Chapter 91: #NINETY-ONE

NICHOLAS’S POV

I froze when I finally recognized the person who had caught me.

For several seconds, I couldn’t even process the face properly because my body was still reacting to the fear I had felt.

It was Cassian.

He was breathing heavily from running after me, one hand still wrapped around my arm while the other supported himself against the ground. His hair was disheveled, his shirt slightly pulled out of place, and he looked terrified.

"Cassian, let me go," I pleaded, twisting my arm as I tried to pull myself away from him. "I don’t want to go back there, and I don’t want to hear another explanation from any of you. I can’t keep standing in that house while everyone tells me something different about my life. I need to get away from all of you for a while, so please just let me leave."

Cassian tightened his grip when I tried to scramble backward, but he didn’t hurt me. He simply kept me from getting away, looking directly at me while I fought against him.

"Nicholas, you’re not thinking clearly right now, and I understand why," he said, his breathing gradually becoming even as he tried to calm himself. "You’ve been through more in the last few days than anyone should have to deal with, and now you’ve been told something that has completely changed the way you see your family. But let’s not be stupid. You don’t know who’s watching you, you don’t know whether Jayden has other people working with him and you don’t know whether the person behind everything has already realized that we’ve discovered the truth."

"I don’t care anymore," I cried, trying to wipe my face with my sleeve. "I don’t care who is watching me. I’m tired. I’m tired of being told that somebody wants me dead. I’m tired of being treated like I’m some problem everyone has to solve. I just wanted to go somewhere where nobody was going to touch me, use me or make decisions for me, and somehow I ended up hearing that the person I was supposed to call family may have been behind everything."

Cassian’s expression changed and he released a long breath before he sat down properly on the pavement in front of me, apparently deciding that he wasn’t going to drag me anywhere.

"You want to know why we’re fighting so hard to keep you safe?" he asked, looking at me carefully. "It’s not because you’re some responsibility we’ve been forced to carry. It’s because you’re Nicholas. And we care for you. Don’t ever doubt that."

I lowered my eyes and Cassian continued before I could respond.

"I completely get why you’re mad at everyone. Hell, I’d be mad too. But don’t confuse our decision to hide information from you with not caring about you. We were wrong to keep you in the dark, and I’ll admit that without making excuses. We should have told you as soon as we had something solid. But the reason we didn’t tell you was because we were terrified that you’d hear your stepfather’s name, run straight back to him or do exactly what you’re doing now and put yourself somewhere we can’t protect you."

I swallowed hard. "I don’t know what I’m supposed to believe anymore," I admitted, looking at him again. "Every time I think I’ve figured something out, there’s another secret. I thought Jayden was the person behind everything when he took me, and then I found out he was working for somebody. I thought the brothers were the people I could trust, then I found out they were hiding something from me. Now you’re telling me the person who my mother married might have been trying to get rid of me. How am I supposed to just sit down and act normal after hearing all of that?"

"It’s not normal," Cassian said, his voice softer now as he reached out and rested a hand on my shoulder. "You just have to come back with me. We’ll deal with the rest one thing at a time. Nobody is asking you to forgive Dad, nobody is asking you to trust him and nobody is going to force you into a conversation with him. You’re safe at the penthouse."

I stared at him for several seconds and eventually, I nodded.

Cassian helped me stand, and we walked back toward the penthouse together.

By the time we entered, everyone was downstairs. The moment we stepped into the sitting room, all of them looked up at once. Elijah was the first to stand, his face immediately changing when he saw me. Adrian followed, and Roman and the others moved closer.

Nobody spoke at first and I looked at all of them and realized just how worried they had been.

"I’m sorry," I said, lowering my head as I wiped the last of the tears from my face. "I shouldn’t have run out like that. I was angry, and I didn’t know what to do with everything I’d just heard. I wasn’t trying to scare any of you, but I felt like I needed air."

Elijah came closer, but he stopped a few feet away instead of immediately touching me.

"It’s fine," he said, his voice careful as he watched my face. "We were the ones who gave you another reason to feel betrayed by keeping information from you. I’m just glad Cassian found you before something else happened."

Cassian glanced at him. "He wasn’t exactly making it easy."

I looked at them again. "I understand. I’m not running again," I admitted quietly. "I just don’t want to be alone either."

Adrian stepped forward and placed a hand on my shoulder.

"You were never alone," he said firmly. "We’re all here for you."

Cassian nodded in agreement. "We’re keeping you here for now, and nobody is going to take you anywhere without you knowing exactly where you’re going," he added, glancing around at the others. "We’re also not hiding another major discovery from you. If something changes, you hear it from us."

I nodded slowly, feeling better.

A few minutes later, Cassian disappeared into the kitchen, and Adrian followed him.

"What are you doing?" Adrian asked as he entered the kitchen and saw Cassian pulling ingredients from the refrigerator.

"Making dinner," Cassian replied, rolling his sleeves up. "Unless you have another brilliant plan where we all sit around starving because none of us know how to use a kitchen."

Adrian looked at the ingredients on the counter and frowned. "You don’t know how to cook."

"How helpful. That’s not particularly reassuring." Cassian turned toward him with a look of irritation that wasn’t particularly convincing. "If you’re that skeptical, then stop standing there criticizing me and help. You volunteered yourself by walking into the kitchen."

Adrian shook his head but started helping anyway.

Their argument was ridiculous enough that I found myself smiling from the sitting room.

Elijah eventually came over with a mug and held it out to me. "Coffee," he said, sitting beside me. "Just how you like it."

I took the mug from him. "Thanks."

He sat quietly for a moment before speaking again. "I’ve been meaning to apologize properly for what happened at school," he said, looking down at his hands. "I know I’ve said it before, but I still feel like I failed you that day. I should have noticed something was wrong much earlier, and I should have been there."

I looked at him. "Well, I was pissed at you then anyway."

He grinned. "Yeah."

I shook my head, but I couldn’t stop myself from smiling slightly.

My phone vibrated on the table and I glanced down.

Mom.

I hesitated, but before I could decide whether to answer, another phone began vibrating from across the room.

One of my brothers checked the screen and his eyes widened. "Dad."

We looked at each other and nobody said anything.

The timing was too strange.

Mom was calling me while Dad was calling one of the brothers almost simultaneously.

Elijah glanced at me, then at the phone in his hand. "We shouldn’t answer yet," he said quietly, placing his phone face down. "Not until we’ve figured out what we’re going to tell them."

I nodded. "I know Mom is probably worried."

"She is," Adrian called from the kitchen, where he had apparently overheard us. "But worrying her for a few more hours is better than giving Dad information we aren’t ready to give him."

I looked down at my phone again. I wanted to speak to my mother and I wanted to hear her voice. But I also knew I couldn’t simply walk back into the mansion right now.

We eventually sat down for dinner, and for a while the conversation stayed away from everything that had happened.

For a short while, I almost forgot about the report. Then Adrian put his fork down.

"There is one thing we haven’t discussed," he said, looking directly at me. "Jayden is still at the penthouse we took him to. Before we decide what happens with him, I want to know whether you’d be willing to see him."

The table went quiet and I stared at Adrian. "What?"

He adjusted in his seat. "Do you want to see Jayden?"