ANGELINA
Just like most Sundays before dinner, Allie, Astrid, and Bishop tip their heads together over the Scrabble board, arguing about something that seems completely insignificant given everything else going on.
From over here, I can’t hear the debate, but I typically give those wins to Astrid. There’s a reason she’s the teacher in the family. She knows the most obscure words and facts, and despite her rather laid-back and calm demeanor most of the time, when it comes to winning at a game, we all know to watch out for her competitive nature.
My gaze drifts to Allie, who watches Bishop and Astrid going at it, a smirk on her lips. It’s nice to see, given how stressed we’ve all been, but it won’t last. She has to tell Mom and Landon soon. Pregnancy isn’t something you can hide forever, especially in this family.
I take a sip of my wine and scan the rest of Nana’s living room. Aunt Nora’s gaze meets mine from where she sits with Stone, Isaac, Jack, and Viviana. She glances toward Allie and gives me a knowing look, then raises an eyebrow and inclines her head toward where Mom and Landon stand, talking to Gabe and Skye.
Did she tell them?
The question goes unspoken, and I give a quick shake of my head to let her know we still can’t say anything.
Nora offers a slight shrug and tight smile. She, of all people, understands what Allie is going through. It wasn’t exactly perfect timing when she and Stone got pregnant with Isaac. But just like they did, Allie will figure it out. Maybe with the help of a few friendly nudges from Jude and me.
If he ever talks to me again.
I still can’t figure out what the hell happened last night. The way he ran and locked himself back in his loft. Ignored me pounding on the door and my texts and calls after…
It was as if a flip had switched, but I have no idea what I did that caused it to happen. I was on the verge of doing something very stupid, something we would never be able to take back. Something I haven’t been able to stop thinking about all damn day despite trying to distract myself with helping prep dinner and getting pulled into various discussions about those Falco fucks and Roselli’s little visit.
How do you forget a kiss like that?
Uncle Savage comes from the kitchen, but instead of moving toward where Danika and Kennedy sit with Pope, Saint, and Caroline near the window, he approaches me with his brows raised. “I thought you’d be in a better mood, given that you finally managed to get Allie to show up.” He glances over at her. “It’s nice to have her back at Sunday dinner.”
I nod and offer him a tight smile, then take a sip of my wine. “Yeah, it is.”
His assessing gaze narrows on me, like he’s seeing right through the façade I’ve tried to keep up all night that everything is okay. “Then why don’t you look happy? Worried about the Falco Enterprises situation?”
My gut twists again, the same way it does every single time I think about it—especially now that we know their next move, which is far bigger than anyone could have seen coming. “I just don’t understand it—why they have it out for us, why they are so damn intent on trying to ruin everything.”
Over the last few years, they’ve mimicked every major business we have—the bars, the restaurants, the strip clubs. And now, not only are they targeting the Daily Grind, but Stone and Isaac unearthed the probable reason for Nancy and Cass’ little coffee date—they’re going after the Hawke Hotel before we even break ground.
Cass failed to stop it with his attack through the zoning board, so Falco Enterprises has taken the next major step. Opening a competing property of their own…directly across the street from the land we have earmarked for the Hawke Hotel.
Isaac and Stone are already at work trying to get an injunction to stop anything before it even gets started, but given the aggressive attacks Falco continues to direct our way, even if we manage to stop it, something else will only come at us from another side.
Savage sighs, rubbing his hand along the dark stubble spotted with gray on his jaw. “I wish I had an answer for you, Ang. Believe me. We’ve been trying to find one for the last few years since they showed up. But whoever’s behind them, whoever has this vendetta against us, is good at covering their tracks.” He reaches out and rests his hand on my free arm. “But they won’t win. Hawkes always rise.”
My foul mood can’t stop the grin from pulling at my lips. “Hawkes always rise.”
The saying that has been floating around in the family for thirty years seems to lift everyone’s spirits, even in the darkest of times. And for some reason, hearing it from him, of all people, the one who had every reason to lose faith over the years, gives me a little bit of hope that things will work out—at least where the businesses and Allie are concerned.
Now, Jude, that’s another story.
I sip my wine and drum my nails against the glass as I watch everyone talking, laughing, and having a great time while they wait for Nana to announce we’re allowed to move to the table.
Savage continues to eye me, reading me easily, the same way he always does with everyone. “There’s something else bothering you.”
“Huh?” I glance over at him, doing my best to appear surprised by his statement. But there isn’t any point in trying to lie to him. The man sees too much. “Just kind of disappointed we couldn’t get Jude to join us, too.”
