Page 83 of Thick as Thieves
Why did I even suggest that fucking club? I didn't really need it. I could have done whatever I wanted at home with them. And only them. Not put Evie in a position where she had to listen to the biggest load of bullshit ever. Was a blue room in a sex club worth it? No it wasn’t. She is worth it. She is worth everything. I would give everything up for her, for him. For them. My family.
Through my ego and intent on her enjoying whatever I wanted to dish up, I’ve cost us our family. I’ve cost Kell his children, his wife. Through my hamartia I’ve killed us all.
36
Kellen
My children,my wife, my life. I fall to the floor on all fours. If I thought last year was bad, this is worse, so much worse. Why would she think we wanted her to get involved with anyone? Doesn’t she trust us? How can she not trust us? We’ve loved her. I’ve loved her, talked to her loads, told her she was enough. She is everything. And now she’s gone. Taken the boys and left.
Xander’s prostate on the floor. Crying. Pulling at his hair. I feel the cold fingers of dread grip my heart. How am I going to help him? He put his heart and soul on the line for me, and for her. How could it have got to this? With our hubris and egos, we’ve killed us all.
37
Xander
I haveno idea how long I lay there for. It feels like a lifetime. Kell pulls at my arms and legs, but I don’t move. I cling to the cribs as if they’re the last life raft on a sinking vessel.
Jase comes and sits with me. Kell has been carried off by Mick. I can hear him bellowing and shouting in the other room. Suddenly his face is in front of me again. He looks haggard. Lifeless.
“There’s a note, Xander.”
I lift my lifeless eyes to his dead ones. A matching pair. Black holes in our faces. A note. She’s not coming back.
“Please, Xan.”
He tugs at my arms and I allow him to pull me up. My legs buckle, and Jase grabs me to steady me.
Gabe and Levi sit in the room. They look shell-shocked. Levi comes across the room and pulls me into a hug, hanging onto me for dear life. Gabe is struggling to hang onto his emotions. He’s holding Kell like he’s made of glass. He comes to me, banding his arms around Levi and I. They can’t get any words out. But what would they say? The girls are nowhere to be seen.
Mick is holding the note, and his phone is pinging with messages. He looks down and reads them. He gasps, his face changing from concern to looking like he wants to commit a murder. But his eyes aren’t focused elsewhere. They’re focused on Kell and I. What the hell is wrong with him? He moves towards Kell to hand him the note.
“No, read it out Mick. I can’t focus,” Kells mutters.
He tows me towards the sofas, pulling me down next to him. As Mick's phone pings again, Jase stands at the side of us. Levi and Gabe sit on the kitchen stools.
“I’m not sure you want me to do that.” Mick’s voice is gruff, and his face set in grim lines as he looks up and down from the letter in his hand to his phone to Kell and I. He shakes his head as he concentrates on the words.
“We do,” I say. I know I wouldn’t be able to do it.
In a monotone voice, he reads her words. He starts with the note, then moves onto the texts. Each one slicing the strings of my heart. Setting it adrift into a wasteland. Into no man's land.
Tommy
For Kell and Xander from Evie
Tommy
How could you paternity test my boys against my wishes and then not tell me? Did you not trust me? Did everyone questioning the boy's parentage affect you so much that you thought I was lying? Maybe it’s different in your world, but in mine it’s not a normal thing to do. Especially not when love and trust are in a relationship. If you didn’t want them, you should have said. Not test them and then decide that since I was actually telling the truth you’d stay and we’d be a family. Did I have to prove myself before you’d both believe me?
Tommy
How could you? I loved you Kell, always have. I trusted you. And there have been lots of things said and done over the past eighteen months that could have crumbled that. But it didn’t.
Tommy
Xander, I have loved you since I was fourteen years old. How could you go along and stand by thinking I was lying about my sons? Why would I do that? What would any of that have gained me? I don’t want money, I don’t want a title. I just wanted love. For you both to want me, love me. The same way I wanted you, and loved you.
Tommy
