Chapter 38 WEIGHT THAT RUNS DEEPER 2
I opened my eyes to a burst of light that stabbed through my vision, forcing me to squeeze them shut again as pain throbbed behind my eyelids. My head hurt, my vision was blurry, and I felt horribly dizzy—like the world had been spinning long before I woke up.
“Jaxon, Jaxon, are you okay? Can you hear me?” Dr. Jenny’s voice filtered in. Even though she spoke softly, it still sounded painfully loud in my ears. I blinked my eyes open again, letting them slowly adjust to the brightness of the room.
“How long was I out?” I asked, ignoring the angry—but undeniably worried—look on Dr. Jenny’s face.
“Probably hours, days, weeks, or even years, Jaxon,” she snapped, still glaring at me. I knew the scolding was coming, but I didn’t have the patience for it—not right now.
My gaze fell on my phone beside me. I grabbed it and checked the time.
Hours. I had been out for hours.
“Where are my dad and Troy?” I asked.
“Having a conversation outside,” she replied.
I immediately pushed myself out of bed, and Jenny rushed toward me like she expected me to collapse.
“What are you doing? You just got off a drip, and you need to rest—not start wandering around,” she scolded, her worry sharpening into frustration.
But I needed to talk to my father. This was insane. How could he possibly agree to hand the head hotel over to that witch? That hotel was our starting point—my mother’s legacy—and he was willing to give it to her? How?
“Jenny, please,” I said, my voice rough. “I need to speak to my father. I’ll come back, and you can scold me all you want.”
I staggered toward the door, ignoring the way the floor kept shifting beneath my feet like waves rolling under me. But just as I reached for the handle, I froze.
I heard my father’s voice.
“Please help me convince Jason to just leave Brookleigh and move to Hollowmere,” he said, his voice weighted with defeat and something that felt painfully close to desperation—like he genuinely wanted me gone.
I would be lying if I said that didn’t shatter the last piece of hope I’d been holding onto—that maybe this was all just a misunderstanding, a bad joke, anything but what it truly was.
But it wasn’t a joke.
He was really giving the head hotel to her.
He was really ready to send me away.
Anger surged through me, burning hot and violent, but beneath it was something colder—acceptance. Because he wasn’t wrong. The head hotel was the only property not under my name, but under my parents’. Legally, I had no claim. No power. No leverage.
There was nothing I could do… except find a way to get rid of that bitch once and for all.
Expose her. Reveal what she truly was. And Hollowmere—Hollowmere was the one place that might hold the proof I needed.
Right then and there, I made my decision.
I would do exactly what my father wanted.I would move to Hollowmere.Not to run away—but to end this.
I pushed the door open, and both men turned toward me. My father’s eyes widened, relief flashing across his face—relief tangled with worry and guilt. But as our gazes finally met, his expression hardened, as if he needed to put the mask back on.
“Are you okay, son?” he asked.
“I will do it,” I said, watching every shift in his expression. “I will step down, just as you wanted, and move to Hollowmere.”
Shock flickered across his face—real shock—before he quickly buried it beneath that practiced calm. Troy, on the other hand, didn’t bother hiding anything. He stared at me like I had completely lost my mind… and maybe I had. Maybe I was finally past the point of return.
I used to be able to read my father like an open book, but today was different. Today, he felt like a stranger. His emotions surfaced in brief flashes, but I couldn’t reach them—I couldn’t reach him.
“That’s good, son. I’ll have Peter arrange the necessary documents so you don’t have to go through the stress.” He nodded stiffly. “Until then, please… take good care of yourself.”
I only nodded back as he tapped my shoulder gently before walking away. The contact felt empty. Forced. Final.
“Troy, look after Jaxon. I need to see if I can talk some sense into him,” Jenny said before rushing after my father.
Troy let out a breath, then helped me back to the bed. “Did you mean everything you said a moment ago?” he asked quietly.
“He wants me out of Brookleigh,” I murmured. “He wants me out of the head hotel. So that’s what I’m going to do.”My voice sounded calmer than I felt. “I’m going to pour everything I have into finding Ravyn Vale and proving that woman is not my mother. Hollowmere holds those answers. All of them.”
