Page 31 of Wounded Hearts

Chapter 16

Drew and Jaceapproached the storage unit with their heads on a constant swivel. Drew knew they were both feeling particularly wary with everything that was going on. The unit was in a secure facility owned by Eidolon but even that knowledge didn’t stop the feeling of anxiety that filled him as he approached.

Jace handed him the key. “You good?”

“Yeah, let’s get this done.”

The unit was about fifteen by fifteen in size, the light automatically going on as they entered. Scents and memories assailed him as he looked at boxes and boxes of his father’s things.

Jace raised a brow. “This is going to take a while. You wanna take the left and I’ll take the right?”

“Sure, that works for me.”

Drew approached the first box labelled ‘library’ and opened the lid. It was crazy to be touching all this stuff. When Marcus was alive, he’d never let Drew touch his things, guarding his privacy with a secrecy that bordered on neurotic. Now, he was free to go through whatever he wanted and yet until this point, he’d had no desire to do so. His father meant less than nothing to him.

He’d spent so many years yearning for his dad’s love and pride, and even more still hating him for what he’d done to him, for how he’d treated his mother. By the time he’d found Lauren, his hatred almost consumed Drew, but now he felt nothing for the man who’d sired him.

“Hey, I think I have something.”

Drew dropped the clothes he was going through back into the box and crossed to Jace, who was holding a decorative wooden box in his hands. “What’s this?” Drew asked taking it from Jace and turning it over.

“It’s a Japanese Puzzle box. It looks like a really nice one too.” Jace indicated the box. “I found it amongst this lot.”

Drew peered inside and his breath caught as he recognised some of his mother’s things, including bottles of her perfume, a favourite tea service, and his grandmother’s linens. His feelings for his father were clear, but his emotions regarding his mother were altogether more complicated. He glanced back at the box in Jace’s hands wondering what she’d kept inside it. Part of him had the feeling that perhaps this was the piece he needed to solve the puzzle.

“I need to open this.” He said it as a statement, but it felt like a question, as if by opening it, he was opening pandora’s box.

“It feels pretty heavy so my guess would be that it contains something important to her at the very least.”

“I wonder why my father never opened it?” His father was paranoid about secrets being kept from him, and the fact his mother had this and Marcus had never opened it, was a puzzle in itself.

“Do you want to try now or take it with you and keep searching for something else?”

Jace handed Drew the box and he took it, noting the weight. “I’ll take it home, let’s keep on looking.”

Jace nodded, accepting his request and returned to sorting through the box. Drew was relieved he could confront whatever he’d face inside the box alone. Laying it beside the door, he turned back to what he’d been doing before. They spent the next few hours scouring the boxes belonging to his father and found nothing of real interest, but his mind never strayed far from the puzzle box at his feet.

“I think we’re done here, do you?” Jace tipped his head in question.

“Yeah, if there was anything significant, we would’ve seen it.”

Drew stepped outside and took a huge gulp of the fresh clean air, needing to clear the memories that had bombarded him. The niggle at the back of his mind as he’d gone through some of his mother’s things continued to plague him. He was missing something, and he didn’t know what it was. Maybe the box would hold the answers. Assuming he could even get into it.

Drew sat beside Jace as his friend drove them back to Fortis. There were some searches he wanted to run on Will’s computer before he went to get Mara. He felt Jace’s eyes on him and turned to his friend, sensing he had something on his mind.

“You good? It can’t have been easy going through that lot.”

Drew considered the question before he answered. “It was harder than I thought but not because of my father. I’ve long since come to terms with what he was and who I was to him, but my mum is another thing.”

Jace faced forward but Drew caught the nod. “I guess this situation is bound to bring up memories and wounds you thought healed.”

“What about you? Becoming a father is a huge thing. You ready?”

Jace shook his head once and sucked in a breath. “Not in the fucking least, but I also can’t wait.”

Drew chuckled at that and wondered if all men felt the same.

“The thought of Lucy going through all that pain and the dangers involved in childbirth make me want to puke. If something happened to her, I don’t know if I could carry on.”