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My throat begins to close. “What did you do?”
“What I had to do to make sure you have everything you need to be happy.” His fingers run along my cheek, and he leans closer as my body grows heavy. “Go to sleep, sweetheart,” he whispers as my vision begins to blur. “And when you wake up, we’ll be a step closer.”Chapter 34Captain“His son,” Maddoc draws out slowly, his feet carrying him closer to our dad. “What fucking son?”
Our dad’s eyes soften, regret heavy within them. “We should go inside, sit.”
“No,” I say, looking to Perkins. “He doesn’t get to come inside.”
Our dad nods. “You boys know I tried to save your fathers the night Brayshaw was ambushed eighteen years ago, you know my brother was with us during that attack, and I left his body behind believing he was dead. We all know now that wasn’t true.”
“Enough with the backstory.” Royce crosses his arms. “What are we missing?”
“Mero knew our plan was to raise you boys as our successors. Three boys, from Brayshaw’s top three men—a new future for this town.” Our dad looks to Perkins and back to us. “A few weeks before the murders, my brother came to me to tell me he was expecting a son.”
“He wanted him to have a place with us.”
“Yes.” He nods. “But the timing had me questioning my brother’s motives. He’d never spoken of a child, you three were already born, and suddenly he had a woman none of us had ever seen him with before, conveniently five months along.”
“He waited to find out it was a boy before he told you,” Maddoc says.
“Exactly.” Our dad shakes his head. “I didn’t believe him, but he expected that, and had a DNA test to prove it. He thought that would be enough, that he was my brother, so that meant his son would be promised all you three were, but it wasn’t that easy.”
“Why not? He wasn’t even born yet. He’d have come in as we did, just a baby.”
“From a relationship I’d only just learned of, and with a mother I didn’t know. I denied his request.”
“But you were the lead,” Raven says, studying him with narrowed eyes. “You couldn’t give him what he wanted, but you did love him, so you couldn’t give him nothing either...” She trails off, shaking her head.
He eyes her a long moment, and shame shadows his face as he looks to us. “When Maybell sent a pregnant, homeless Graven maid my way, Maria, I knew the father had to be a Graven, but I didn’t know which one. It just so happened—”
“Your brother’s wife was having a boy, and Maria was having a girl.” Raven glares. “You made a promise that wasn’t yours to make.”
“You’re wrong, Raven,” he says, his eyes moving to mine. “I gave my word to protect the life of Maria’s child with all my ability, to bring her into the Brayshaw world where she would be safe, raised alongside you all, and in return, Maria gave me permission to promise her daughter to my brother’s son.”
My face falls.
Victoria.
He continues, “Your fathers and my brother, as we thought, died not long later. Maddoc’s mother and I took the other two of you and your mothers into our home, something we planned to do even before they were killed, and I offered the mother of Mero’s unborn son a position. A month following that, Maria went into labor, and the baby, Victoria, was taken.”
“The mother lost her meal ticket,” Royce says.
“I had no intention of firing her or sending her away,” he tells us. “But that baby was her security, and suddenly it was gone.”
“She was afraid.”
Our dad looks to Perkins a long moment, and when he brings his eyes back to ours, distress shines through.
“Dad?”
“In her eyes, Mero was gone, the Graven baby was gone, and it was only a matter of time before I’d send her on her way. I couldn’t protect an unborn little girl as I promised, and with that failure, any trust she had in me died too.”
“I don’t understand.” I shake my head. “Mero was Brayshaw, was he not, he ‘died’ as one, didn’t he?”
“He did.” Our dad nods.
“So she didn’t trust you, who cares. Her son was Brayshaw, innocent. He could have grown like us, with us. He deserved to be here.” I glare at him. “Why would you turn him away?”
“Holy shit.” Raven connects something we haven’t as our dad’s chin falls to his chest. “You wouldn’t, not unless you had to protect your family, your sons.” Her shoulders fall, pity in her gaze. “You gave her a job, placed blind trust in her to live and work in your home, and it was your biggest mistake, the very reason you hold the earning of trust so tight.”
