Page 25

WINTER

The first rays of sunlight peek through the curtains, casting a warm glow across the room.

I trace a line on Deacon’s jaw, mesmerized by the way the light falls on his dark locks.

Touching him evokes a reaction from Deacon because he captures my palm and kisses the back of it before drawing me to his chest and tucking a few stray strands of hair behind my ear.

My eyes are puffy from crying last night. That would also explain why Deacon’s concerned look is honed in on me.

My thoughts are jumbled, and thinking about things, especially things that revolve around Deacon’s father killing my own family, makes my heart ache.

So, to breathe through the pain and give everything a rest, I let this man take the lead. The same man who held me in his arms all night in bed and whispered he loved me and would never hurt me.

I’m only hoping Jacob will be calm enough to understand everything Deacon says to him.

“Ready?”

“Yes,” I affirm.

Taking my hand and not letting me fall back into what happened last night, Deacon helps me into his car five minutes later. In no time, we are on the road.

The trees lined up on the edges of the road sway with the morning breeze. My eyes are glued to the sky, which is now heavy and dark with clouds that threaten to spew rain anytime. Anxiety and worry are two rivals battling in my blood as my pulse skyrockets.

I’m nervous about Jake’s reaction to all this, but deep down, I know everything is going to be okay.

I know even as I breathe in Deacon’s scent, that strong, musky scent of his that has my spine ramrod straight and my heartbeat slowing down, that everything has been cleared, and there should be no reason for us to hold grudges.

As if he can somehow hear my thoughts, Deacon’s fingers sink into my right thigh before slowly drawing circles on my skin.

I pull my gaze away from the window to look at him.

He rejected me because he was protecting me. All these years of me hating him? He never deserved that hate, did he? He had a cruel fucking father, but Deacon Cross was not Foster Cross.

Deacon was Adrian and Asher’s father, and he was and is a good man.

“The last thing you need to do is worry, baby. Jake might be confused, but he was my best friend once upon a time.”

Jake is not only confused, he’s constantly anxious and jumpy, but I don’t tell Deacon that.

“Do you think he’ll believe you?”

His eyes were on the road, but he still managed to give me a quick glance and a smile. Deacon asks me the one question I can’t avoid.

“Do you believe me, Winter Cavanaugh?”

I look at his hand resting on my thigh, and I recall the agony written on his face last night as he begged me not to judge him for the sins of his father.

Making the right decision, my hand rests on his, and I reply with certainty. “I believe you, Deacon.”

“Then, that’s enough for me, baby. It might take some time for Jake to believe my story, but as long as you do, that’s all that fucking matters to me.”

And for a moment, even when thunder clouds roar in the far distance, and even as thick fog stretches on the road before us, I latch onto Deacon’s words because he matters to me, too, so much that I can’t put into words.

The shrill buzzing of the phone inside my purse cuts our silence into two.

An unknown number shines on my screen, and not once do I question myself why my heart is suddenly beating faster.

I step outside the car, and the foreboding unease on my shoulders feels heavier now more than ever.

Swiping my finger across the screen, I take the call.

“Hello?” My voice trembles, almost as if my wolf’s instincts can somehow detect that calm before the storm.

It’s almost as if I can see that last shred of happiness I have being ripped apart.

“Winter,” Jake’s voice comes from the other end of the line, and although some sort of relief flows through my veins, there’s no denying I can almost hear the cynicism in his voice. I can feel the hollowness in his voice, almost as if…as if the brother I knew is long gone.

“Jake. I’m in the driveway, I’m coming in to—”

“You fucked him, didn’t you Win?”

There’s a predatory calmness in his voice, the one that makes a shiver travel down my spine harder than his words can hit.

“Jake, I don’t—I don’t understand.”

“You said you were confronting him. You said you believed me, Winter. But you stayed at his place. You fucked him, and you believed his words instead of mine!”

His tone of voice makes my face pale. Deacon, who’s standing beside me, catches it and throws me a questioning gaze on what the hell is going on and who I’m talking to.

I smile faintly even though Jacob lashing at me out of nowhere brings tears to my eyes. I still smile.

This is Jacob Cavanaugh I'm talking to. The brother who taught me how to climb trees and how to be my unashamed self once upon a time.

“You are upset. I get it, and I'll explain everything, Jake. I’m coming inside, and you, Deacon, and I can talk. Okay?”

“Seven years, Winter. It’s been seven fucking years, and you are still the same naive little girl eating out of Deacon’s palm. What did he tell you? That he loves you? That he didn’t do it? Did he kiss you and promise to give you the entire world? How much did it take for you to stab a knife in my back, Winter?”

“Jake—”

“He killed Mom and Dad. You are siding with the man who took everything away from us! You’ve always been weak, Winter. Weak, na?ve, and… not my sister. My sister wouldn’t do this to me.”

My feet are already moving past the pebbled driveway to the lawn in my front yard.

Hot tears are already stinging my eyes as my voice cracks, and I beg Jacob, “I’m coming inside so we can talk. I’ll explain. Jake, I…I’m still your sister. I love you. I’ll explain everything and—”

“You think I would let my nephews stay there while you betrayed us? You think I would let them meet their monster of a father and be corrupted by him?”

The tap tap inside my chest gets fiercer and louder in my ears. I stop short of the door, my hand trembling against my phone.

“W-What? Jake…”

“If you loved us, you would have come home to us last night, kid. You would have come home to me. Goodbye, Winter.”

The call gets disconnected.

