Page 17 of Knot Your Pucking Secret

They look so young. So untouched by grief. Untouched by the betrayal and tragedy waiting for them just beyond the horizon. I hadn’t seen this photo before.

I ponder that for a moment. Julian must have known them far longer than I had initially assumed. As though reading the question written plainly across my face, the corners of his mouth soften into a knowing smile.

“I started working for your grandfather nearly forty-five years ago,” he says. “Back then, I was a fresh-faced junior solicitor with far more ambition than experience.”

A quiet chuckle leaves him, but my head and heart are spiraling.

“I watched Glen grow from a reckless teenager into the man your mother fell in love with. I watched them marry. Watched them build a pack. A family. And sadly…” His voice trails off, a sigh leaving his thin lips. “I watched it all be taken away.”

He knew my family. Like really knew them. My grandfather.

I don’t know why my own thoughts never went beyond my parents.

I had been so consumed with learning as much about them as I could, I hadn’t given thought to any extended family beyond the slimy ass-hat Brett.

“Did…” My voice catches. I clear my throat before trying again. “Did my grandparents survive?”

His expression softens. “Your grandmother, Eleanor, passed before your parents. Cancer.” He pauses. “Your grandfather lived for another six years after your parents passed.”

My stomach twists.

“Six years,” I repeat quietly.

“He never truly recovered.”

I stare down at my hands, trying to wrap my head around the enormity of what Patrick stole. My grandfather spent the final six years of his life believing his entire bloodline had died that night. Believing there was nothing left of his son. Nothing left of Marie. Nothing left of me. All the while, I was alive. None the wiser to any of it.

Close enough that, if fate had been kinder, he could have watched me grow up. Taught me about my parents. About the Cardinals. About the family whose name I would havecarried from the very beginning. Instead, he died mourning a granddaughter he never truly lost.

A heavy silence settles over the room. Julian gives me a moment before carefully closing the file containing the remaining photographs and placing it to one side.

“As difficult as this is to hear, Lennon, there’s a reason I’ve started here.”

I lift my eyes to meet his.

“To understand what’s happened over the last five months, you first need to understand what happened after your parents died.”

He reaches for another file, considerably thicker than the first. Unlike the folder containing the photos, this one is filled with neatly tabbed legal documents, handwritten notes and what looks to be decades of correspondence.

He turns it so the cover faces me.

The Estate of Glen and Marie Welsh.

Then, he reaches for another.How many are there?

“When your parents died, they left behind far more than memories,” Julian says, his voice taking on a calm, methodical cadence of an experienced attorney. “They left wills, trusts, corporate interests, life insurance policies and a carefully structured estate plan designed to protect one person.”

His eyes meet mine.

“You.”

Chapter Eight

Lennon

The word hangs between us.

You.