I leaned back, exhaustion pulling at me. “I’ll cooperate for now. Let’s wrap things up in a week and head back to Hollowmere.”
“Well, first of all,” Troy said, crossing his arms, “you’re not moving an inch out of this house until you get proper rest. Dr. Jenny said that might take two to three weeks. So if we add the week you just mentioned, that makes it a month before we even think about returning to Hollowmere.”
I ignored him completely, like his voice had simply evaporated into thin air.
“How about we meet the press tomorrow,” I continued, “and then the shareholders next, so I can hand over my CEO position to my dear mother?”
Troy’s POV
The sarcasm dripping from his last words was impossible to miss. I knew he was coming apart inside, even though he hid it well, but if moving to Hollowmere would pull him away from this madness—even a little—then I was all in.
“Sorry, man, but no work until three weeks of rest. And trust me when I say I’m not letting you leave this house,” I told him. He was already reaching for his laptop, but I waited—waited until he realized he couldn’t log into any work device at all—before dropping the truth.
“You’ve been temporarily locked out for three weeks across all sites,” I announced. “So please rest while I call in an order for us.”
I walked out of the room, ignoring the daggers he was throwing at me with his eyes.
The next few weeks were going to be absolute chaos—trying to keep Jaxon Lennox, the ultimate workaholic, from working—but I was ready for the challenge.
Nancy’s POV
“Ravyn Vale is in town,” the head officer said the moment I shut the door behind me. He was already rifling through a stack of files before pulling one out and sliding it across the desk toward me.
I stepped forward immediately, opening the file with impatient hands. The first photo showed Ravyn Vale at a beachside motel, a cigarette hanging loosely between his fingers.
“He made three appearances. First was in Brentmere—a local motel on the East Coast,” the head officer explained.
I flipped to the next page. Another photo. Another dagger to my chest. Ravyn wasn’t alone—Mia stood beside him in what looked like a supermarket. My breath caught painfully.
“After that, he was seen in a supermarket with a lady we haven’t been able to identify yet,” he continued. A lump formed instantly in my throat.
“His last appearance was also in Brentmere, but downtown this time, near the Lennox Lux Suites. He was still with the same woman… and we lost track of him after that.”
I looked at the final picture—a clearer shot of Mia’s face. The fear in her eyes. The way she clung to herself. The terror was unmistakable.
Rage simmered beneath my skin as I glared at Ravyn Vale’s careless expression. I wanted to pull him straight out of that photograph and tear him apart with my bare hands.
“I know what you’re thinking—that she might be his hostage,” the head officer said. “A team is already researching her identity and her connection to him, but we haven’t gotten feedback yet.”
I closed the file, placing it back on his desk. My mind raced. Should I tell him what happened in Brentmere? Or keep it to myself like Mr. Lennox warned—because those men from the party weren’t people to play with?
“Give me the locations where he was spotted in Brentmere,” I said instead. “My team and I will help gather more clues.”
“I already have,” he replied. “In fact, your team were the ones who found the first three locations after they came by personally to offer their presence and support.”
That stunned me. I had been bracing myself to do this alone, but learning that they were behind me gave me strength—real strength.
“I guess I should head back. We have a lot more research to get done,” I said. He nodded and tapped my shoulder gently.
When I stepped into the hallway, I found Linda pacing anxiously. Of course she’d already told the head officer everything. And here she was, pretending she had no hand in it earlier.
“What did he say? Did you tell him about your little adventure in Brentmere?” she fired off instantly.
Instead of answering, I pulled her into a hug.
“Thank you, Linda. I heard what you guys did.”
She smiled when I pulled back. “You know we always have your back. I just wanted to see if I could change your mind about all this… but I guess the new office and all the gadgets that came with it convinced me otherwise.”
“Let’s head back,” I said. “We just confirmed that Ravyn Vale has Mia, and we need to figure out where he went after leaving the Lennox Lux Suites. I have a feeling he showed up there for a reason.”