Page 85 of Broken Bonds

It’s a treasure trove. The original furniture is all up here, covered with thick, white sheets coated with dust, and there are several trunks that I can see, but this attic is massive. It covers this entire floor, as I’d suspected, and I imagine there’s so much more stashed away up here. How it’s gone so long unnoticed is beyond me. I know this town isn’t popular or well-known, but surely someone should have found all this stuff before now.

“I can’t believe all of this is still here. It would take days to dig through all of this. Maybe even weeks. Wait. Do you think we have to report this for, like, historical stuff or whatever?” Jillian asks, turning to look over at me from where I’m standing by a trunk.

“I don’t think so. This land is public, and it’s abandoned. Most people have forgotten this place even exists, which is probably why the buildings are still in decent condition. They haven’t been trampled through now that it’s basically been forgotten. Could explain why all of this is still here.”

I run my hand along the top of the trunk in front of me, wanting to open it to see what it’s hiding.

“Cool. Let’s see what secrets the Lovelace family could have been hiding,” she says, throwing a grin my way before pulling sheets off and kicking up dust.

While I bend over and strain myself to open the first trunk, I can hear her coughing and giggling softly. It’s full of clothes, mostly dresses and a few corsets. It’s all in decent condition, the fabric all intact. Mice probably never got to the items since it was all closed tightly in the trunk.

After carefully shutting the lid, I move on. From all the clanging I’m hearing, I’m assuming Jillian is digging around in something that’s metal. I come across another trunk and carefully open it to investigate what’s inside. Compared to the last one, this one is smaller and overflowing with newspaper clippings. Despite the fact that the pictures have become quite faded, I can still recognize that the majority of them are of the Lovelaces standing together in front of recently constructed buildings in the town or mentioning them in some way. On and on, we search through the expansive attic, finding various pictures of the pack and the town as it grew, more clothes and furniture, all manner of flatware and serving dishes made of what appears to be sterling silver, and more.

Time slips away from us, and before we know it, we find ourselves here hours beyond what we had originally planned for our departure. As we prepare to go, I’m strangely pulled toward one more trunk and feel the need to take a closer look. It’s small, small enough to fit atop a small round table. I’m inexplicably drawn to it, as if there’s something drawing me towards it. I tell Jillian to go ahead downstairs and I’ll meet her outside, wanting to look inside the trunk alone. I can’t explain why, it’s just a feeling.

When I try to open it, it’s locked. My brows furrow and I frown. I let out a frustrated breath and look around the table, hoping there’s a key lying somewhere nearby that goes to it. I really want to see inside. I open a drawer to an old wooden dresser near the table the trunk sits on and hear a rattling sound. When I peek in, I spot a key and grin in triumph, grabbing it and taking a deep breath before trying it on the trunk. A sigh of relief escapes me when it clicks and the top pops open.

I slowly open the lid all the way and my eyes fall on a few pieces of jewelry, several envelopes with letters, and a journal that has a lock on it. I carefully pick up the letters and journal and a small key reveals itself among the jewelry.

The journal has a leather hardcover, and the pages have yellowed with time. On the front,‘Corinne’is scrawled in an elegant cursive font. My heart races and a thrill tracks down my spine. A breeze blows, my hair lifting slightly, but when I look, the windows are still closed just like they were when we entered. I glance around, looking to see if anyone else is there, but I’m alone.

“Rams, come on. It’s dark out and we still have to walk all the way to the car!” Jillian shouts from downstairs, her voice echoing through the empty house.

“Coming!” I yell, looking back at everything that was in the trunk.

I nibble my lips indecisively, but eventually, my curiosity gets the better of me, so I grab everything and close the lid. I stuff the necklace, rings, and key to the journal in my pockets and hug the journal and letters to my chest.

Something about me taking them feels right. Meant to be. Fated.

I make my way down the stairs carefully, using my phone’s flashlight to see now that it’s so dark, and find Jillian at the front door. She raises her brow at me when she catches sight of the items in my hand, and I just shrug in response.

I look back at the house one last time before it’s completely out of my sight, a sense of longing filling me. I hope I can come back one day.

Finding this journal at the last minute feels like divine intervention, and I can’t stop wondering what could be written in it. There’s no known secrets about Lovelace and the founding pack, so I’m curious to know what I’ll find when I finally open it.

It was almost as if… as if Corinne wanted me to find the journal and letters.

But why?

‘You are worthy of my story.’I could swear I hear it whispered on the breeze that blows by me before I open my car door.

I smile and get in the car, the letters and journal in my lap, eager to get home for the first time in months.

ChapterTwenty-Seven

RION

They’re late.By several hours. Which has me sweating bullets.

I was going to leave before they got here, after I put the finishing touches on the nursery, of course, but I still wasn’t quite done when the sun began to go down. When I looked at the clock once I’d finished up and realized they were three hours later than they should have been, I got worried and couldn’t make myself leave.

I’ve tried calling, but Jillian’s phone keeps going to voicemail and I don’t have Ramsey’s number. I could call Forde, maybe Link, but it’s bad enough that I’m worried. No point in stressing those two out.

I’ve been pacing a hole in Ramsey’s living room floor for the last few hours, my gut clenching the more time passes.

What if something happened?

Maybe they had a flat or ran out of gas?

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