His eyes soften. “I have a feeling that one’s going to be a lot harder.”
He has no idea…
Or maybe he does.
Given how much Savage seems to know about everything that goes on in this family, it wouldn’t surprise me if he somehow already figured out what’s been going on with Jude.
Looking back, I should have seen it. Would have if I hadn’t been trying so hard not to focus on Jude. If I hadn’t been fighting against that pull toward him so much that I wouldn’t even glance his way for fear of what it could do to me.
My gaze drifts over to Luca and Byron near the fireplace, where they talk with Isaac and Jack, who have left Viviana to play with her grandmother, probably discussing the potential for opening the shop below Jude’s place, which seems even more important now.
Luca’s dark eyes meet mine, and he says something to them before he approaches Savage and me. “What are you two talking about that has you looking so grim?”
Shit.
I force a tight smile, trying to fight the heat of a blush with my answer. “Your son.”
He sighs and takes a sip of his bourbon, then leans back against the wall next to me and crosses his arms over his chest. “We were just talking about the bookstore/art gallery potential.”
We’ve been too distracted by…other things…to even discuss the plan they presented him that would completely change the original idea for the store. “Did he agree to that?”
Luca scrunches up his face and holds out a hand, wiggling it side to side. “Sort of? Byron spoke with him, and he seemed receptive to the idea.”
“Well, that’s progress, right?”
It would require Jude to leave the loft, unless he was going to put one hundred percent of the planning and operation into Jack’s hands, and I can’t see him doing that when that shop was always his dream.
I can’t really picture him willingly going downstairs to do what he would need to, either. At least, not yet.
Everything I read and Pope told me about agoraphobia suggests addressing it is a long, complicated road that never leads to a true cure. Cognitive behavioral therapy and medications can only do so much. And Jude isn’t talking to anyone about this, not even me.
Savage watches Isaac lean in toward Jack and whisper something that makes a flush spread over her cheeks as he rubs his hand on her expanding belly. “It is progress, but none of us want Jude to feel like he’s being boxed out. We all respect that it’s his space, but we also have to do something with it before Falco gets that coffee shop open.”
I don’t want to betray Jude’s confidence by saying anything about what I know, but their hopefulness that he’s going to be able to actually get that place up and going might be misplaced. “Are you guys …” I glance between them. “Are you confident Jude’s capable of doing this right now?”
How else do I ask it without revealing things I know he doesn’t want to be public?
Luca and Savage exchange a look, and Luca takes another sip of his bourbon, considering his answer.
His jaw tightens as he stares into the glass. “Frankly, I’m not sure. When we bought the place, when he moved in, he was so excited about it, raring to go.”
I nod. “I remember he was down there every day, measuring, sketching plans…”
Those memories of how he used to be come rushing back. Of him coming in every morning and setting up his laptop at the corner table so he could see the whole café and work until he had to head to class. Of the way his eyes followed me and I tried to avoid meeting them with my own because of the intensity they always held. Of how, even then, I knew Jude was something special, someone special, as more than just an adopted member of the Hawke family. And I need to figure out a way to get that back. To get him back without revealing something I shouldn’t.
Gabe barks out a laugh at something Skye says to him, then leans in and presses a kiss on her cheek. His eye catches Savage’s, and he raises a brow, concern darkening his green gaze. With everything going on, of course, he’d be wondering what we’re discussing over here, especially if Savage is right and I haven’t been hiding my mood very well.
Savage inclines his head toward the other side of the room, indicating Gabe should meet him over there, leaving me alone with Luca, one of the only people who might actually hold some of the answers I’ve been seeking about Jude.
“Do you think…” I meet Luca’s hard gaze. “Do you think maybe something’s going on with Jude…more than we realize?”
That’s vague enough, right?
It opens the door for him to volunteer anything he knows, for him to give me any indication that Jude’s struggle isn’t as big of a secret as he seems to think it is.
Luca gives me a tight smile. “That boy has been through more than any one person should ever have to suffer. Byron said you read his book.”
I nod slowly. “Part of it. To tell you the truth, I had a difficult time reading it, knowing that a lot of it’s true.”
“It isn’t even the tip of the iceberg.”
His comment mirrors what Byron told me the other night, and my stomach instantly sours. I open my mouth to ask how big that iceberg is when Nana’s voice rings through the house.
“Dinner’s ready!”
As if I could eat right now.
Everyone starts to file out of the living room toward the dining room, and the back sliding door opens. Coen and Atlas step through it, beers in hand, both looking tense. Atlas puts a hand on Coen’s arm to stop him near the kitchen and leans in to say something that makes Coen jerk back and glare at him before he stalks away toward the crowd gathering in the dining room.
