Chapter 131: ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-ONE

Nicholas’s POV

Oh fuck.

My head hurt like a bitch. I woke up slowly, staring at the ceiling without knowing where I was.

My limbs felt heavy as I tossed and turned around in bed, stretching my aching limbs.

Slowly, I turned my head toward the window and noticed the sunlight coming through the curtains. It was much brighter than it should have been.

I reached for my phone on the bedside table and unlocked it.

Oh fuck.

My eyes widened when I saw the time. It was already afternoon. I had slept through the entire night and most of the morning.

What the hell had happened? My mind seemed to be a hazy fog right now.

I stared at the screen for a few more seconds before the memories came rushing back.

My hand flew over my mouth as the images returned one after another. All I could think about repeatedly was the sound of my mother’s voice. The confusion when she saw me. The steel in her eyes. The way she cried, telling me to leave.

Then the gunshot.

A sob escaped me before I could stop it.

I turned onto my side and buried my face in the pillow, but that only made the memories worse.

Oh goddess.

The reality of it hit much harder now—my mother was dead.

After over thirty minutes of crying and sniffling in bed, I changed clothes without paying much attention to what I was wearing and eventually made my way downstairs.

I reached the bottom of the stairs and stopped when I saw my brothers sitting in the living room.

Adrian was on one of the sofas, with Cassian and Roman sitting nearby. Elijah was standing beside the window, his arms folded as he listened to the two men sitting opposite them.

Police officers.

I immediately became alert. The two officers had folders on their laps and the conversation sounded like it was already coming to an end. One of them was closing his folder while the other was gathering several papers together when Adrian noticed me first.

His eyes immediately moved toward me, and the rest of my brothers followed his gaze.

The officers turned around and looked me over. "You’re Nicholas, right?" one of them asked.

I nodded cautiously.

The officer opened his folder again. "We just have a few questions about what happened with your mother. Your brothers have already given us their statements, but we’d like to hear from you directly. It shouldn’t take long."

I barely had time to answer before Adrian spoke. "He’s not answering anything."

The officer looked at him. "Mr. Blackthorne, we understand that he’s going through a difficult time, but—"

"I said he’s not answering anything." Adrian’s tone wasn’t loud, but it carried a note of finality. ℴℴ𝘮

The officer hesitated.

Adrian leaned back against the sofa and looked between both of them. "You’ve already been here long enough. You have the statement from the family, you have the information from the scene, and you’ve spoken to everyone you needed to speak to. My brother just woke up after spending the night dealing with the death of his mother. You’re not going to interrogate him the moment he walks downstairs."

The man raised his hands. "We’re not trying to interrogate him."

"Then don’t start questioning him. That’s enough."

The second officer glanced at his partner, clearly deciding whether it was worth arguing.

After a few seconds, he closed the folder again. "Fine. We’ll leave for now."

Adrian gave a small nod. "Good."

The officers stood, exchanged a few final words with the brothers, and headed toward the door and I watched them leave before turning back to the others.

As soon as the door closed behind them, I looked at Adrian. "What did you tell them?"

Cassian raised an eyebrow. "About what?"

"The police." I walked farther into the room, still staring at them. "What story did you give them?"

For a long minute, they all just stared at me without saying anything. I looked at Adrian. "You lied to them."

He sighed. "We did."

I frowned. "About my mother?"

Adrian nodded. "Yes."

I lowered myself onto the empty sofa, trying to understand what exactly they had told the police. "What did you say happened?"

Roman leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "The official story is that your mother received the news about Blackthorne’s death and collapsed from the shock. She was taken to the hospital, but she didn’t survive."

I stared at him. "That’s it?"

"That’s the version we gave, yes."

I looked at Adrian again. "But what about her body? They would have seen that she was shot."

He crossed his arms. "They haven’t."

I frowned. "How?"

Adrian’s expression remained calm. "We had people at the hospital before the police arrived. The medical reports were prepared to match the story, and the people we have inside the police force made sure nobody got close enough to inspect the body properly."

I stared at him for a moment. "So they think she died at the hospital?"

"Yes."

"And Blackthorne?"

Cassian answered this time. "The warehouse is being treated as the result of a violent scuffle connected to the illegal operations taking place there. There were too many people involved and too much evidence of criminal activity for the police to build one version of what happened immediately."

Roman added, "They found Blackthorne among the dead, which was already enough to send the investigation in another direction. They’ll be looking at his crimes, his connections and the people involved in those operations. Nobody has any reason to connect us to what happened inside that warehouse."

I sat back and rubbed my face.

Everything had been arranged. I hadn’t even realized how much they had done while I was asleep. "What about Mom’s burial?"

Adrian glanced at me. "Everything has been prepared."

My stomach tightened and he continued, "The arrangements were made this morning. The funeral home has already been contacted, the necessary documents have been handled, and everything is ready."

I looked down at my hands. "That fast?"

He nodded. "We didn’t want to leave everything hanging."

I swallowed. For some reason, hearing that made the reality of her death made me feel sick. Yesterday, she had been alive. Today, arrangements had already been made to bury her.

My mother had become a funeral arrangement.

I looked away before they could see my face changing but Adrian noticed anyway. "We have to send her off properly," he said. "There isn’t much time left before we leave."

I looked at him. "Leave?"

"For the burial."

I stared at him for a moment before realizing what he meant. My mother was going to be buried. Today, I was going to stand there and watch them lower her into the ground.

The thought made my chest tighten and Elijah walked over and stopped beside the sofa. "You should go upstairs and get ready. We’ll handle everything else downstairs."

I didn’t answer and I kept staring at the floor instead, because I didn’t want to get ready.

I didn’t want to go anywhere, but I also knew that I wasn’t going to let my mother be buried without me.

I pushed myself up slowly. "Fine."

Adrian nodded toward the stairs. "Go. We’ll be waiting."

I turned and started walking upstairs, forcing myself to keep moving even though every step I felt like collapsing and breaking apart again.

I was going to have to say goodbye to my mother.