Under the Mistletoe with my Ex's Brother のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 131 - チャプター 140

Damian POV Two officers appeared in the doorway, hands moving to their weapons when they saw Lucas bleeding on the floor."NYPD. Step back from him. Now."I stepped back, my hands still clenched in fists."What happened here?" one officer asked."This man lost his five-year-old son," I said, my voice cold and controlled. "And I'm expressing my displeasure at his negligence."One officer moved toward me while the other went to check on Lucas."Are you injured, sir?"Lucas spat blood onto the floor. "He attacked me. Arrest him."Is that really what you want to focus on?" I asked. "Your injuries? Not the fact that your son has been missing for ten hours because you were too busy fucking some woman to notice he'd run away?"The officers looked at each other.One of them spoke into his radio. "We need an update on the missing child case. Lucas Cole's residence.""We have officers canvassing the area," came the response. "No sign of the child yet.""I want every resource the department has

Michael's POV I carried the boy up the stairs of the old warehouse carefully. He was small. Lighter than I expected. His backpack pressed against my chest and I could feel him shaking. "Where are you taking me?" he asked. His voice was tiny. Scared. "Somewhere safe," I told him. "Somewhere your mommy can find you." "I want my mommy now." "Soon. I promise." The warehouse was on the edge of the city where nobody came anymore. All the factories had closed years ago and the buildings sat empty and forgotten. But I'd been coming here for weeks. Getting ready. I'd cleaned out one of the old offices on the second floor. Put in a bed and blankets. Bought food and water. Made it comfortable. Safe. I pushed open the door with my shoulder and carried Jace inside. He looked around with wide eyes. At the bed in the corner. At the boxes of crackers and juice on the table. At the drawings I'd taped to the walls. Drawings of his mother. I'd drawn them from memory over the y

Damian's pov Seventy-two hours. Three days since Jace disappeared. Three days of searching and finding nothing. I sat in the police station conference room staring at the wall of information they'd assembled about Michael Stephan. Photographs. Timeline. Criminal history. Known associates. All of it useless. The detective in charge was a woman named Martinez. She'd been working missing children cases for fifteen years and her face showed every one of them. Hard lines around her mouth. Eyes that had seen too much. She stood at the front of the room pointing at the board. "Michael Stephan. Age thirty-six. Last known employment was construction work eight years ago. No current address on file. No credit cards. No bank accounts we can trace. No phone under his name." She paused. "The man's a ghost." "People don't just become ghosts," I said. My voice came out rougher than I intended. "He's been living somewhere. Working somewhere. Someone has to know where he is." "We're checking

Scarlet's POV I was finally leaving this hospital. Three weeks in a coma, another week recovering. A month of my life gone while I lay in a bed being kept alive by machines. But I was alive. I was awake. And today I was going home. Home to see my baby. I'd been asking about him constantly for the past week. Every day. Multiple times a day. "When can I see Jace? How is he doing? Is he okay?" And every time Damian gave me the same vague non-answers. "He's fine. Don't worry about him right now. Just focus on getting better." "We're working on the custody situation with Lucas. It's complicated but we'll sort it out." "Soon. You'll see him soon. Just rest." Something was wrong. I could feel it in my bones. In the way Damian wouldn't quite meet my eyes when I asked about my son. In the way he changed the subject every time I pushed for details. But I was too weak to push hard enough. Too tired to fight through his deflections. The accident had taken everything out of me. My bod

Scarlet's Pov "I'm sorry." His voice was rough. "I'm so sorry, Scarlet. I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought—" "You thought wrong." I stood there looking at him. At the man I'd married. The man I'd started to trust. The man I'd started to love again! The man who'd just proven he was no different from Lucas or my parents or any other man who thought they knew what was best for me better than I knew myself. "Tell me everything," I said. My voice was cold now. Controlled. "Right now. Every detail. Where he is. What he wants. What the police are doing. Everything." So Damian told me. Standing in that hospital corridor with nurses and doctors pretending not to watch. He told me about going to Lucas's apartment and finding evidence of another woman. About Jace's packed backpack and the chair by the door. About the security footage showing Jace walking alone through the city for hours. About the footage showing Michael approaching him in an alley. About Michael calling