Chapter 147

JAX

I’d been the first one home after a long day, and the minute I stepped through the door, I could hear Luca’s giggles coming from the living room. That sound always managed to shake off the weight of the world. It was like hitting a reset button every time I saw him.

“Hey, little man,” I said as I scooped him up, ruffling his hair. He squealed with laughter, tiny arms reaching up for me. I couldn’t help but smile, his joy contagious. For a moment, everything felt normal.

Isabella was in the kitchen, quietly moving around as she prepared dinner. “How was your day, Isa?” I asked, trying to engage her as Luca tugged at my shirt, begging for attention.

She looked over her shoulder and smiled softly, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Good. Busy,” she said, her tone light, though there was something distant about it. “Yours?”

“Same old, same old. But hey, at least we got the pack's finances straightened out,” I replied, trying to keep things casual.

But even as we chatted, I couldn’t help but notice how quiet she was. Something was off, and I felt it deep in my gut. Normally, she’d be more animated, especially with Luca around. But today, she seemed distracted, like her mind was somewhere else entirely.

I considered pushing, asking her if she was okay, but I held back. Luca was still laughing in my arms, and I didn’t want to ruin the moment. Instead, I let it go—for now.

Dinner came and went. Asher and Knox eventually arrived, and the four of us sat around the table. Luca was in his high chair, playing with his food, and the brothers talked about pack business, the usual stuff. But Isa stayed quiet, picking at her plate without really eating. The boys didn’t seem to notice, or maybe they did and just didn’t want to push her, but I couldn’t stop watching her out of the corner of my eye.

She was somewhere else, that much was clear. And it wasn’t just exhaustion. Something had changed, and whatever it was, it was eating at her. I swallowed the tension building in my chest, the unease creeping into me.

Once dinner was over and Luca had been put to bed, Isabella asked us all to gather in the living room. She was calm, collected, her face composed as she sat down across from us, but I could tell this wasn’t going to be good. My heart began to race.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” she started, looking each of us in the eye before settling on me. I could feel the weight of her gaze, and my palms grew clammy. “My mother called today.”

That got our attention. Asher leaned forward, Knox’s posture stiffened, and I forced myself to stay relaxed, but a knot formed in my stomach.

“She told me some things… things about Dominic,” she said, and my heart skipped a beat. Her voice was steady, but I could feel the tension rising beneath her calm exterior. “She said that you tortured and killed him.”

I glanced at Asher and Knox, trying to keep my expression neutral, but panic clawed its way up my throat. This was it—the moment we had all dreaded, the moment we would have to face the truth of what we had done.

Isabella sat there, calm as ever, but I could tell something was off. She wasn’t panicking outwardly, not yet. But her eyes… her eyes darted between us, searching for answers, for reassurance.

The room grew silent, suffocating.

My mouth was dry, and I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. How were we going to explain this without making everything worse? Asher was the first to speak, as always. His voice was steady, controlled. “Isa, we did what we had to do. Dominic wasn’t going to stop, he—”

“He never hit me,” she interrupted, her voice louder now, trembling. “He never laid a hand on me. You didn’t have to kill him. You didn’t—”

She was spiraling, and I could feel my own panic rising. My stomach twisted painfully as I watched her face go pale, her lips trembling. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. We thought we were protecting her, that she would understand why we had to do it. But instead, I could see the horror settling in her eyes.

"We didn’t want to hurt you with the truth," Knox added quietly, his voice gentler than I expected. "But he manipulated you, Isa. He tore you down. You were already in pieces when we found you. We couldn’t risk him doing it again."

I stood up, walking over to her side, but stopped myself from getting too close, feeling the tension radiating off her. Luca was sleeping soundly in his crib down the hall, but Isabella looked like she was about to shatter, her body trembling as she tried to hold it all in.

"You killed him… for me?" Her voice came out so fragile, so broken, and I could see the fear clouding her eyes.

I wanted to reach out, to hold her and promise that everything would be okay. But the truth of what we'd done was a weight I could feel in my chest—a weight I knew she felt too. I couldn't protect her from this. None of us could.

Isabella shook her head, running a hand through her hair, her movements erratic. "You didn't have to kill him. I never… I never asked for this!" She almost whispered the last part, as if saying it aloud would make it even more unbearable.

Knox leaned forward, trying to get through to her, his voice calm but urgent. "Isa, listen. Dominic wasn’t who you thought he was. We were protecting you, keeping him from coming back into your life and tearing you apart again."

But she shook her head, her breathing growing faster, her hands gripping the edge of the chair as if it was the only thing keeping her grounded. "I never asked you to kill him! That wasn’t your decision to make." Her voice cracked, and I could see the pain written all over her face.

My heart pounded in my chest, and I swallowed hard, stepping back. The guilt was swallowing me whole, and I could barely look at her. Asher’s jaw clenched, his eyes dark with regret, but I knew he was trying to find the right words, the words that might somehow make this better.

But how could we make this better? We couldn’t.

Isabella stood up abruptly, pacing, her hands shaking as she wiped at her face. "I didn’t need you to kill him. I didn’t need saving like that. He never hit me, and now… now you’ve made me part of this—” Her voice trembled as she stopped in her tracks, clutching her arms around herself, her breathing shallow.

I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t take seeing her like this, spiraling because of something we’d done in the name of protecting her. I had to fix this somehow. I had to make her understand that we didn’t mean for it to go this far.

"We didn’t mean to," I said quietly, barely able to keep my voice steady. "We were just trying to—"

But she cut me off, her eyes flashing with something between pain and anger. "Trying to what? Make things easier for me? You don’t get to decide that, Jax. You don’t get to take someone's life because you think it’s what’s best for me. That’s not your choice!" Her voice was rising, and I could see she was barely holding herself together.

Asher finally spoke up, his voice low and full of tension. "We didn't want to lie to you. We thought telling you about Dominic would cause more harm than good. He was dangerous, Isa. Even if he didn’t hit you, he was breaking you in other ways."

I saw the confusion flash across her face, but it wasn’t enough. She wasn’t going to understand, not like this, not after hearing her mother’s version of things.

She turned away from us, running a hand through her hair, her breathing still shaky. "This… this isn’t right. None of this is right."

I felt a lump forming in my throat, my pulse racing. How could I fix this? How could we fix the damage we’d done?

“I never wanted him dead,” she said, her voice so small now. “You should’ve trusted me. You should’ve let me decide.”

That hit me harder than I expected, the guilt clawing at me again. She was right. We took away her choice, thinking we knew better, thinking we could protect her from the darkness that was Dominic. But in doing that, we’d only created more darkness for her.

She turned back to us, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. “What if this is the start of something I can’t come back from? What if this changes everything?”

I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how to reassure her. All I knew was that I never meant for it to go this way. None of us did.

But the damage was done. And now we had to face the fallout.

I glanced at Asher and Knox, the weight of it all settling on us like a suffocating blanket. Isabella was right. We had crossed a line. One that we couldn’t undo.

And for the first time, I wasn’t sure we could come back from it.