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My gaze shifts back to the dead guy. “Hence why you snapped his neck,” I mutter, realizing that Zade was wrong again. Easton didn’t betray his loyalties when he went against Zade’s orders and killed the guy, he did it to protect me. Again.
We start looking closer, trying to figure out who Zade’s mom really is. What her plans are and how she’s intending to pull them off. The boys throw theories around the room as I shake my head, none of them really feeling right, but I suppose this is how they work through this shit and figure out the most plausible reason for any of this.
“What if this has been her plan all along?” Dalton questions, meeting Zade’s stare across the room. “Right after your father’s initiation. She went into hiding and had to give up her life for him to be able to stand at the head of Empire. What if she was doing all of this to steal the crown off his head, not expecting you to have stepped in and taken your father’s life before she could.”
Zade shakes his head. “It’s possible she had planned to take him out, but I don’t believe it was for the purpose of taking Empire for herself. There are too many people she would have to get through before she could claim the crown. She never could have pulled it off, and the people of Empire never would have accepted her as their new ruler.”
My gaze shifts over the floor-to-ceiling bookshelf, taking in the little trinkets and book titles she felt were important enough to put on display, and as my gaze shifts over a photo frame, I find myself stopping and reaching for it.
My heart races, unease rocking through my chest as I swallow hard. “What if she’s not the mastermind behind all of this?” I ask, having no idea how this photo even got here or why Zade’s mom felt the need to put it on her bookshelf. “What if she’s just another pawn in someone else’s game?”
“What are you talking about?” Sawyer questions, my line of thought completely off from any of the theories they’ve been throwing around.
“No,” Zade says. “When I followed Hartley Scott here, he answered to her. She’s the one pulling the strings.”
“I don’t think so,” I say, turning the picture around to show him. “She’s not the mastermind, my father is.”
All four of the guys stop what they’re doing and take in the photo of my father and Aunt Liv embraced in each other’s arms, looking happier than I’ve ever seen either of them to the point it makes my heart hurt. Liv looks young here, maybe in her mid-twenties, and the way my father is looking at her in this photo, I can only assume they were deeply in love.
“What the fuck?” Zade breathes, striding toward me and taking the frame out of my hands, his brows furrowed, confused and unsure.
“Yo,” Dalton laughs. “Since when was your mom slumming it with Oakley’s dad?”
“What?” I grunt, snatching the photo back. “That’s not his mom. That’s my Aunt Liv.”
“Uhhh, I hate to break it to you, Firefly,” Dalton says. “But that is definitely Zade’s mom.”
Horror fills my chest and my gaze locks onto Zade’s, pieces of the puzzle starting to fall into place. My father was having an affair with Zade’s mom, though from this photo, it’s hard to pinpoint a time frame. All I know is that from the day I was born, I never had a mother in my life. My father never really talked about her, just said that she had died too young and that was it. But what if—no.
My eyes widen, panic tearing through my chest. “Oh, fuck no,” I breathe, hoping like fuck that Zade and I don’t share a parent. “Tell me we’re not related.”
Sawyer and Dalton howl with laughter as Zade just stares at me. “No,” he says, shaking his head, though there’s a hint of doubt creeping into his eyes that puts me on edge. “Nah, we couldn’t be.”
“How can you be so sure?” I demand, waving the picture around. “I never knew my mom and then after my father’s imprisonment, I was sent to live with my ‘aunt’ who just happens to be your mother? Come on, Zade. I know you don’t believe in coincidences.”
“I don’t but . . . there has to be some kind of explanation. If you were my—I would know.”
I scoff, throwing my hands up as humiliation washes through me. “Great, I’ve been fantasizing about my brother.”
“I’m not your fucking brother,” Zade hisses. “My father was initiated as the head of Empire when I was nine, and up until then, my mom was there every fucking day. She was all I had. You’re only four years younger than me. If she were pregnant, I would have known. She’s not your mother.”
