Jace sat in a chair on the other side of the coffee table doing the same, and I checked my emails on a laptop sitting next to me. I had screens and screens of social media notifications about people congratulating me on the wedding, but I hadn’t heard of most of them.
One caught my eye, from Dan Strickland in the research department at The Weekly Enquirer. I didn’t work there anymore, but Dan and I had bonded somewhat over how Lucille had tried to throw him under the bus about the facts in her Port Magnus crime article.
These days, with a multi-billionaire partner, I didn’t really need a job to make ends meet, so I just took freelancing jobs whenever I felt like it. After the explosion of attention from my original article about Jace, and subsequently revealing a relationship with him, all the journalistic doors I could possibly want were wide open for me.
The contacts I made were pretty useful for Jace to spread misinformation when he needed it too. It felt good to help his… our… cause.
Of all the research departments I had access to now though, Dan amongst the best. I hadn’t told Jace, but I’d asked Dan to look something up for me a few weeks ago, maybe now he’d found what I was looking for.
From:
[email protected]
Subject: Picolli Hit 1992
Hi Kendall,
Sorry I didn’t manage to get this to you before your wedding preparations were in full swing, now maybe you won’t read it until you’re back. Anyway, I found what you were looking for. A couple articles from a couple different papers actually. A hit attributed to the Picolli crime family involving gunning down a husband and wife in their car, with a child survivor.
Kendall… is this who I think it is?
Scanned articles attached. Get back to me when you can. I’m keeping busy here, Lucille and Mr. Kinsley seem to disappear at the same time an awful lot these days… I don’t think she’ll be getting the can anytime soon.
Regards,
Dan
I double-clicked the first attachment and glanced up at Jace, who was reading something on his own tablet. He looked so calm now, it was hard to believe that he had killed so many people over the years.
I braced myself to see the event that had set him down that path. It wasn’t going to be easy, reading the article about his parents’ murders, but I needed to see. I needed to make it a part of… the very core of my being.
My thumb ran over the gold band around my ring finger. With this ring, he’d promised to love me forever and forsake all others. I’d done the same with the ring on his finger. He had my heart, and I wanted to do this so I could give him my complete understanding too.
It started out much as Jace had told me. Ruben and Ana Lowell, gunned down by the Picollis for unknown reasons while driving to the hospital. The small business-owner and housewife were survived by Jason Bartholomew Lowell, who had no other known living relatives.
I could feel the tears welling up already. This was the moment in time that changed everything for the boy who would grow up to be my hero. This was what sent him through hell.
That was bad enough, but nothing could have prepared me for the rest of the article. Even though my heart began beating harder, I could feel the blood drain from my face.
“Kendall? What’s wrong? What is it?”
“Jace…”
“What?”
I looked up at him, then back to my laptop. My fork clattered to my plate and I could feel my extremities going numb as I fought to overcome the shock. I mumbled something and passed the laptop over to Jace. I could see when he got to the part that had just about made me faint.
Mrs. Lowell was rushed to nearby Port Magnus General, where she had been scheduled to have her baby delivered by Caesarian that morning before this heinous crime took place. A hospital representative stated that her unborn child has been successfully extracted from her womb. Although the newborn, a male, is under round-the-clock surveillance, at the time of writing he is alive, fighting for his life, but alive. With such a start, one can only wonder what kind of life that might be.
Jace stared at the screen for a long, long, time. This was a man who could stare down an army without flinching, but he looked like he’d been completely blindsided.
“Did he… make it?” Jace finally asked.
“I don’t know. Check the other article. The other attachment in the email I’ve got open.”
Jace ran his finger over the touchpad and made a few clicks, his brow furrowing as the new article loaded and he read it.
“This is the same one I found on the microfiche in that library. It doesn’t even mention my… my brother. Kendall… I’ve got to find out what happened.”
###