AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Caroline clings to me, her hands tightening on my arm. “He told you that?”
Byron shakes his head. “Not in so many words. But it’s clear what was happening.”
I rub Caroline’s back, wishing I could have been there when Luca ended that piece of shit. The thought of anyone ever laying a hand on Bishop or Pope is enough to make me want to go kill the man all over again. “You’re not going to tell him his father’s gone, are you?”
Luca tenses. “No. I don’t want him to be afraid of us, too. All he knows right now is that HSD has approved him to stay with us for a while. The rest, we’ll figure out later. I told him I talked to his father about him staying with us and that he doesn’t need to worry about him. That’s all he needs to know.”
The Hawkes aren’t above eliminating someone who really needs it—like Jude’s father—but telling a ten-year-old you offed the man in order to protect him would only scare him more. He has no idea the lengths Luca and Byron will go to for him now that he’s in their fold, the lengths any of us will go to.
Nana reappears from the hallway and pauses at the entrance to the living room, giving us all a smile. “He’s back with Allie, Pope, and Isaac.”
Luca raises a brow at her. “He okay?”
She gives a tight smile. “He will be…eventually. I’m confident of that.”
And somehow, those words coming from Antonia Hawke are like a soothing balm settling over everyone in the room. All eyes turn away from her as we return to our previous conversations.
I tug Caroline against me again and bury my face in her hair. I’ve never felt luckier to have her or to be part of this family, to be a piece of something, a group that holds so much unconditional love for each other.
And on a day like today, it’s impossible not to feel it radiating through the room along with the Christmas music.
CHAPTER5
STORM
Iblink away the tears I managed to hold in until Mom left the kitchen with Jude as I work on mixing the salad, and she returns and walks over to me to wrap her arm around my shoulders.
“Hide those tears, Storm. You don’t need him seeing them.”
Shit.
I nod sharply and drop the spoon to swipe them away, then turn toward her. “I’m sorry, Mom. I just…his eyes.”
So full of fear and empty of anything else…
I know what that’s like, to feel empty, lost, alone. After Ben died, nothing, not even Angelina, could pull me from the black abyss I found myself in. For so long, I lingered there, hoping to join him, but then Landon came along and changed everything. He allowed me to live again and see how much joy I had all around me with these people, especially Angie.
Mom squeezes me and gives me a soft smile. “You all are keeping whatever happened to that boy from me. I don’t know why you thought I wouldn’t see it.”
Maybe because none of us really knew how bad it would be except Stone and Nora.
I release a heavy sigh. “We didn’t want to upset you on Christmas, Mom.”
She presses her lips into a thin line. Even in her seventies, the woman can still freeze you with a single look. “After everything I’ve been through in this life—losing your father and Star, almost losing Savage. Gabe almost dying. Then losing Ben…”
At the mention of his name, my chest tightens, but unlike in the beginning, when hearing it would bring nothing but pain, now I’m able to smile and remember the good times and incredible gift he gave me by loving me and leaving me with Angelina.
Mom swallows thickly, fighting her own emotions. “Do you really think I couldn’t handle knowing the truth about what happened to Jude?”
The tears for what that little boy has suffered return, and I swipe them away again in case he reappears in the kitchen. “It isn’t that, Mom. We just…”
Try to protect her the way she always protected us.
Skye approaches and thankfully interjects before I’m forced to try to explain it to her. She wraps her arm around Mom’s shoulders and squeezes. “We didn’t want to ruin the holiday.” She smiles. “Everyone’s trying to keep the mood up.”
Mom’s eyes dart between us, and she finally releases a sigh. “Before this day is over,someoneis going to fill me in.”
Or she’ll overhear enough to figure it out herself.