Atlas’ eye catches mine, and I raise a brow.
“Everything okay?”
He waves me off with a tattooed hand. “Don’t worry about it.”
Under normal circumstances, I might try to delve a little deeper into what’s going on with Coen. The youngest Hawke always seems to be drifting between jobs at the clubs and restaurants or on special projects for Savage or Gabe, aimless and not seeming to want to find a direction. But right now, there are far too many other things to worry about than Coen’s listlessness and what was probably a petty argument with Atlas.
Luca doesn’t make any move to head toward the table, so I don’t, either, letting the rest of the family file past us to take their seats.
Nana bustles out of the kitchen with one of several trays of lasagna, her gaze narrowing on us. “You two aren’t eating?”
I open my mouth to assure her we were just about to go in, but Luca places his free hand on my arm, stopping me.
He gives Nana a hard smile. “We’re just discussing Jude. Give us a few.”
“Oh…” Her reproachful look disappears, replaced by a depth of concern that slumps her shoulders slightly. “Okay, then.”
There are very few things Nana will accept as excuses for missing Sunday dinner or being late to take our seats at the massive, custom-made table—Jude being one of them. She wants him here as badly as anyone.
Once she disappears into the dining room, Luca runs his hand back through his salt-and-pepper hair. “How much do you know about his life before he came to live with us?”
I shrug. “Not much, except what you told me when you brought him here that first time, that you were trying to protect him from his father.”
Luca’s jaw tightens, and a muscle there tics. He downs half his bourbon. “Yeah, well, it wasn’t just his father.”
“What do you mean?” The possibility makes me stiffen. “His mother, too?”
He shakes his head. “His mother was the one person who actually tried to protect him, so when she was gone, things got very bad.”
“Where did she go?”
Luca downs the rest of this drink in one massive gulp. “She died several years before we found Jude. He spent four years alone with his monster of a father, and the things he endured…” He shifts his weight, his shoulders stiffening, hand tightening around the glass. “It frankly surprises me he’s done as well as he has. We did everything we could for him—took him to doctors, therapists, tried to get him to understand that what happened to him didn’t have to define the rest of his life. I thought—” He closes his eyes and swallows thickly. “I thought he was doing well. I thought he had finally found a way to move on from the torture he endured, and then…it was like he took this massive leap backward and shut down again, shut us all out.”
“Two years ago?”
His gaze darts to meet mine. “You noticed it, too?”
It would have been impossible not to see the change. He literally disappeared from the family, from the café, from everywhere but that damn window I couldn’t stop looking at.
“Yes, do you think something triggered him? Something set him back?”
He nods. “I’m almost positive, but Byron and I are terrified of pushing him for an answer. We’re afraid he’ll regress even more and we’ll lose him forever.”
The emotion in his words brings tears to my eyes, and one falls before I can swipe it away.
We have to figure out a way to help him. Pushing him to the roof with me last night seemed to be an epic failure that only led to him locking me out again, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. A “baby step” in a space he could still feel safe, to experience something I know he always loved.
Yet, it backfired miserably.
Maybe the key is figuring out what triggered him in the first place, and given what Luca just said, one possibility races to the forefront.
“Could he have maybe…run into his father?”
Luca’s already dark eyes go black, his jaw tightening so much that it probably cracks his teeth. “Impossible.”
“How do you know that?”
He pushes off the wall and leans in close, locking his onyx eyes with mine. The pure hatred and determination in them send a shiver down my spine. “I made sure he would never hurt Jude again.”
* * *
JUDE
They stood in the rain, both of them wanting. The pain of their longing gnawed away at them from the inside out. It had become a living, breathing thing, capable of hurting everyone around them as much as it did them.
BUZZ! BUZZ!
The buzzer drives me away from the scene where Rosalie finally gets everything she’s been searching for, where the still-nameless hero in the story doesn’t run away.
That world is so much easier, a place where the rain truly does wash away all sin and heal all scars, giving everyone a fresh start.
If only it were that simple in this world.
BUZZ!
Who would be here this late on a damn Sunday night?
I grab my phone and get to my feet, but I don’t have any missed calls or messages from anyone. With the entire family tied up at Nana’s, I wouldn’t expect to hear from Allie until tomorrow anyway, but maybe she told her parents and wants to come talk to me about the fallout.
But Allie would just use her key…
A cold sweat breaks out over my skin as I look down at the sidewalk. Angelina steps back from the door so I can see her and holds up what looks like a tinfoil-covered plate in her hand.
