Chapter Twenty Nine

Chapter Twenty Nine
Bexley

“Susan,” I spoke the name of my mother’s killer, letting that revelation sink in.

Cruz glared distantly across the stream. Dominic slumped to his knees, burying his face in his hands. Asher looked as if he might be sick. Braxton swore under his breath and scrubbed a hand over his face.

“Our biological mother is dead, Bexley. Dad saw her body. He buried her. He still visits her graveside for fuck’s sake,” Asher snapped with vehemence. “He would know . . . he would . . .” his voice trailed into a defeated whimper.

Cruz maintained his composed disposition as he pulled out his phone and held it to his ear. I crouched down to comfort Dominic who had been hit hardest by the news. He always longed for a mother, and often talked about what she may have been like as they were growing up.

“I want to be wrong,” I told him, feeling like utter shit for dropping the bombshell. “But I’ve racked my brain trying to come up with another explanation, and there isn’t one. Susan was her best friend. They developed the coding method together. I’m not sure what happened between them, but if your mother is alive, and she’s acting under the alias of The Chameleon, then she faked her death and killed my mother to get her hands on the files. Mum must have known something was amiss because she hid the flash drives well. I’m sorry, Dom. I know it’s not what you want to hear, but what if I’m right?”

“Then it changes nothing,” Braxton gruffed, his voice full of contempt. “We may have her genes, but she’s not our mother. Dad picked out surrogates. He still grieves for her to this day. He never remarried or met anyone else.” His face twisted with anguish.

Cruz turned to us, shoving his phone back inside his pocket.

“Dad is just as shellshocked as we are,” he revealed. “Uncle Jaxx is keeping an eye on him to make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid. All I heard was Dad raging and smashing things up before I cut off the call.”

“I’m speechless,” Asher muttered, rubbing the base of his throat as if it burned with emotion. “For once, I have nothing . . . absolutely nothing constructive to say.”

“So . . . what do we do?” I searched their distraught faces for answers.

Their mother was alive. Mine was dead. A slow-pounding ache filled my heart with the rhythm of a death march. I always wanted to come face-to-face with my mother’s killer, but I never once thought I would get the chance. Nothing could have prepared me for this. Their mother. Did this compromise our mission? I knew how Braxton felt by the displeasure on his face, but did Cruz, Asher, and Dominic feel the same? I had to know. I needed to be sure we were all singing from the same hymn sheet before we set off for Norway.

“Are we still in this together?” I asked, holding out hope.

Their outraged gazes snapped to me, giving me the reassurance that I needed.

“Of course, we are,” Cruz answered, scowling back at me. “We’re a team.”

He didn’t have to seek assurance from Braxton because he responded with a fast, “Too right.”

Asher nodded in confirmation. “Always.”

Dominic held up his hand and Asher dragged him up from the ground.

“One for all and all for one, right?” Dominic mumbled, dusting the dry grass from his palms. “Just like the Musketeers.”

“I prefer the Wolfe Pack,” I interjected. “It sounds sexier.”

They turned to me, scrunching their faces in questioning grimaces. The penny dropped, leaving them glancing among themselves as if considering who should be Alpha. I gave a subtle cough, then pointed at my chest.

“As I’m the only female, I’m nominating myself as the leader,” I asserted. “That way, there’s no squabbling.”

I flicked my hair over my shoulder as I flounced away, back to the chateaux. We needed to inform Teddy, Ulrich, and Emilio of our findings. They were bound to be as shocked as we were. My forlorn men trudged behind me in silence. I still didn’t have solid proof that Susan was the Chameleon, but I trusted my mother’s message. She wanted to keep everyone safe . . . me, the Wolfe brothers, Dad, Uncle Zane. I owed it to her to lure Susan out of hiding and bring her to justice.

