Page 42 of Fractured Heart

After showering and shaving for the first time in two weeks, I feel a whole lot livelier. Lakeland even prepared a hot meal for us, which Xander and I both shoveled into our mouths like wild animals. I wanted to feel bad that I was eating like a pig in front of Lake but I couldn’t because food never tasted so fucking good. Once we were finished, Lake told us it was time to meet her boys.

I can feel the tension wafting off Xander as we follow after her, he keeps clenching and unclenching his hands. Lake opens a door and steps inside. Children's laughter can be heard from inside but Xander is frozen on the spot and won’t move. Lake shoots him a concerned look.

“We’ll be right in, just give us a second,” I say with a smile. She nods and leaves alone in the hallway. “What’s wrong?” I ask him.

His shoulders deflate as he faces me. “Those are my best friends' kids in there.”

“Yeah?”

He scrubs a hand down his face and shakes his head. “I ran Lakeland down with my car the night I thought she left Wave to die. I didn’t just hurt her, I killed their baby!” Sorrow churns inside me for him. Lakeland and Knox suffered a great loss at his hand but I also know he has been beating himself up about this for years, you can see it in the way he refuses to hold eye contact with her for too long.

“Yeah, you did!” We both spin around to find Knox, Taylan and two of Knox’s men standing a few feet behind us. Xander remains frozen at my side as he stares at his best friend.

“How can we move past this?—”

Xander cuts Taylan off before he can finish speaking. “Saying I’m sorry won’t change what I did, I can’t replace what I took from you and Lake and for that I will never forgive myself.” Surprise ripples through me at hearing Xander speak so emotionally.

“If you could go back, would you change it?” Knox asks.

Xander sighs and shakes his head, surprising not only me but Knox and Taylan as well. “No.”

“Come again?” Knox grits out.

“I wouldn’t change it because if I did, then you wouldn’t have those two kids in that room. Call me heartless and hate me all you want but no, I wouldn’t change what happened because it would mean that you wouldn’t have Rave and Axlyn.”

Knox’s brows raise before he slowly turns to the side and glares at Taylan, who shoots him a toothy grin. “You told him their names?” he forces out.

Tay shrugs. “I’m sick of being your messenger. You claim to hate him but every month you track his whereabouts. When he went off grid a few weeks back, you lost your shit. You still care about him, Knox, and I think it’s time you admit that to yourself because he isn’t going anywhere, not this time.” Both Knox and Xander stare after Taylan as he brushes past the both of them to go inside the room where Lakeland and her sons are.

“I’ll give you guys a minute—.” Knox pins me with a dark look that has me clamping my mouth closed.

“You stay the fuck away from my wife and kids,” he snarls.

“And you can curb your anger, right now!” Knox’s features harden as Lakeland comes to join us. “Knoxville Bronson, you will let go of this grudge, right now, because I won’t bring my best friend back here with you hating the man—well, one of the men she cares for.” Knox flinches in disgust.

“They are not going near you or her!” he snaps.

“With all due respect, fuck you,” I say, earning a gasp from Lake and a cruel smirk from Knox.

“My twin not enough for you?” he taunts.

“You make another joke about your sister not being enough again and I’ll break your fucking jaw!” Xander says in a tone so fucking cold and menacing that Lake takes a step away from him. “You can hate me, say whatever you want about me, but you will not talk about Wave in that way again. You don’t know a fucking thing about what she went through.”

“You don’t know her at all,” I add.

“What the fuck is this shit, Xander? You both think I'm going to stand back and let you, what? Date my sister, sleep with her?” Knox sounds like a prick.

“Enough!” I turn in time to see a woman and man exit the same room Lake came from. I step aside to allow them to pass and notice immediately how Xander softens at the sight of her and Knox tenses. “Hello, my boy,” she says lovingly as she gazes up at Xander with a warm smile that is filled with love.

“Hi, Mom,” he rasps out before he engulfs her in a hug. She begins to weep in his hold.

“That’s Clara, Knox and Wave’s mom but she is also Taylan and Xander’s mom,” Lake whispers. I reel back in disgust.

“Xander and Wave are related?” I hear the disbelief in my own voice and feel bile rushing up my throat at the thought of them being siblings. Lake chuckles and shakes her head.

“No. Clara raised Taylan and Xander as her own and I guess in a way she sort of raised me and my sister as well. She may be blood related to Knox and Wave but she is all of our mother and that man, that’s Roberto Da Luca, their father.” My eyes widen.

“Doxy took his last name,” I whisper.

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