Page 126 of Fierce-Jax

He’d been thinking of it for weeks and trying to see both sides of everything.

A lot was going to depend on what was said today, but the soft spot of his heart felt for a mother who didn’t know their son had died or left a grandchild behind.

That was for a stranger. But since this concerned the woman and child he loved, he wanted to huddle them in a safe house.

What Dillion had said was Alec’s father was abusive, not his mother. She was most likely a victim as well and he’d seen enough of those situations in his career and that was where he was waffling on his feelings in regards to this.

“I don’t think so,” Trent said.

“Why?” she asked. “It has to do with what you found out?”

“Zander didn’t find much,” Trent said. “Luke, Alec’s father, had some charges dropped against him for domestic violence. They were always dropped by his wife, Martha. Most times a neighbor called in a fight going on.”

“That plays in line with what Alec had said about when he was younger,” she said.

“There’s been nothing in over twenty years,” Trent said. “He’s held the same job in construction. Martha has had a few jobs in the past thirty years. Nothing major and no issues that Zander could find. They still live in the same house, have good credit, and seem to keep to themselves.”

“Not exactly upstanding citizens if the neighbors called for domestic violence,” Jax said. “That could mean it’s happening more and they just got fed up with it at those times.”

“I agree with that,” Trent said. “But twenty years is a long time to go with nothing. Neighbors could and have most likely changed or behaviors did. Again, Zander didn’t go into too much. Alec’s sister lives in the area too.”

“He has a sister?” she asked, almost jumping in the chair.

“You didn’t know that?” Trent asked.

“No,” she said. “He never said a word. We weren’t together even for two years. He didn’t talk much about his family andwhen he did it wasn’t with happiness. I just knew he hated his parents for different reasons and shut them out of his life.”

“His sister is forty-five.”

“So she was about eight years older than Alec.”

“Sounds like she might not have been around much when Alec was a teen,” he said.

“I don’t know what to believe,” she said.

“They appear to be an average middle class family,” Trent said. “I’m not sure much about their characters or their drive to know their granddaughter. It seems odd to me that for four years they had no knowledge their son died. What made them look for him or want contact? Those things you don’t know and you won’t unless you talk to them.”

She took a deep breath. “I don’t know what to do. What I’d love is if life just went on without them knowing, but that is selfish on my part. I’ve heard it from my mother enough that she’d move heaven and earth to find her grandchild and be in their life. It’s hard to not see that side of it, but I’m doing what is in the best interest of Gianna. I don’t want to disrupt her life.”

“We don’t always have control over that,” Trent said. “I’m just speaking as your attorney on this. You need to be prepared that Gianna is going to find out. Alec’s wish not to have his child meet her grandparents doesn’t mean a lot without proof of why since he’s not here to shed light on anything.”

“Everything is hearsay,” she said. “But that should count for something.”

“It will count for enough that they will be looked into and monitored. Supervised visitations could still happen,” Trent said.

“Where do they live?” Jax asked. “No one has said that yet.”

“Charleston, South Carolina,” Trent said.

“That’s over four hours easily by car,” Dillion said. “There is no way I’m driving that distance for them to see Gianna for anhour or two and I’ll empty my accounts before they are allowed to take her overnight.”

Jax was getting as worked up as her, but he knew his job was to keep her calm.

He reached for her hand and squeezed it. “If any of this goes to court, I’d think they’d have to come to you. They want this, not you, right, Trent?”

“That would be part of it. We are talking about two different states here. You live here, it’d be filed here. It’d be on them to do the legwork to start. They might grow tired of it.”

Jax didn’t think that was going to happen though. “Maybe they just want updates on Gianna,” he said. “Pictures and texts or calls or emails. A lot is done via video calls now.”

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