Page 81 of The Price of Forever

“We want foster kids to suffer a little less in the hardest times of their lives,” Axel added. “And we do what we can to root out the fucking sex traffickers.”

“Though that is a black hole all its own,” Damian said.

Damian’s comment reminded me of what we’d been talking about before Axel came in. I sighed, gnawing on the inside of my cheek. “I still don’t understand how you guys thought I disappeared or was dead.”

“Well, I started doing those scans I told you about,” Damian said. “It was basic, but more of a way to keep up the long-distance search efforts once we were in New York.”

The second mention of them fucking off to New York—without me or Kaylee—sent my chest tightening again. I tried to tamp down the ancient feelings of abandonment and resentment swirling inside my gut.

“Then we found out Kaylee died,” Axel said softly. “And it was like you just fell off the face of the earth after that.”

“We were calling Kentucky CPS constantly,” Damian added. “You’d been in the care of a household where a foster teen died from a drug overdose with suspected involvement in sex trafficking. It was really hard to swallow. And with being so far away…”

“You have to remember, Jordan, we had no money back then.” Axel smiled grimly. “We were living day to day, mostly off dividends that Trace’s earliest investments paid out.”

“And lots of student loans,” Damian said.

“And working non-stop when we weren’t in classes,” Axel added. “Point is, we weren’t in a position to come home and poke around. We asked our adoptive mom to do some digging, but since she wasn’t related to you, no one would talk to her. Even with us, it was like everyone clammed up. I think the FBI got involved with your foster family—”

“They did,” I whispered.

“So nobody was giving up information.”

“I was transferred to a new home after Kaylee died,” I said, the words sticking to my throat. “It wasn’t anywhere near Louisville. It was an emergency placement.”

“They might as well have changed your name,” Damian said. “And for a while, that’s what I assumed happened. I couldn’t get a lead on you. It was like you just vanished.”

“But you never showed up again,” Axel said. “We’d check constantly. Call the CPS office. I don’t know if it was a bureaucratic fuck-up or what…but you were gone.”

“And then I ran away from that final foster home when I was sixteen.” I sniffed, grabbing the amazing French water for another sip. All this rehashing of the past had me parched. “I moved in with a boyfriend. For a while, I just drifted between jobs, working as a waitress or farmhand or whatever I could find.”

“Under the table?” Damian asked.

I nodded. “Yeah. I always wanted cash the same day.”

Axel shook his head, looking over at Damian. “Well that explains part of it.”

“I’ve had under the table jobs for years. It wasn’t until probably two years ago that I went on payroll at Black & Brewtiful,” I told them.

Damian rubbed his face. “My god. And you were under our noses the entire time.”

“I wasn’t knowingly evading you,” I said quietly.

“But you never reached out,” Axel said, looking so bewildered that it felt like a blow to my body. “Why? We’ve been sharing the same city for how many years now? You had to have seen our names in the papers.”

“Four years now,” I admitted. I opened my mouth to add more, but I didn’t know where to begin. The truth hurt so bad. But if I was ever going to say these words, to these men, it was now. It had to be now. Or I’d second-guess myself to the grave. “I didn’t think you guys wanted anything to do with me. I never reached out because I figured Kaylee had been right about you two all along.”

Both Axel and Damian seemed to scoot closer upon hearing this. “What do you mean?” Damian asked. “What would she say about us?”

“That you two abandoned us.” I rolled the water bottle back and forth in my hands, enjoying the cool glass against my sweaty palms. “That you’d taken the better family and left us to rot in the foster system.”

Axel leaned back in his chair. The edges of his tattoos peeked out from under the long sleeves of his shirt as he covered his face with his hands.

Damian rolled his lips inward, his gaze stuck on the ground.

“As we got older and she started using drugs, she said it more and more,” I said. “After you guys left for New York, I believed her. Because you did what she’d said. Our brothers abandoned us.”

My chin trembled, but at least the tears hadn’t shown up yet. Damian pinched the bridge of his nose, his eyes squeezed shut.

---