Page 182 of Deacon

The apartment settled around the murmur of their voices. I wasn’t trying to listen, but Jade’s room wasn’t far away and neither teenager had mastered whispering through emotion.

“I’m so pissed at him, Cage. He used me like I was some kind of pawn in his weird little game.” Jade’s voice carried more clearly as anger pushed it higher. “And I knew there was something off with Jude. I always knew there was something creepy about him. Everybody acted like I was just being a bitch because I didn’t like him, but I knew.”

Beside me, Jackson’s jaw tightened. I squeezed his hand before either of us could turn what we heard into one more thing Jade had to manage for us.

Cage answered after a beat. “You weren’t wrong.”

Jade exhaled shakily. “If something worse had happened to my mom because of all this...” Her voice caught, and my chest tightened with it. “I can’t even think about it without wanting to break something.”

Cage’s reply came steady and low. “You got every right to be mad,” he said. “At all of it. At him. At your grandpa. At everybody who put you and your mom in this mess.”

The silence that followed felt private enough that I almost wished the cracked door were wider for air and narrower for sound. Then Cage spoke again, softer.

“I thought you were missing. I thought something happened to you and I couldn’t do anything about it.” His voice dipped. “I was scared outta my mind, Jade. Then we found out about the texts. Why didn’t you tell us about the texts you been gettin’, Jade?”

Jade took longer to answer. “Because they were words in texts. I didn’t want to stress my mom out. My dad had just come back into our lives. My grandpa and my uncle were being assholes about it. Before that, they were always putting this pressure on her with Crude Jude, like we aren’t strong enough to take care of ourselves. I didn’t want to scare her or give her one more thing to deal with. If it turned into a flesh-and-bone threat, I would have, but it had just been texts. No one ever actually approached me.”

The words hurt because I understood them. She had watched me juggle Jackson, Dad, Matty, work, and a move to a new town, then decided protecting me meant carrying something frightening by herself.

Cage wasn’t willing to let her excuse it. “That was too damn dangerous a game to play. Texts were serious too. That fake kidnapping could have been that person texting you. We could have lost you.”

Her response came too quietly for me to make out. I heard Cage answer a moment later, warmth replacing the fear in his voice. “I’m just relieved you’re okay. And that your mom’s okay. That’s what matters.”

Something in my throat tightened. Jackson caught my expression and gave me a soft, far too satisfied look.

I raised a brow. “Don’t.”

His face went innocent. “What?”

“You have a look.”

“A good look?”

“A smug one.”

He leaned back with the confidence of a man who had apparently forgotten how close I was to throwing a pillow at him. “Can’t help it if our kid’s got excellent taste.”

I rolled my eyes. “You are unbelievable.”

“I’m right, though.”

Unfortunately, he probably was.

A few minutes later Jade emerged with the bakery box, Cage behind her. The blush in her cheeks told me their private conversation had gone somewhere neither of them wanted adult commentary on, but both looked steadier.

She set the box in my lap and opened it. “Pick one.”

Donuts and muffins filled almost every inch. I laughed. “You brought so many,”

Cage rubbed the back of his neck. “Didn’t know what anybody would want.”

Jackson eyed the sugar like it was a perfectly acceptable medical intervention. “Smart man. Sweets are the best way to these women’s hearts,”

Jade grabbed a chocolate frosted donut and perched on the arm of the couch with complete disregard for every furniture rule I had once enforced. Cage took the chair across from us, and for a while the room found something almost normal in pastry wrappers, coffee lids, and the small negotiations over who had stolen the best donut.

Normal lasted until Jade looked at Jackson. “So are you planning to breathe for Mom too while she’s healing, or is the stalking limited to watching her every time she moves?”

His offended expression arrived immediately. “I’m not stalking her. I’m monitoring.”