Father Fournier joined us for lunch then left for afternoon mass, and Ulrich and Teddy went to fetch our outfits for the Ball. I was excited to see my gown, but Braxton wouldn’t allow it. He wanted it to be a surprise and got Cruz to bribe me with some chocolate doughnuts from a patisserie in Paris. Time dragged by at a leisurely pace, giving me too much time to think. I worried about everything, especially Caz, and whether she believed all the rumours about me being a terrorist. The last thing I wanted was for her to get caught up in all of this. If the Chameleon went to my house and hurt her, I don’t know how I would live with myself. I couldn’t call the police and ask them to guard her without giving away my whereabouts. An anonymous phone call from a remote chateau in France would flag up to the authorities. I might as well place a huge neon arrow over the vineyard and announce my presence to the world. As much as it pained me, I couldn’t risk reaching out to anyone.

As the night crept across the vineyard, my husbands’ moods turned grim. Sadness had turned to anger, and with it came the resentment.

“She was never our mother,” Asher said as they chatted on the patio terrace. He took a swig of beer, sucking the froth that gathered at the top of the bottle. “Harvesting eggs doesn’t make her a part of this family. Don’t let her get inside your head,” he counselled Dominic, who cradled an empty bottle between his hands.

“I know . . . and I won’t,” he assured his brothers. “I’m just sickened by all that she’s done. All this time . . . and she never let us know she was alive. She only cared about getting hold of the files. We didn’t matter to her at all.”

Asher pressed his lips together in a tight, thin line. I didn’t know what to say to make this better, so I just placed my hand on Dominic’s thigh to reassure him I was here.

“Dad wanted us,” Braxton slurred, after knocking back another shot of whiskey. I lost count how many drinks he had, but after the beers had little effect on him, he’d drained half a bottle of Black label in under an hour. His eyelids drooped with fatigue, and the fact he was drunk didn’t help. He swayed in his seat as he poured another shot, spilling the amber liquid onto the metal bistro table. Then he sucked the liquor from his fingers and held up his tumbler, sticking his forefinger out to point with. “She fucked off, so he made his own family. We didn’t need her. Selfish bitch.” He snorted, then went to take a drink and missed his mouth. The whiskey rolled down his chin and soaked into the collar of his T-shirt.

“She faked her death,” Cruz reminded him, removing the bottle from Braxton’s reach as a sign that he’d had enough. “There was nothing stopping her from walking back into our lives when we were born. Dad would have bought any cock and bull story, as long as she came back. She chose her path in life. It was the opposite to Aunt Safi. When the time comes, I won’t hesitate to pull the trigger.”

His words filtered into the night, allowing the bitter truth to settle among us. We sipped our drinks in silence, having said all there is to say. Braxton’s head bowed forward and the glass tumbled from his slackened fingertips, shattering onto the patio. The noise didn’t startle him as it did to us; he had passed out in a drunken coma.

Cruz and Asher hoisted him up by his underarms and carried him into the Chateaux, leaving Dominic and I alone on the terrace.

“Are you okay?” I asked what I thought was a stupid question given the circumstances. Of course, he wasn’t fine. Who would be?

He curled his arm around my shoulders and pulled me against him. His warmth seeped into my skin, a welcoming contrast to the cool night breeze.

“Yeah,” he answered. His tone held a hint of sadness that suggested otherwise. “I’m just disappointed, that’s all.”

He buried his nose into my hair and inhaled, then released a breathy sigh.

“Dad painted a picture of her in my head, making her out to be a paragon of virtue. A fearless soldier who died for her country. Dad spent his entire life, sacrificed our childhood, to hunt the Chameleon down, not knowing it was her all along. She played us all.”

“I want to be wrong, but I don’t think I am,” I replied, cuddling him, feeling the heavy beat of his heart against my cheek. “I’m sorry, Dom.”

He lifted my chin to kiss me and I tasted the beer on his lips. His fragile smile creased his eyes with sadness, and I could see the torment behind them.

“She took away your mother,” he murmured, “it’s her who will be sorry.”