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“Not gonna be any KSG left when he’s done,” Maverick acknowledged.
“I’ll help.”
An agreeing hum rumbled from Maverick even as an air of hesitation billowed from him. “Willow...her boyfriend...did you know?”
“Who he was?” I asked with a disbelieving huff. “No, Mav, I didn’t fucking know. Did E?”
“Found out who you were seeing in the middle of one of the biggest shitstorms our family has ever experienced. She’s been working nonstop. She didn’t have time to research her.”
“Nonstop, and people still managed to get past me,” Einstein said, her somber tone holding a hint of bitterness as she lowered herself into the chair beside Maverick and passed their daughter to him.
“Avery—” Maverick began, but Einstein continued over him.
“But I checked her, you know...after.” Her head bobbed as she glanced around where we were still gathered in the kitchen. No one really eating other than the kids. Just sitting as if we’d collectively, silently, agreed to use the room for mourning.
Once Einstein’s reddened stare was on me again, she said, “Your girlfriend is either the unluckiest woman alive, or there’s something about her that draws evil to her.”
“You calling me evil, Einstein?”
She lifted a brow in something close to confirmation. “I see nothing from her family that would’ve put her in our path. They’re the quintessential picture of wholesome. She met Larson at college in Tennessee, and he ended up moving to Richmond with her after graduation. Which, as we know, is because he was in hiding from us after what went down. Considering the Tennessee Gentleman’s history of keeping their women completely in the dark, I doubt she knew of any of that though.”
I nodded even as I struggled to wrap my head around it. Maybe because I couldn’t imagine what Willow thought of us now—of me. Or maybe it was just that unbelievable.
“What are the odds?” I muttered mostly to myself, then louder, “She was with a Larson, then ended up here. In our town. And her first classroom has Zachary Larson’s daughter in it?”
“Unluckiest woman alive,” Einstein said with a shrug.
“Fate.”
We looked over at the unexpected voice to see Aurora studying us. Cheeks stained from tears. Eyes swollen from crying. Head faintly nodding as she cradled her niece closer to her chest and then readjusted her own son.
“That sounds like fate,” she repeated shakily.
“Think you missed the part where we put the call out for her boyfriend’s death,” I said grimly, prompting a refuting sound from her.
“I was told,” she informed me. “And I might not know anything about the people you’re talking about, but I know Sutton and Alexis were terrified when they first moved here because their last name used to be Larson. Alexis used to say she was afraid her dad would come back for her, even though he’d died. And I never understood that so much as right now,” she added with a weak, belittling laugh.
“But I’ve also seen how much they’ve changed being here with all of you—how genuinely happy they are and how they thrive,” she went on. “So, from what I’ve heard and seen, I think you saved Willow without meaning to. I think she ended up in a place with people who could help her through her sorrow because they understood it better than she could even imagine.” Aurora nodded before once again echoing, “Sounds like fate.”
Jentry had been staring at his wife as she spoke but slowly turned his attention to me. Brow furrowed tightly as if he were deciding if he agreed with her.
Finally, he asked, “Why did you?”
“Gotta be more specific, five-oh.”
“Put the call out for Willow’s boyfriend,” he clarified irritably as if I should’ve known that was the one person—the one death—he’d be thinking about right then.
“I didn’t,” I said slowly. “We did. Kieran, Conor, and—” I cleared my throat when her name caught there. The realization that Jess was really gone hit me like a sledgehammer to the chest. “ARCK helped relocate one of their wives—unknowingly—so the Tennessee Gentlemen decided to play a game of How Long Until You Die with our favorite genius.”
Jentry’s gaze shifted to my side, to Einstein, but it was one of the rockstars who asked, “Shit, Einstein, is he serious?”
“Not a discussion we’re having,” Maverick said coldly, words directed at me and letting me know he wasn’t happy that I’d brought up the memory without warning.
“Sutton had been in contact with ARCK, letting them know she was in danger and needed to escape,” I went on, skipping over the part about Einstein. “It had been a ploy from the Tennessee Gentlemen to get us out there, but it turned out Sutton and Lex really had needed help getting away from Zachary, and their organization was fucked beyond belief. After some near deaths on our side and promises of more, courtesy of them, our retaliation was wiping out an entire generation. Which sounds like more than the handful of seriously fucked up assholes it was. Michael was the last because he was at college when it all went down.”
“So, why not let him live?” Jentry challenged, then lifted a shoulder. “He might not’ve been—”
“He was,” Einstein said flatly. “We have plenty of documentation proving exactly what kind of person he was. Willow was lucky not to know the man he really was because he was still lying low and hadn’t married her yet.”
