Total pages in book: 197
Estimated words: 199143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 996(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 199143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 996(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
Surely she wouldn’t.
Jordyn didn’t have a lot of friends. Neither did Lucian, really. The couple tended to stick close to one another. They were each other’s best friends and their family filled in the friendships they might find in outsiders if they looked for them.
They didn’t have to look.
They had enough now.
Lucian followed the soft glow of light filtering down the upstairs hallway. It streamed out from beneath John’s nursery door. Pushing open the door, Lucian found his wife sitting with her back resting against Johnathan’s crib. Awake but looking like she was ready to fall over, Jordyn blinked up at Lucian.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
Lucian stilled in place. “For what?”
“Earlier.”
“Don’t be.”
Jordyn shook her head, tears slipping from the corners of her eyes and making tracks down her cheeks. “No, I—”
“Don’t be,” Lucian interrupted softly. “You were right.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Jordyn swallowed hard. “I wasn’t right.”
It felt like she was.
He took all the blame for this.
His life put his son in this place.
Jordyn reached out a hand and Lucian took a few steps forward before catching in with his own. Squatting down, he tugged his wife into his embrace and buried his face into her messy curls.
Home.
Love.
Safe.
“We’ll find him,” Lucian assured.
Jordyn hugged him tighter. “Do you want me to say it to you, too?”
“Yes,” he admitted.
“We’ll find him, Lucian.”
The final straw fell and his back broke. This waiting game was a killer.
He was just one of the victims. Lucian didn’t know how to be a victim. He’d sure been labeled one a long time ago, but he never felt that way before. He didn’t know how to do this—be helpless.
So, he cried.
The Chat
Johnathan’s POV
Johnathan ignored the banging on his bedroom door, and continued to stare out the window where someone had left his curtains opened.
“Get up, John!”
His mother kept hammering.
John kept staring.
The snow was coming down in heavy flakes, now. Not that it fucking mattered. Usually, he liked winter, and the holidays. Christmas was right around the corner, which meant presents, and time with his family. He kind of liked that, too.
Except not so much this year.
Not at all.
“John!”
He thought to shout back at his mother, to tell her to leave him the hell alone, but didn’t bother to even open his mouth. It wouldn’t do him any good, really. And he knew the truth—his mother was having just as rough of a time as the rest of the people in his house.
Maybe more so.
It was just his dad in jail, after all.
It was her husband.
John rolled to his back when his mother finally stopped beating on his door, and stared up at the ceiling. He kind of wished it would swallow him whole, and then maybe he wouldn’t have to deal with the day at all. Not his mother who looked sad all the time, or his sisters who constantly asked for their dad, or when Lucian was coming home.
He hated the way the teachers at school knew about his problems at home without even needing to be told. So was the way of their life—being a crime family had downfalls. Like your fucking business being all over the goddamn news.
People knew.
John didn’t like it.
It was only when his full bladder made itself known did John finally push out of bed, and pad into the connecting bathroom. Like his bedroom, the bathroom was dark, too.
He preferred it like that.
Didn’t like the light.
Especially not in the mornings.
Once he was done in the bathroom, he shot a glance at the alarm clock on his nightstand only to see why his mother had been so constant on trying to get him up. He forgot to set it again—they were probably going to be late for school again.
Oh, well.
So, he’d miss homeroom.
Big deal.
It was only the sound of his mother’s voice in the hallway—and not yelling for him—that made John edge closer to his bedroom door.
“Okay, that was a little sad,” he heard his mother say.
John’s brow furrowed.
Who was she talking to?
Definitely not one of his little sisters.
And then John heard, “Let’s not do that, Lucian.”
He knew, then.
His dad.
She was talking to his dad.
John didn’t even think about the fact he really just wanted to hide away in his bedroom for as long as he possibly could anymore. Not when the chance to talk to his father was practically dangling in front of his face. He didn’t get to talk to his dad nearly enough since Lucian had gotten arrested, and hauled off to jail.
Damn, John hated cops.
Especially for taking his dad away.
Pushing open the bedroom door, John moved into the hallway behind his mother who was holding Cella under her arm, and the phone in her other hand.
“Hey,” he said, “that’s Dad?”
His mother spun fast on her heel to face him, making Cella’s head full of curls spin in every direction. The relief in his mother’s eyes when her gaze landed on him kind of made John feel like crap. Or maybe that was guilt.