“Everything okay?” Suddenly, Deacon is there, but I can’t see him through the well of tears in my eyes.

I don’t even bother answering his question as I walk past him, open the door and get inside my home.

The familiar walls of my own home are tinted with a darkness I can only recognize as fear. The air is thick and so palpable that the sense of dread envelopes me like fog clogging my lungs and cutting off my breathing.

“Addie?”

The living room is empty, and I shake my head, refusing to admit the obvious.

“Ash? Mommy’s home.”

Silence greets me. The worst kind, the one that tells you shit has hit the fan, but you are too timid and stubborn to admit it.

“Isabel!”

I drop my purse in my living room.

Deacon’s footsteps are right behind me. I can hear him, but I can also see the flickering lights coming from my kitchen.

My feet lead me to the kitchen, and slowly and tortuously, like I’m watching one of those horror films that Adrian and Asher are scared of, the reality that lies in front of me when I reach there almost scares me to death.

Isabel lies crumpled on the floor amidst shattered glass scattered carelessly across the kitchen’s tiled floor. Blood trickles slowly down her cheek from a gash above her left brow that’s slowly healing. The gash is a sign that she struggled with her assailant before she went down.

Time trickles so fast before my eyes.

Adrenaline surges in my veins, and ironically, instead of moving, I remain paralyzed.

“Isabel,” my voice comes out as a choked sob.

“Winter?” Isabel lifts her head to meet mine, and I don't have to be told what happened here.

I can see it in the devastation in her eyes.

I can see it in the way tears cascade down her cheeks and mix with her blood.

Adrian and Asher…my boys? Where are my boys?

“Goddess' sake, what happened here?” Deacon leaps from behind me, kneels where Isabel is, and helps her up.

I can only stumble back against the wall, gasping desperately for breath as Isabel sits on one of my kitchen stools.

“Winter…,” Isabel mumbles weakly.

“Goddess,” panic and Jacob's words have completely left me flustered, but that doesn't excuse my behavior for not getting concerned for Isabel, who's still bleeding.

“I'm so sorry, Isabel. Are you alright? W-what happened?”

In my gut, I know what happened. The truth is in the pudding, and I refuse to see it. I refuse to admit what my mind is telling me.

Isabel takes a minute to form a coherent sentence, and I walk to the fridge to get her a glass of water even though my knees are shaking like my hands.

Deacon, who's now looking around, the realization hitting him that Isabel was attacked, pulls his phone looking at me with a worried gaze,

“I'll call a healer for her.”

I watch as Deacon walks out of the room to call a healer.

Isabel drinks half of the water in the glass, and then, looking at me dejectedly, she whispers the truth weakly, “Your brother…he hit me then…he took them, Winter. I'm so sorry.”

Her words almost knock me down.

I repeat her words in my mind like I haven't heard what she's just said or like I heard her wrong.

I shake my head a couple of times.

“Jake wouldn't…he would never take my boys. He would never…”

I hate the feeling that settles inside me as I connect the dots of what Jacob meant when he said he would take my boys.

I hate it when Deacon comes back to the kitchen and asks, “The healer is on her way. What's wrong? What did Isabel say?”

My brother attacked her. That's what she said.

Jake… my brother attacked her, and he now has Addie and Ash.

“I have to find Jake. I have to find my boys. I have to find them.”

“Jake?” Deacon asks.

“He took them, Deacon. Jake took Ash and Addie. He did this to Isabel. We have to leave Deacon. We have to find him right now!”

“Okay, let's just take a second to figure everything out before we take any action, Winter. For all we know, Jake could have made a mistake and—”

I'm on the verge of collapsing from the horror unfurling right in front of me.

And when Deacon tells me to take a second while my children are, Goddess knows where, betrayal, rage, guilt, and everything bottled inside me combusts.

“Take a second? Taking a second means, Addie and Ash are out there scared and getting hurt! Our children are in danger, Deacon. Jake…Jake took your sons away, and you want to take a fucking second? Adrian and Asher are your sons, and my brother took them away. Don't you understand that? Jake attacked Isabel! He's not…the same Jake we knew. He's changed. What if he…hurts our children?”

I'm sobbing so much that my throat throbs with pain.

I sob even harder when Deacon's hands land on my shoulders.

“I'm sorry. If I…If I told you sooner about them being your…sons, maybe this would never have happened. If I stayed in your mansion with Ash and Addie and heard your side of the story about Crystal that day, maybe…maybe our children wouldn't be with Jake. I'm sorry. This is…all my fault. Our babies are—gone because of me.”

I expect Deacon to get angry at me. To throw words at me for being a neglectful mother.

Instead, Deacon's hand grips my chin, and he swipes my tears away with his thumb.

“I knew they were mine as soon as I saw them. This is not your fault. We are going to find them, baby. I'm going to search every fucking inch of this city till I find our boys.”

His gaze is soft, but his words are filled with just as much rage as mine.

The look on his face is the same as mine. Like we've lost half of our hearts, and we'll do everything to bring them back.

Just as soon as Deacon finishes assuring me, a sharp ping echoes in the air.

I watch as Deacon steps away to take his phone from his pockets.

I watch as his eyes light ablaze as he looks at his phone.

Curiosity and a gnawing feeling that this concerns our boys eat me from the inside, and I move forward, taking Deacon's phone from his hands.

There's one message from Crystal, and it's as clear as lightning in a dark sky.

You and Winter have twenty-four hours to show up at this location, or your sons will pay dearly.