CHAPTER FIVE
Emma
What just happened?
Is he leaving?
I tug my dress back in place and hurry out of the bathroom. “Jax?!” I call out, rushing down the hallway and entering the living room to find him pacing in front of the fireplace, his phone to his ear. “Just see what you can do,” he says, before he disconnects and shoves his cell back into his pocket, his jaw hard, his expression tight, a raw, rough edge about him, that I’ve never seen. He doesn’t look for me, and the idea that this is his rejection cuts. He walks to the chair framing the couch, where he sits down, tilting his chin downward, fingers spiking into his hair, a man tormented, a man lost in that torment.
I don’t care if he’s rejecting me, even blaming me in some way for all of this. I close the space between us and sit down on the end of the coffee table just in front of him. I know he knows I’m here, but he doesn’t look at me.
“Jax?” I whisper.
He drops his hands to his powerful thighs, his gaze lifting to mine, and there is no blame there. His blue eyes are nothing but unbridled torment. “Hunter was my brother.”
“I know that,” I say catching his hands. “Nothing that happened tonight, and no DNA test, changes that. You grew up with him. You were—”
“His brother,” he says, his voice roughing up, his mood shifting, sharpening like a blade ready to strike. “This is all a game someone is playing, and I’m going to find out who that someone is. And I’m going to make them pay.” There is something I can only call brutality in those words, his need for revenge back, and it’s a living, breathing being all of its own. His words “make them pay” stirring memories of when we first met. When he’d wanted someone to pay for Hunter’s murder. I understood that need then, as I do now. If it were Chance that had died, I’d want answers; I’d want peace. Maybe I’d even want to make someone pay.
A muscle in his jaw flexes. “I told Savage I need a copy of that test.”
He wants the test. I shouldn’t have destroyed it. Of course, my father would say, “Regret not what makes you look like an ass. Just don’t do it in the first place.” Based on that DNA test, he lived a life of being an ass, and so am I right now. I’ve denied Jax answers. I’ve made this worse for him.
Feeling as if I’m suffocating in my own decisions, I try to stand up. Jax catches my legs. “Emma—”
“If someone told me that Chance wasn’t my full brother, I wouldn’t believe them. I’d want proof. I should have known you would, too. I just—I wanted—”
“You wanted to protect me.”
“Yes.” I flash back to the encounter with Randall, and his threat. “Jax—”
“And you wanted to protect your brother.”
My chest is tight. “Yes, but—”
“Which one of us do you think killed Hunter, Emma?”
I blanch, “What? No. No, I don’t think—”
“The only reason you would feel like you needed to protect us is if you felt like one of us was guilty. Do you think that I killed my brother?”
“No. I don’t think you killed your brother. When we met, you told me that you wanted revenge. You wanted answers. That’s not a man who killed his brother.”
“You just wanted to protect me,” he repeats.
“Of course I wanted to protect you. Stop saying that like it proves that I think you’re guilty. It doesn’t. I need to tell you about the party.”
“You wanted to protect me, but you told me about the test. That means—”
“No,” I insist. “No, don’t keep going there. Let this go. It doesn’t mean that I thought you were guilty. But someone wants me to believe that you killed Hunter.”
“Or that Chance killed Hunter.”
“Yes.” My stomach knots. “Whatever the case, I showed whoever is behind this that I’m with you. They can’t divide us.”
“You didn’t show them that you stood with me or Chance,” he says. “You showed them that you thought one of us was guilty. That’s why you destroyed the evidence.”
“That’s not where my head was,” I argue, but quickly concede. “But—right. I can see how it seems like that. I screwed up.”
He takes my hands and leans in closer. “I did not kill Hunter. I loved Hunter. And I didn’t want, or need, what was his.”
“I know that,” I whisper.
“You thought one of us was guilty.”
“You just won’t let this go,” I say. “My brother isn’t a killer either.” But I’m also thinking of the threats Randall made. He wanted me out of here in a bad way and that doesn’t sit well. I need to talk to my brother. I try to pull away from Jax, but he holds onto me. “Let go.”
“Emma—”
“Let go.” My voice lifts. “Let go now.”
He releases me, and I stand up. “I need to go.” I try to turn away.
He pulls me back around to him. “You need to go? Go where?”
I press on his unmoving chest. “I need to see Chance.”
He cups my face and forces my gaze to his. “We need to take a deep breath. We need to think. We need to fact gather.”
My eyes start to burn. “You think he did it.” I don’t give him time to reply. “He didn’t kill Hunter. He didn’t—” My voice cracks and the tears pooling in my eyes infuriate me. I don’t cry. Crying is for “little bitches” as my father often said. I’m angry. I’m angry at whoever put this between me and Jax. I’m angry at whoever is playing this game. “He didn’t do it.”
Jax catches an escaping tear with his thumb, wiping it from my cheek. “Easy, baby. It’s going to be okay.”
I catch his hand. “Would Hunter commit suicide?” I ask.
“No.”
“You’re certain?” I challenge.
“With every fiber of my being. I knew my brother.”
“And I know mine. He didn’t do this, Jax. I know he was asking about the castle. I know he had connections to your brother but our families have been connected for years. He didn’t kill Hunter.”
“But someone did,” he supplies. “You get that, right?”
“I get that. I believe that. But if you think it was Chance, really think it was Chance, there’s no way that’s not a problem for us.”
“I didn’t say Chance killed Hunter. This is a game someone is playing and if it divides us they get what they want. Because clearly that note and DNA test were left for you to turn you against me.”
“It feels like it’s working. It feels like the end of us.”
“No, baby. If you think I’m letting you go that easily, you’ll soon know better. Someone took my brother from me. They don’t get to take you, too.”
There are footsteps on the porch, and his hands come down on my arms. “This doesn’t end us. You don’t get rid of me that easily, woman. Someone is afraid of what we know. They’re afraid that together we can figure it out. And they’re right. We will.” There’s a thunderous knock at the door.