King murmurs something in her ear and her face drops onto his shoulder for a long moment before she takes a deep breath and pulls back, nodding and giving what she thinks is an encouraging smile, but all I see is a broken woman who’s doing everything she can to try and be strong for her kids.
Her gaze sweeps back to me and she gives me a polite smile before looking up at her son. “What are you doing here? Is everything alright?”
King nods. “Yeah, I just wanted to sit with Caitie for a while before … you know.”
“Oh,” she says, peering over his shoulder at the two kids squished on the bed who are glued to the TV. She gives his shoulder a tight squeeze. “Thank you. You didn’t have to do that, but I appreciate it. She would have loved spending time with you and getting to meet Elodie Ravenwood properly.”
“I hope so,” he whispers, reaching back for my hand. “We’ll go and give you some space to talk,” he says, drawing me back toward the door before stopping and looking back at his mom. “Just call me if you need anything.”
She gives him a tight smile, struggling to hold it together and walks to the door with us, taking the handle and gently closing it behind us as she gives herself and her babies some privacy to break their hearts.
A hollowness sits in my chest as King and I make our way back to my place, but being able to sit behind him on my bike and keep my arms wrapped around his waist goes a long way in easing that ache.
We just get into my drive when the skies open up around us and a storm tears through Ravenwood Heights. King hits the throttle, sending us soaring down the driveway, but what does it matter? We’re already soaking wet.
As we walk through the door, I hear a murmured conversation coming from the kitchen and warmth instantly settles through my broken heart. I keep my hand tightly held in King’s as we walk through my home to find Cruz, Carver, and Grayson hovering around my kitchen making breakfast.
The second they see us, the boys instantly stop what they’re doing and make their way over to King. Cruz pulls him into his arms, not giving a shit that we’re soaking wet, and pats him on the back, silently telling him that he’s here for anything he needs. Carver simply reaches out and puts his hand on King’s shoulder, giving it a tight squeeze, his silent messages always speaking much louder than his words.
As Cruz pulls back, Grayson steals his place, giving King exactly what he needs from his friends.
Cruz steps into me and drops his arm over my shoulder, pulling me into his side and quickly capturing my lips with his own. “Are you good?” he murmurs, knowing just how hard last night was for me.
I nod, feeling as though what I went through is nothing compared to the night King had, or any of them for that matter. “Fine,” I tell him as Carver gets back to cooking while Grayson steps in closer to me, pulling my arm away and checking over the gash above my elbow with a scrunched-up face. If he doesn’t like that, I should remember not to show him my back from the falling chandelier. “I just want to sleep for about a year, and after that, we need to figure out who the fuck put cyanide in Carver’s bottle of rum and who thought it’d be a good fucking idea to blow up a room filled with innocent people.”
“I’m going to fucking kill them,” King declares, grabbing a chair from the dining table and yanking it back, only to drop down into it a second later. “One of them hurt my baby sister, and the other killed my father.”
“The other?” I ask, pulling out of Cruz’s arms and peeling off my wet tank, hating the feeling of being wet. I gather my hair into a bun. “You don’t think they’re the same person?”
He shakes his head, but it’s Carver who responds. “No, the bomb was a direct attack on you that got out of hand. Whoever did it was trying to make a point by killing you in front of everyone, making you look weak and sending a message, but they fucked up. This was done by someone who doesn’t have any kind of training, either someone young, or someone who wasn’t raised around Dynasty. But the cyanide,” he says, quickly flashing his gaze at King and hating to talk about it while it’s still so fresh in his mind. “That was too coincidental and done by someone in that room. I’d been drinking from that bottle for over an hour before it was hit with cyanide, but for it to happen right after I pledged to support you … that’s too fucking coincidental. Tobias though, I believe that was just an unfortunate incident. That cyanide was meant for me. His support for you has been clear from the start, but me, I jumped ship and that pissed someone off.”