Chapter Twenty-Four

Once the elevator reaches the top floor, the doors slide open and I sigh in relief. My heart beats a million miles an hour, here is the big test. Will I remember his face? Milo stands with his back to us and looks out the large glass windows overlooking New Hope. We all move towards him, he turns and my face lights up, I can feel it, I remember him, his dark brown hair and dark eyes and a smattering of freckles on his nose that he never grew out of. I run, closing the distance between us and launch myself into his arms. He wraps his around me and squeezes tightly.

“I missed you,” he says as tears fall down my face. “I take it you have your memories back?”

I pull back and nod. “I do.”

“Let’s sit so I can explain. Jarva you can call off your guard dogs, you’ll want to hear this too.”

“I think I want to hear why my right hand man wanted me to believe he was dead.”

“Just sit your stubborn ass down and I will tell you.” Milo snarks.

We all sit on the L shape sofa, the security standing to the side, eyeing Milo skeptically.

“I had been watching Shandra just like you had asked me to and I knew something wasn’t right. I had some intel and decided to confront her in the kitchen, to see how she would react and it turns out that she wasn’t happy with my discovery. Carter walked in the room after he heard his mum shriek and pulled a gun on me. We argued for a while, they were telling me of their plans when we heard Bristol coming down the stairs from her room. Shandra left the room but Carter started ranting about how he loved you,” Milo says, turning towards me. “And I lost it. I knew that you would have known about the vest you made me wear. But in the moment you went into shock and I decided to leave while they were dealing with you. I had hoped you would piece it all together and tell Uncle Jarva but when you hadn’t shown up here I had to find you…”

“I was in that damn hospital.”

“I know and you were safer there until I had all the evidence I needed.”

“If you had evidence, why not just take her out?” Uncle Java demands.

“Because she is a small fry, we have been trying to take out the Caparros for years but this goes so much deeper. Let’s rewind twenty years, Shandra was formerly known as Emily Brown, a young police officer who was sent undercover to help take down the criminal underworld. She was sent to stake out the Caparro family and long story short she was pulled from duty when she found out she was pregnant, that wasn’t until Morgan Caparro was shot.”

I look over at my uncle and his face goes white -paling significantly- and his hand comes to his mouth as he pieces together the story.

“She wanted revenge and she aimed her sights on bringing you down, but you rejected her, so she went for Dad as soon as our mum died. She swooped in and I think she might have grown feelings for dad over the years, but once Carter was older something changed when you didn’t take him into the fold. Since then she has been working to take you down from the inside. Her latest plan was to set Bristol up with Sebastian because he was abusive and that somehow Carter would console her and they would fall in love. It’s fucking twisted.”

“And how did you find out all of this?” Jarva asks.

“I had some help from family, people that I can trust so don’t worry but they happened to meet some very loose lipped Caparros at a bar one night and the rest we found whilst digging.”

“Was she working with a Caparro to take us down?” Uncle Jarva asks.

Milo nods his head. “She was still in contact with Morgan's brother Mattaius, only brief calls or they would meet up. I have all the footage and audio for you to review.”

“This is going to start a war,” my uncle mutters.

My brother nods at my uncle. “It’s time to call in the family.”

“It is indeed, but now it’s time for you to come home. I have already sent word to your father about everything that has happened. He’s meeting with the fairy godmother and we all know how much of a love hate relationship we have. She won’t take sides but we need her blessing to go to war. Once I review your information, you'll need to go and meet with her yourself, she will have the final say.”

“I don’t want to be part of this, I can’t.” I interject myself into their conversation.

They both look at me and smile. “I made a deal so you didn’t have to be part of this life. I know you’re going travelling and I have arranged some new identification for you. From today you will be known as JD Blakely. I know you have become attached to being called JD and Blakely is our mother’s maiden name. Any and all things Bristol Montgomery will be deleted and no longer exist. Our cousin Arden knows some people.” He says with a wink.

“But for now,” he continues, “ it’s time for you to leave. You have people waiting on you.”

My head is spinning from all of the information that is running through my head. All of the old memories are back but things are slightly misplaced; all I want to do is see my guys and start my life.

“Take my car and tell Echo I want it returned tonight,” my uncle says and nods to one of his security guards who pulls out a set of keys and brings them over to me. I take them with a smile. I can’t wait to see my guys.

“I don’t even know where anyone is and my phone…”

“Ten steps ahead of you little sister.”

Milo hands me a yellow envelope from the small glass table beside the sofa.

“Your new ID, passport, birth certificate and a phone preloaded with all your friends' numbers.”

I stand at the same time Milo does and he pulls me into a hug. “Everything I do has been for you,” he whispers. “Now go and be extraordinary. Dad and I will come see you before you leave.”

My uncle stands as I step away from Milo and look up at him. “I love you kid. If you ever need anything you know how to find me,” he says and winks before he pulls me into a brief hug.

“Can you make sure Lissa and Deacon don’t get into much trouble?” I ask. I can’t forget about them. He nods and promises that he'll have it sorted out by the end of the day. He looks over at his security. “Bruce, walk B...JD down to the car.”

Bruce nods and walks to the elevator, pressing the button. I smile over at my brother then head towards the elevator and watch both my uncle and brother as the doors slide closed. Excitement radiates through my body; I finally have my memories back and I didn’t forget my guys. I can’t wait to tell them everything.

Bruce walks me to the car as directed and I jump in ready to get on the road. He helps hook my phone up to the Bluetooth and I have to slide the seat forward and rearrange the mirrors before driving off.

