Shattered (The Protectors 11)

I shook my head. “So do your worst, old man. Because nothing is going to stop me from showing up in that courtroom and telling the world what you did to me, to Eli, to Nick. And they’ll believe me,” I said confidently. “Because you said it yourself. I was your sweet, perfect boy. No skeletons in my closet. But there are plenty in yours and I’m going to make sure the world knows about all of them.”

I pushed my chair back, ignoring the fury in the eyes of the man across from me. The man I refused to even mentally refer to as being my sire.

“By the way, Eli is getting married in two weeks. Before the trial. Because he’s done trying to find closure too. He’s done putting his life on hold for you. It won’t be a small wedding, either. He and Mav are going to let the world know how much they love each other… they aren’t going to slink off and hide because a handful of people believed your lies. They’re even looking into having a baby. They’re going to live their lives. We all are.” I stood up and leaned down, hands pressed to the table. There was barely a foot separating us and I repeated the words that I’d believed for so very long.

“No one will ever love you like I do, my sweet boy.” I held his gaze and said, “You’re right, they won’t. They’re going to do it so much better.”

With that, I turned to go.

“Caleb!”

I ignored his hoarse shout.

And the next one.

And every one that followed me out the door. I ignored the pounding on the door behind me and the shouts and muffled orders of the guard that was still in the room. The guard next to me didn’t say anything until we reached the waiting area.

“Good luck to you, Mr. Cortano,” he said.

“It’s Galvez-Christenson,” I said, figuring Eli and Jace wouldn’t mind me borrowing their names going forward. Caleb Cortano didn’t exist anymore.

As I made my way toward the parking lot where I knew Mav would be waiting for me, I smiled at how everything around me seemed different. Brighter, louder. It would definitely take some getting used to.

As I reached the final locked gate that guards had to let me through to get to the parking lot, I felt my mouth pull into a smile at the sight of the man waiting for me on the other side. He looked like he could spit nails, but the second I stepped through the gate and walked into his arms, he closed them around me and took in a deep breath.

“You okay?” Jace asked.

“You have no idea,” I said as I tipped my head back to look at him.

“Found another piece, huh?”

I shook my head. “More like got rid of one.”

He kissed me again. I knew there was a lot he probably wanted to say to me, and I sure as hell had a lot I wanted to tell him, but when I said, “Jace, let’s go get our daughter and go home,” he simply nodded and took my hand in his and led me to the car.

Chapter 25

Jace

It was the most overwhelming wedding I’d ever been to.

Not that I’d been to many, but still, I could categorically say I was completely lost.

Mostly because I had no hope in hell of remembering any of the names of the people I was introduced to, let alone their relationship to one another. By the time Mav had explained that Eli’s younger brother, Tristan, was in a relationship with Brennan and Memphis, and that even though Brennan and Tristan had been raised as if they were cousins, they really weren’t, I’d stopped trying to make any sense of it. Mav must have seen me zoning out, because he’d handed me off to the care of Matty Hawkins, the son of one of my teammates. Matty had taken over the introductions, which had actually been easier to follow than Mav’s, but he’d gotten sidetracked by a conversation about Captain America, Thor, and Hawkeye. There’d also been mention of Spiderman, but when his two little friends had arrived, one wearing Spiderman pajamas and the other carrying a Spiderman doll, I’d given up again. Matty had mentioned something about flashcards and the next family dinner, then he’d ditched me for his buddies.

I’d lost Caleb to his best man duties. He and Brennan, who I did remember from the shooting at Eli’s apartment two years earlier, were both standing for Eli, while Ronan and a man named Mace were standing as best men for Mav. I’d managed to hang on to Willa until Caleb’s stepmother had arrived, at which point she’d promptly stolen away the little girl she’d started referring to as her granddaughter on the very first day she’d met the infant, and I’d been left on my own again. I’d gotten glimpses of Willa being passed around now and then, but I’d resigned myself to the fact that I wouldn’t be getting her back any time soon and I’d found myself a seat.