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“One second, LJ. It’s Dorian.” Pulling the phone away, he eyed me. “What is it? Have you heard from her?”
He knew I hadn’t heard from Sloane. His people had my phone. I shook my head, and he went back to his call.
“He said he needs to talk to me,” Dad continued, frowning. “Give me two seconds. Just keep working on Judge Perez. Do whatever you have to. We’ve got to get into that hospital.”
He hung up the phone on who I knew to be my god dad. I hadn’t seen LJ here, but I knew both he and Billie, his wife, were trying to get here. I’d heard the adults talking about it. The two had to drive all night from where they were since they couldn’t catch a flight.
Everyone really was coming out for this. Out to help one of us when LJ was more so my Dad’s friend than the Mallicks’. Of course, our parents were all good friends, but some had closer ties.
That didn’t seem to matter as my dad guided me out of the room. He’d given his phone to Jax to handle any incoming calls, my god dad lifting his hand to me with more than a tense expression etched on his face. Jax was hardly ever serious.
Everyone was today, and with my dad asking LJ to get involved, I had a feeling that meant the parents weren’t really working inside the law. If they were trying to do that, they’d speak to Brielle, the mayor, or even Jax, whose dad was a congressman.
Nah, LJ was the guy the parents went to in order to get shit done. Legally or otherwise. I wasn’t certain of LJ’s background, but I did know he had contacts both underground and above. Whatever he was into, whether past or present, made people move for him.
“What is it?” Dad braced my shoulder but released when soft steps touched behind me. He angled his body in that direction, and next thing I knew, he was leaving me.
And my stomach tightened more.
Mom… my mother had her jacket on, a thick blanket and a thermos in her hands. Dad instantly went to her, and though I had too, I had a rigidness to my steps that slowed me down.
She wasn’t supposed to be here. She’s not…
But here she was and with my father.
“Em, why aren’t you at the hospital?” Dad cuffed Mom’s arm in a delicate hold, and she placed her hand on his. My parents together were a fucking perfume ad, that glamorous Giorgio Armani shit that was basically fucking flawless.
Timeless.
My parents had an air about them that commanded people, and only some of that had to do with how visually stunning they were. I took all that from them and more, priding myself on it and even used it to my advantage in the past. I’d felt entitled to it.
And look where it had gotten me.
I had the weight of secrets and loss the equivalent of my goddamn body weight. I used the most beautiful elements of my parents for bad, not good.
And here I thought I was the good guy.
I knew my place in all this now, waiting while my parents greeted each other.
“Getting some stuff for Brielle,” Mom stated after Dad embraced her, touched her. She squeezed his hand. “Tea and blankets. Hoping maybe I can get her to sit down.”
Brielle hadn’t before she’d left, the loudest voice before Ramses had forced her to take a step back. She’d been trying to lead everything, acting like the mayor instead of the grieving mother she was before Ramses suggested they go to the hospital with Knight and his team. Like always, Wolf’s dad played the peacemaker. He had to be dying inside too just like Wolf.
He was just better at hiding it.
Everyone had to be breaking at this point. I mean, they’d all been here when the initial kidnapping had happened, all the parents grieving right along with the Mallicks. Us kids had been spared for the most part.
At least in the worse ways.
Those wounds obviously still remained, and we never had to know Pilar to feel her. She was everywhere. In Brielle’s beauty…
Ramses’s heart.
I swallowed, my parents coming apart.
“Dorian wanted to tell me something.” Dad placed me on the spot, his hand on my mother. “He said it was important.”
“Important?” Mom exchanged a glance with my dad, and though she’d been better at hiding her disappointment at several revelations lately, I noticed her heavy sigh. Her hold tightened on her blankets. “What happened? There’s something else?”
