Page 22 of The Heiress

So there was that.

But I was also so angry at them. And let me tell you, it’s a lot harder to be angry at people who can’t fight back. One-sided arguments don’t get you very far.

The most confusing of all was that I kind of blanked out the bio-parents. I didn’t want to know them. I didn’t care. When I watched videos of Georgia Roark I expected to feel something. A magical connection. A zing that said,this is your mother. But instead I felt nothing at all. She was a stranger.

And I didn’t need a stranger in my life.

I had two parents who I loved very much. This was my life, not some imaginary life-that-never-was. I was a grown-assed woman, not some kid. I had an established career. I was my own person. Whatever life I might have had was irrelevant. It was the path not taken. Besides, Mom thought it might be dangerous and Hazel’s research definitely screamed danger, so why put myself in that line of fire?

I was cool with keeping everything as it was and not rocking the boat any more than it already was. It kept the magma below the surface.

Unfortunately I wasn’t the only one in charge of the universe.

* * *

I watchedJace work on dismantling a bed frame through a crack in the door. He wore a blue Mantas t-shirt and worn jeans. His hair looked like it was finger combed back from his face a few times and his jaw had day old stubble on it again. When he was like this it was easy to think of him as Jace and nothing else. Funny, kind, quietly troubled.

But underneath that shirt, inked right into his skin, was the Devil’s Wrath logo and mantra.The price is your soul,rattled through my mind at random. Sometimes while I was working, sometimes waking me from a dream, and right now while I chewed my thumb nail into bits.

The truth was I liked having him here. It was comforting and...pleasant.That word always sounded odd to me, but it was the only one I could think of. When he came by I wasn’t lonely anymore. When he smiled, memories—good memories—came flooding back and probably released some good endorphins into my bloodstream. I liked the way I felt with him.

But as we carefully boxed up my parents’ life, we also avoided all discussion of the elephant in the room. The elephant was getting so big there was almost no room left for us.

I grabbed a box and joined Jace. “Hey.”

He spun a screw until the two pieces of metal came apart and the screw tumbled down onto the carpet. He smiled at me. “Hey. How’s it going in the office?”

I’d spent all day painstakingly going through every piece of paper in their filing cabinet and then turned to the desk drawers, coming up empty on anything useful as far as my adoption was concerned. I was starting to think I dropped out of the sky and into their arms.

“Making progress.” I watched as he gathered the pieces of the bed frame together to be moved out to his pickup truck. “Tell me about the club.”

He froze, his eyes on the carpet. “What do you want to know?”

“Anything.” I took two steps closer to him and for some really weird reason Ifelthim. The air got warmer and the electric field of his body collided with my own even though we were still a good foot apart. “Anything at all. I can’t picture your life.”

Jace kept his gaze on his work and shrugged his wide shoulders. “We’re a bunch of smelly guys who swear and drink and fight.”

It wasn’t much, but it was a start. “What kind of guys? Old, young, fat, scary?”

“Yep. Pretty much.”

I knew he was being frustrating on purpose. Hoping I’d let it drop again, but today was not the day for quitting. Instead I threw my hands in the air and groaned. “Just...speak. Say something. Anything. I’m not a naive eighteen-year-old girl anymore!”

“How is knowing any of this going to help you? You’ve got all of this to deal with. Knowing about my club is what? Entertainment? A distraction?” He glared at me.

Well, at least he was looking at me again. I shook my head, hoping to dispel this misconception as quickly as possible. “Not entertainment at all. I am not entertained by Todd or his life. But you and I used to be as close as two people can be and I can’t…” I stumbled over the words as they hit me.

“You can’t?” His eyes drilled a hole through my skull. This was the Jace I didn’t know. Thismanwith the intense, almost scary, aura.

I swallowed down the little bit of the anxiety seeing this side of him brought up in me. “I can’t trust you. I can’t...let you into my life again...with this big black hole where a huge part of you exists but I can’t see.”

A lot of emotions passed over his face as he stared me down. His eyes darkened and unfocused. His lips thinned and his jaw worked. And then finally, he raised his chin. “Todd’s the same and the assholes around him haven’t changed. Same guys, with beer guts, greasy hair, and way too much confidence. They think they’re big and scary and untouchable. Imagine them, just a little older and uglier.” He cracked his neck and rolled his shoulders. “But my crew is different. They’re like me. We keep it hidden.” He waved at the tattoo under his shirt. “You know some of the guys, most you don’t. While Todd and his minions are drinking and fucking themselves into oblivion, we run the club. We keep it as clean as we can but…” He shrugged again and let the unsaid words hang.

“Do you...do you have girlfriends?” Why did that question make it harder to breathe?

His gaze softened a little. “Some do. Club life is hard though, so most prefer to keep things simple.”

“Parties?”

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