“Shit.”
The single word hangs in the air like a grenade, and staring at her looking up at me with a hopeful half-smile, that’s what it feels like, too.
I’ve tried not to think about what happened last night, how I completely blew my chance with her after making her cross that line she’s always dancing along between what’s wrong and what’s right, what she wants and what she believes she deserves, the one that separates what she fears and what she craves.
That was it, Jude. Your chance. Maybe you’re one opportunity to show Angelina everything she is to you.
And you fucking blew it.
I can’t ignore her again tonight. I can’t keep myself locked up in here and pretend like I did last night. I can’t stand with my back to the door, listening to her begging me to let her in.
My heart can’t handle that again.
Letting her in is the lesser of two evils, even though something tells me it will hurt just as much.
I run a hand back through my disheveled hair as I walk to the door and buzz her in, the list of her inevitable questions rattling through my head.
Why the fuck I pulled away…
Why I ran after I pushed her…
Why I didn’t take what we both wanted…
Fuck.
Her soft wrap at the door makes me stiffen, and I take a fortifying breath and tug open the door.
She offers me the same half-smile she did from the street and holds up an apparent peace offering. “I brought you a plate from Nana’s.”
The day we met comes barreling back instantly.
Angelina opening that closet door and sliding two plates of food in for Allie and me…
The way my heart thundered against my rib cage every time she came back to check on us…
Her genuine smile lifting some of the anxiety I had felt since the day before when Luca and Byron had found me and told me I was going home with them.…
The reassurance she gave me that everything was okay, that I would be okay eventually…
The thing that I have clung to for so many years.
That day changed everything. It was the start of my new life and my love for Angelina Matthews.
She watches me, so hopeful, plate extended out to me like a lifeline I so badly want to take, but something holds me back. The knowledge that I might not be capable of giving her all the things I want to. The confidence that if she really knew my whole past, she wouldn’t want it anyway.
The corner of her mouth curls up. “I-I figured you must be missing Nana’s lasagna.” She nods toward the plate. “And I put a big piece of chicken parm in there for you, too. I know it’s your favorite.”
She knows my favorite food.
Why does that send hope flickering through my heart?
Her smile falters, and something dark overtakes her wet gaze. She’s holding something back, and that evaporates my hope as quickly as it came. “Can I come in?”
Saying no would be easier. I could take the food and close the door on her and this thing I was stupid enough to attempt, but the part of me that’s become addicted to her touch and the way she makes me feel every time we’re in the same room makes me open the door farther and take a step back, allowing her inside.
She pauses next to me and looks up, now close enough that I can see the red rimming her eyes.
“What the hell, Ang?” I reach out and grab her arm, that instant connection crackling between us. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I-I guess so.” She swallows thickly and brushes past me. “I’ll put this in the kitchen.”
“You guess so?” It isn’t like Angie to completely brush off a question like that, and that makes me hustle after her, letting the door click closed behind me. “Did something happen at dinner?”
It’s been two years since I’ve spent my Sunday evenings with the Hawke family, but I still vividly remember how those dinners can be. Thirty people crammed into Nana’s house. Wine, bourbon, food, laughter. All of it slightly overwhelming.
Angie sets the plate on the counter and turns to face me. “No, nothing happened. Allie still hasn’t told anyone and won’t talk to me. She just keeps saying she needs some time.”
I step around her, careful not to let my body brush against hers, and pull off the foil from the plate. The familiar scent of Nana’s cooking hits me hard, and my eyes start to burn with tears I never would have expected from a damn plate of food. My stomach rumbles, reminding me I haven’t eaten all day, but I can’t imagine doing it now with Angie standing next to me, looking so upset over something.
“Did you just come here to bring me this plate of food?”
She stiffens slightly, shakes her head, and turns to face me. “No, it was just an excuse to come see you.”
“You need an excuse to come see me?”
The corner of her mouth twitches. “I mean, I guess not…” She glances down at her hands, interlocking them in front of her. “I talked to Luca and Savage tonight.”
“Okay…”
“About the bookstore.” She lifts her gaze to meet mine. “Seems like they offered you a good compromise.”
I nod slowly. “I think so.”
It’s the only option, really. The more I think about it, the more I see they’re right. I can’t leave the space empty forever. Not when the entire street is full of bustling Hawke businesses…and soon, a major competitor. It would be selfish to keep it for myself when I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to actually set foot in there again.
Angelina looks away again, out the front windows, fidgeting with the hem of her shirt.
She won’t even look at me.
“What is it, Ang? You clearly have something you want to say, so say it.”
