Chapter 62 Vincent's letters
Sage's POV
I found the letters three days after the kidnapping attempt.
The first two days after the attack had been a blur of police statements and logistics. Snake had handled most of it, using his connections to make sure Ryder's involvement in the parking lot incident got swept under the rug as self-defense. The five men who tried to grab me were all facing serious charges, and not one of them was talking about who hired them. Ryder had retrieved his bike from the grocery store that same night, and we ditched the stolen van in an industrial lot on the edge of town where no one would ask questions. The whole thing had been cleaned up efficiently, the way the club always handled problems, but the memory of those hands dragging me toward that open van door still made my skin crawl.
Now Jaxon was in the shower and I was supposed to be resting, but sitting still made me think too much about the attack and about how close those men had come to dragging me into that van and probably making me disappear forever. So I went to my dad's home office instead and started going through boxes I was told to avoid since I came home, needing something to occupy my hands and my mind. I was no longer afraid of being caught in the office by Jaxon. It was no longer news to him that I was trying to find one dad's killer.
The first box held old club photos of my dad with his brothers, all of them young and dangerous looking. Some of them were dead now and the rest had moved away, but they all looked happy in the pictures, frozen in moments before life got complicated. The second box had financial records, tax documents and receipts that probably should have been shredded years ago but Dad had kept anyway. The third box had letters bundled together with a rubber band, and there was no return address on any of them, just Dad's name written in blocky handwriting across plain white envelopes.
I pulled the rubber band off and opened the first one, and the paper inside was old and yellowed at the edges.
"Vincent Romano. You think you're safe. You think your money and your club protect you. But we know your weakness. We know about Sage."
My hands started shaking as I read the words again, trying to make sense of what I was seeing.
The second letter was dated six months later and the message was just as disturbing.
"Your daughter runs to New York. Tries to pretend she's not one of you. But she is. And her rebellion makes you vulnerable. Everyone knows you'd do anything to protect her. Even betray your own brothers."
I dropped the letter like it had burned me and picked up another with trembling fingers.
"She chose fancy clothes over family. Chose strangers over blood. How does it feel knowing your only daughter is ashamed of you? How does it feel knowing she'd rather be anywhere else than home?"
The words twisted in my stomach like a knife, and whoever wrote these knew exactly how to hurt my dad, knew that my leaving was his biggest fear and his deepest wound. I opened more letters and they all said variations of the same thing, that I was his weakness, that my absence made him vulnerable, that enemies could use me against him. The dates stretched back three years in regular intervals, every few months another letter arriving to remind him that someone was watching and someone knew.
The last letter was dated two weeks before he died.
"Time's running out, Vincent. Make your choice. Give us what we want or watch your precious daughter suffer for your sins."
My vision blurred with tears and I pressed my hand to my mouth to keep from making a sound as the realization hit me like a physical blow. This was my fault, all of it, because if I'd stayed home instead of running to New York, if I'd been here instead of playing dress up in Manhattan, if I'd chosen my family over my own selfish need to escape, maybe my dad would still be alive.
"Sage?"
I looked up to see Jaxon standing in the doorway with his hair wet from a shower and wearing clean clothes, but the dark circles under his eyes showed he wasn't sleeping any time soon.
"What are you doing in here?"
I couldn't speak and just held out the letters with shaking hands.
Jaxon crossed the room and took them from me, reading through them one by one as his face went pale.
"How long have you had these?"
"I just found them in a box with Dad's other stuff." I wiped at my eyes as more tears spilled over. "Jax, they're talking about me. Someone was using me against him for years and I didn't even know."
"I can see that."
"It's my fault, everything that happened." The words came out choked. "If I'd just stayed here instead of running away, if I'd been the daughter he needed instead of the one who abandoned him—"
"Stop." Jaxon put the letters down on the desk and his voice was firm. "This isn't your fault."
"Yes it is. Look at what they're saying, that my rebellion made him vulnerable, that enemies could use me against him." Fresh tears spilled down my cheeks. "I made it easy for them by leaving, by staying away, by not being here when he needed me."
"You left because you needed to find yourself, because you were eighteen and suffocating in a world that wasn't sounding right for you." Jaxon knelt in front of me and his eyes were intense. "Dad never blamed you for that. He was proud of you for building a life in New York, for going to school and making something of yourself outside the club."
"These letters say otherwise."
"These letters are from someone trying to manipulate Dad, trying to make him feel guilty for letting you go and for supporting your choices." Jaxon picked up one and read it again with disgust clear on his face. "They're psychological warfare designed to break him down and make him doubt himself."
"Well it worked. He made that stupid marriage contract and signed me over to Diego like I was property he could trade." My voice broke. "Besides the fact that Elena threatened to eat him out, he must have thought marrying me off to the Blood Sisters would protect me from whoever was sending these, that it was the only way to keep me safe."
Jaxon was quiet for a while, then he stood and walked to the window with tension in every line of his body.
"There's something I haven't told you about the night Dad died."
My heart started pounding hard enough that I could feel it in my throat. "What?"
"Part of our argument on the night he was shot," Jaxon's shoulders were tense as he paused and stared out at the yard. "He said he'd made mistakes trying to protect you, said the marriage contract was wrong and he was going to void it."
"What?"