.

Until the day we found her or her body, we would keep searching.

“All those families shattered because of those monsters,” Mom murmured, slowly slicing into her pork roast.

“Yeah. And because of greed.” I shook my head.

“I’ll never understand how those close to them don’t question where the extra money comes from.

Like that guy who got a $150,000 payout and bought himself a brand new Range Rover.

His wife never asked him where he got the money.

What the hell did she think—he got a raise? People can be so blind.”

Whitney grabbed his beer and leaned back, his expression deadpan.

“People don’t want to believe the truth, even when it’s laid out for them on a cold slab.

I’ve told plenty of wives that their husbands had sex right before they died, and it wasn’t with them.

And yet, they think I’m lying. Or that it must be a mistake. Like I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Parker grinned, jabbing his fork in Whitney’s direction. “Well, to be fair, you don’t know what you’re doing half the time.”

Whitney shot him a look. “Says the guy who thought microwaving aluminum foil was a good idea.”

“That’s not a fair comparison,” Parker muttered, grinning. “That’s called a learning curve.”

I reached under the table with a slice of roast pork, and it vanished from my fingers in a flash. I scratched Onyx behind her ear. Whitney was right . . . for some people, oblivion was the only way they could cope. It wasn’t for me, though. I wanted the cold, hard truth, no matter how much it hurt.

I pushed my peas around the plate. "In the last month, the team found twenty-one more kids buried in the back paddock at the orphanage.

And Whitmore's remains, too. His family's devastated.

Can't blame them. Finding out he's not just dead, but also a monster who preyed on children? That's a hell of a thing to process."

Mom set her fork down with a quiet clink. "I'm glad you gave Beatrice and Alice a send-off. I know what they did was wrong, but they went through so much." She dabbed at her mouth with her napkin. "Those poor little girls."

Parker leaned back in his chair, running a hand through his hair. " Makes you wonder if any of this would have happened if Beatrice and Alice hadn't been treated the way they were."

Beatrice's confession and her reasons had been debated at length between my brothers and me. Who were the real monsters? The lines were certainly blurred with this case.

After Whitney completed the autopsies, a few of us decided to give Alice and Beatrice a better ending—not as victims, but as women who had suffered more than anyone should.

Maya had been the driving force behind it, and I suspected something in her past fueled her insistence on giving these women a proper farewell.

A few days ago, we drove up to Stanage Bay and released their ashes to the outgoing tide. The sea breeze carried them far from the cruelty they'd known in life. As we’d stood at the water's edge in silence, our quiet vigil seemed like a fitting end to our conflicted emotions.

Giving those women a peaceful ending felt right somehow—letting them finally be free to find peace in the vastness of the ocean. I hoped we could do the same for Charlotte one day. Or better yet, find her alive. That was the miracle we all prayed for.

Whitney smirked at me, shifting gears with a sly grin. “So, now that you’ve finished searching for bodies at Angelsong Orphanage, what are you and Onyx doing in your spare time?”

“Don’t know.” I shrugged. “But I’m heading up to Risky Shores this weekend for Maya and Zac’s wedding.”

“Oh, that’s right.” Parker winked at me. “Tory’s going to be there, isn’t she?”

“Yep.” My insides did a weird flip as I pictured her.

“You sure you guys don’t want to come?” But before I even finished my question they were shaking their heads.

They made up excuses about too much work, and I left it at that.

And for the first time since I could remember, I was glad my brother’s weren’t tagging along.

This time, it would be just me and Tory.

And that felt so right. She deserved my full attention. I really liked the sound of that.

Mom stood, brushing her hands on her apron. “All right, boys, that’s enough chatter. Time for you all to get out of my way so I can clean up and get to bed.”

“Mom, we can help,” I said, rising to collect the plates .

She waved me off, as she always did. “Not tonight. Go on, I’ve got this. You know the rules.”

Parker and Whitney were discussing what teams were playing footy tomorrow night as they shuffled out of the dining room. But I lingered, catching Dad’s eye as he stood by the window, staring out into the dark. His shoulders were hunched, and his frame seemed to shrink more each week.

I walked over to him, wishing there was something I could say to pull him out of his depression. He’d been like this for years, hollow and lost, and the only cure for him was to know what happened to Charlotte. “See you next week, Dad. Love you.”

He nodded, and I strode away.

Out on the front porch, Onyx bounded up to me, her tail wagging. I crouched to give her a quick scratch behind the ears. “You behave yourself, all right?”

She let out a soft whine, nudging her nose into my palm.

“Don’t worry about her,” Mom said, stepping out and wrapping her arms around me. “We’ll take good care of her.”

I hugged Mom’s tiny frame to my chest. She was fragile, but her arms were strong around me.

As she squeezed me tightly, she said, “I can see you like Tory. Don’t let Charlotte’s ghost ruin this one.”

I froze, pulling back to search her face for clarification.

Her eyes held mine, steady and knowing. “Charlotte doesn’t need all your attention anymore, Jax,” she said, her voice gentle but firm. “Tory does. Let yourself have this, my beautiful boy.”

She tapped my cheek, her touch warm and familiar. “Before life slips by and takes this chance away from you.”

I frowned, and yet a weight also lifted off my chest. “Thanks, Mom.”

“Go. Have fun.” She stepped back, giving me a nod full of meaning. “You deserve to be happy, Jaxson. So don’t mess this up.”

As I climbed into my truck and pulled away, her words played on a loop in my head. She was right. Charlotte’s ghost didn’t need all my attention anymore.

Tory did .

I'd spent half my life digging up the past. Charlotte's disappearance had made me a detective. But Tory was awakening something that I’d been burying for years . . . the man beneath the badge.

Tory was about to meet the real me. And I was raw, hungry for her, and done with waiting.

I hope she’s ready.