Page 184 of Saving the Halfback

“Okay, but as long as I’m not next to Ethan. I’m not into that cuddle shit,” Chase joked, and everyone laughed.

I sat up. “So, back to serious issues. Do we agree Hadley needs to be taken care of? Before she makes another move, and I get kidnapped again?”

“Yes,” Nolan said.

“She’s not going to touch you ever again,” Chase promised.

“No one will touch our family ever again.” Lachlan’s lip curled as he moved off my legs and reclaimed his pipe.

My eyes drifted to Ethan, who sat staring into the fire. “There’ll be no second chances, for anyone. They mess with us, we mess them up.” His voice was deep and gravelly, sending a shiver of excitement up my spine.

I lay back down on the pillows and looked up at the sky again just as a shooting star flew by. This time, I wasn’t sure what to wish for. I knew more moments like this were going to happen. I knew I could be myself, that we all could be true to ourselves. I knew we were all a family, and we would take care of one another. I didn’t have to wish for any of that.

Maybe we were a bit broken. Maybe we were a bit twisted. But we were here. We would always be here for one another.

“What’d you wish for?” Nolan whispered in my ear.

I smiled. “All-you-can-eat ice cream.”

The End

Epilogue

Two years later…

Lachlan

I tapped awayat the computer, pulling up old searches as I hummed the lovely tune in my mind. Then I added the nifty trick Nolan had shown me, inserting a few searches into his history to set up the nice little trail.

I placed the glass of liquor appropriately, along with photos of Chase he’d had a private detective hired to take. I mean, it was all too much on his part. Chase had practically posed for them. No one got on the farm without us knowing nowadays.

I left Mr. Jacobs’s office and joined him, Ethan, and Nolan on his balcony. “This is ridiculous. I will be pressing charges. Where is Chase?” he demanded.

“Shhh, Mr. Jacobs. I can call you that, right? I mean, Vincent seems too personal. I don’t consider you decent enough to get personal.”

“Stop playing with your food, Lach,” Nolan said.

“Right, still working the kinks out on this side of business.”

Ethan and Nolan were holding Chase’s dad by the arm. “Chase is out, on a date with a pretty little number. But that is none of your concern. You signed an NDA with us, and you’ve broken that contract.” I sighed and reached into my bag, pulling out a familiar yellow rope.

“I did not!” he protested.

“Shh, the neighbors will hear.” I paused, looked around, and then smiled as his face fell because he knew the truth… There were no neighbors. I slipped the noose around his neck.

“What is this?” he yelled, his face growing paler by the second.

“Ethan.” I handed him the other end of the rope, and he got to work tying it off. He tried to fight Nolan off, but Nolan hit him with that bloody neck pressure point I hated, bringing him down to his knees.

“This would be the rope Chase—is it okay if I call him Chase? Technically, John adopted him, so he’s no longer your son. Anyway, he had this hanging in his closet, every day for nearly a year. Contemplating if he was able to go through with it. It was a reminder of your hatred for him. You see, I go to meetings with Chase, I hear things, I have an understanding for how things played out. This rope wasn’t the tool he chose to end himself. No, it was the reminder of your words and how much they choked him out every single day you attempted to drive him to kill himself.” Vincent had gone ghost white. “You’re done.”

“Of course, you knew that, didn’t you?” Nolan asked. He wasn’t normally one to talk during these things—he held everything too close to his heart—but this was about protecting our brother. “You knew you were done the moment you got slapped with a lawsuit for faking Chase’s death. Not to mention, the fraud charges and corporate espionage. You’re not going to see the light of day once they come to collect you.”

“Then, let me go,” he begged. “I can’t harm you any longer.” His forehead beaded with sweat.

“Oh, we were going to”—I shook my head—“until you sent a hand for hire to our home, to harm our family.” I reached into the black duffel and pulled out a small box. I held it open for him to look into.

“You are sick!” he cried.

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