“Luca said something tonight…” She trails off and bites her lip, glancing up at the ceiling, and when her gaze meets mine again, tears shimmer there. “About your dad and how you met him and Byron…”
Ice immediately rushes through my veins, the scent of the food that had been so mouthwatering only a moment ago now nauseating me.
Luca and Byron always promised never to reveal anything about my past, nothing about how they found me or what I was doing to anyone except Nora for medical treatment and Savage and Stone because they needed to help with the legal finagling and favors they needed to push through my adoption quickly.
Why would he tell Angelina anything?
“Jude, please don’t be mad at him for saying something. I told him I was worried about you. We were discussing the bookstore—”
“What did you tell him?”
“I didn’t tell him how long it’s been since you’ve left this place, okay? I would never reveal that to anybody without your permission. But I was just trying to understand what might have happened, what might have triggered all this, so that I can help you.”
“I don’t want your goddamn help.”
She takes a step closer, then seems to think better of it, abruptly stopping her approach. “Bullshit, are you telling me going up on the roof last night, being out in the fresh air, feeling the storm, the rain…that you didn’t enjoy that? Being back out, being able to experience the world?”
“I was only able to do that because you were with me. Because, for some damn reason, since the day we met, you’ve been a safe place for me.” I fist my hands on the counter. “You can’t be with me all the time, Ang, even if I might want that.”
She winces and closes her eyes. “Is what happened before Luca and Byron found you why you’re so reluctant to go outside?”
“Fuck.”
I push off the counter and shove my hands through my hair, regret for opening that damn door for her growing with each word she says.
This isn’t a conversation I ever imagined having with Angelina, but I can’t hide it from her forever.
Can I?
I can’t pretend I’m a normal, healthy human being when I’m very clearly not. Angie may think she knows me after fifteen years, but she has no idea who I really am, what I really am, what happened to make me this way and prevent me from living life the way it should be lived.
“What did Luca tell you?”
“Nothing specific, just that what your dad did to you and made you do was likely an ongoing…”—she searches for the right word—“issue.”
Issue.
I snort a sardonic laugh and move around the island in the opposite direction from her to stare out the windows at the quiet street below. “My father was a piece of shit. My mother…she tried, but she was too in love with him to ever leave, even when it was bad. When I was six”—I swallow through the sudden rock in my throat—“when I was six, I watched him beat her to death.”
Angelina’s gasp fills the loft, and I squeeze my eyes closed, unable to turn to see her reaction. Not wanting to.
“What? No. Oh my God, Jude—”
I hold up a hand to stop her from saying anything else, even as I can sense her approaching me. “I don’t want your sympathy or your apology for something you had nothing to do with. I’m not telling you for that.”
And truly, I wish I weren’t telling her any of this at all. But there’s only so long I can keep this hidden from her.
All my sins and scars will get laid on the table for her to see now, and ultimately, what she does with the knowledge will be her decision. I can’t change how she’ll see me after she knows it all, after all the secrets I’ve held so close to the chest have been revealed.
A car drives by on the street below slowly, like the driver is looking for something. Just like Dad did that night, searching for the perfect location…
“He made me help him dump her body to make it look like it had happened on the street and not in the shitty apartment we lived in at the time. I was too young to understand what he was doing other than throwing my mother away.”
Angelina’s soft sob behind me makes me wince, but I can’t look at her when I tell her this. I can’t bear to see the pity and disgust in her eyes once she knows the whole truth. I clench my eyes closed, keeping myself protected from her judgment.
“I don’t really know what he did to her. All I know is he never got caught. He never went to jail. He never paid for it. He just kept on going like he had when she was alive. Snorting and shooting anything he could get his hands on. Violent and angry when he couldn’t get his fix. That’s why he had me…”
I can’t say the words. I refuse to speak them to Angelina or anyone else. Even through all the damn counseling Luca and Byron forced on me as a kid, I never said the words, and I don’t plan to ever.
Thinking them alone is enough to make my stomach turn, for the brutal memories that haunt my nightmares to come racing back during my waking hours.
“He had me…helping him make money. I didn’t have a choice. After seeing what he did to my mom, I knew what he would do to me if I said no, if I tried to run.”
I finally open my eyes again and catch a glimpse of her in the glass, standing a few feet behind me, arms wrapped protectively around herself like a shield against my words.
She has no idea how much worse it’s about to get, but if I’ve come this far, I might as well reveal the entire brutal truth.
“Luca found me in the parking lot of The Steele Hawke Cage, where my father had left me to try to make money on Christmas Eve…”