I dial Rory’s number, still gobsmacked on how the hell he found all their numbers. But honestly, I’m not surprised considering I come from a damn criminal family. I watched my brother be shot, I was beaten, my memories lost and having five boyfriends. This is definitely not at the top of the list of suspicious stuff.

“Hello,” he says, I can hear the defeat in his tone.

“It’s JD…”

“Are you okay?” he rushes to ask and I can hear the others in the background telling him to put me on speaker phone.

“I’m fine, I’m on my way to your house now. Could you ask everyone to meet there, even Echo? He needs to run an errand for my uncle and it’ll take him the longest to get there. I’m coming from New Hope, so it’ll take me about forty-five minutes to get there.”

“Lissa said you were taken in for questioning but we haven’t heard any more from her. Is she okay?” Levi asks and I pause.

“I hope she is, she risked her job for me and my uncle is working on getting it sorted. She should be out by tonight. I will explain when I get there, I have so much to fill you in on and I want to do it once so I need everyone to be there when I do.”

“Drive safe,” Mercer says in the background. I tell him that I will and I hang up the call.

***

Half an hour later I’m pulling into Rory’s driveway. Rocky is the first out of the door and racing down the front steps, the others walking at a normal pace. The car has barely stopped before Rocky pulls the door open and helps me unbuckle my seat belt. I laugh as he pulls me from the seat and wraps himself around me.

“You’re never leaving again.” he mutters, burying his nose in my hair and taking a deep breath before pulling back and looking down at me with his beautiful blue eyes.

“I don’t plan to.” I say as a stray tear slides down my cheek. “Let’s go inside so I can tell you all a few things before the others get here.”

They all follow me back into the house and into Rory’s living room. Rocky sits to my right and Maximus on my left, both of them holding my hands, while the others are directly opposite us on another section of the couch.

I run them through everything that happened from leaving to come here, to being thrown back into the hospital, them trying to convince me that they never existed, to Lissa breaking me out, confronting Shandra and Carter, to my uncle taking me to Milo. They’re all stunned into silence.

“And that is why I am now officially JD Blakely.”

“I don’t know how to wrap my head around all of this,” Rory says. “But I’m glad my mum came through for you. I think that I’m the most shocked about that.”

“She was so different, it was weird. Maybe it’s a good sign.” I say shrugging one shoulder.

“I wouldn’t get my hopes up just yet, she does this every few years. Gets clean and then as soon as she gets out things slowly go back to how they were before. Once she finds out about Chelsea's pregnancy, shit will hit the fan and the whole process will start all over again.”

“We all have something to tell you,” Mercer pipes in. “We have all officially moved in here until we leave.”

“Oh my god, what did your parents say?” I’m pretty shocked, I didn’t think they would let them all move out of their houses so early.

“I’m pretty sure they already knew we would all want to be together before we left. All of our bags are packed and ready. We just have to get past Christmas first, we invited all of our families here, it'll be the last time we will see them before we leave. We want to head to Sunset Haven a few days early, if that’s okay with you, of course.” Levi says but before I can say anything Rocky answers for me.

“It’s okay with her, she isn’t allowed to leave us again.”

We decide to get a start on making dinner while we wait for Echo. By the time we are pulling the lasagne out of the oven the doorbell rings. Rocky races off to open the door while we start setting up the table. Rory puts a stack of plates and cutlery on the table, Levi pulls out the salad we made, Mercer uses oven mitts to take the garlic bread to the table and goes back for the lasagne.

Echo waltzes into the kitchen behind Rocky, followed by Chloe, Mossy and Mac. It seems her harem follows her everywhere she goes. I do a double take when Chev is at the back of the pack and raise a brow at Chloe. She shrugs.

“We’re not going to have any problems, are we?” I say looking straight at Chev.

Echo answers before Chev can open his mouth. “Nope, we’ve come to an understanding, Chevvy here is a reformed asshole.”

Chloe snorts. “I wouldn’t go as far to say reformed but we are working on things.”

We all sit around the massive table and everyone is silent for a minute before Rocky breaks that by lifting his glass of water into the air. “Here’s to all of us dudes being pussy whipped.” He says, wiggling his eyebrows.

Everyone laughs even though Rocky isn’t serious. He just gets uncomfortable in silence.

“Well we figured if you dicks could share a girl, surely we could make it work.” Mac says followed by a laugh.

“You forget we have all been friends for over ten years,” Mercer snaps.

“Okay boys, how about we just agree that Chloe and I are extremely lucky.”

“Works for me,” Rory says.

I give Echo the watered down version of what happened. He knows that he’ll have to talk to me later or to my uncle to get more details. There are just some things that the others don’t need to know. He nods and helps himself to more garlic bread.

We talk about our plans for the next year and Chloe is excited that she got into University in New Hope, Mac plans to visit on weekends, he needs to stay in Canary Bay for training. Chev is silent and hasn’t really had any input into what is going to happen. Mossy wants to be a mechanic and has been applying for apprenticeships wherever he can. Echo has to talk to my uncle before he makes any plans. I know they all just met but you only live once and if it’s meant to be it will all work out.

We spend the rest of the night hanging out until my uncle calls Echo and tells him that he needs to get the car back. We extend an invite to everyone for Christmas day. They are unsure of their plans currently, but will let us know.

All I know is that I have a few days to get the guys a gift each and I have no idea where to start. None of us really need anything when we’re going to be traveling around the world for an entire year. All we really need is each other.