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A moment of silence passes between everyone as they all try and process what’s just been revealed before Alex breaks it.
“Evie and I are heading home.”
I have to bite on the inside of my cheek to stop from arguing about where my home is.
“Okay,” Stefanos says.
“What about Blakely and Zay?” I ask, focusing on Alex’s dad.
His jaw tics, but otherwise his reaction over what his ex-wife did to his father and the man who abused him and his sons has been put behind him.
“They’re welcome to stay as long as they need. Blakely is doing a good job. I don’t welcome the idea of trying to find someone new already.”
I can’t help but laugh. “I appreciate the sentiment, but I think we both know she’s the worst housekeeper you’ve ever had.”
“She has her benefits,” he confesses with a wink to Alex. In that moment, I see exactly where his cheeky side might have come from.I also don’t miss the way Gianna tenses at the comment before rolling her eyes as if it’s some big joke.
“Dad,” he growls. “You promised.”
“What is it you kids say?” he asks lightly before walking into the kitchen and pulling the fridge open. “Rules are made to be broken.”
“Dad, I swear to God, if you’ve—”
“Leave it,” I say, pressing my hands to Alex’s chest lightly. “He’s baiting you. And it’s working.”
“You’re a prick.”
“Love you too, kid,” he says before disappearing from the room with a bottle of water and slipping into his office down the hallway.
“Right, well, if you’re heading home, I guess my time here is over once more.” Gianna moves toward the door. “I should probably go and find Daemon and confess my sins before you do it for me.”
“He’s going to be pissed you got in there first, I hope you know that.”
Gianna chuckles lightly, but she doesn’t argue.
Leaving them to have a moment, I head out through the wall of sliding doors to find Blake and Zay to tell them we’re leaving. Not something I’m looking forward to.
22
ALEX
With my heart in my throat, I give my mum one last squeeze before she walks toward her car.
I’ll see her tomorrow when she comes to change my dressings as promised, but after the bomb that was just dropped, her going home alone just seems wrong.
Pulling her driver’s door open, she looks back up at me. Love and pride shine in her eyes, making the emotion I’d battling with burn hotter.
She killed him. She found out the truth and took him out like a fucking bad-arse.
And none of us had any idea.
I remember the night Dad got the call that he’d had a heart attack and paramedics were unable to revive him. Mum was there, but I don’t remember her reaction. I was too busy celebrating the death of the devil to notice. D was too. Pretty sure he even smiled that night. And Dad… I just remember him blowing out of the room and then the house in a rage. But knowing what I know now, I’m pretty sure it was relief even more potent than ours. We’d had a few years dealing with our grandfather’s abuse. He’d had a lifetime and was forced to watch history repeat itself with us.
The need to talk to Dad open and honestly burns through me, and before Mum’s disappeared from the driveway, I dart back into the house, pausing to knock on Dad’s office door.
“Come in,” he calls, and when I push the door open, I don’t find him sitting behind his desk but standing at the windows staring out at the back garden.
“You okay?” I ask, unease rocking through me as I realise that the two of us have never had a conversation about the hard stuff.
