He had a good point. For about ten minutes, we ate together in a weird little domestic bliss, chatting about light subjects, like Archer's upcoming fight or Kody's clothing line... but eventually I couldn't ignore the elephant in the room much longer.
"Max..." I murmured with a sigh, pushing my plate away because I'd eaten so much I was about to burst. "Can I ask you about last night?"
Steele let out a sigh, his fingers tightening on my knee. He'd sat beside me so he could constantly touch me while we ate, which I was more than okay with.
"Yeah, I figured you might have questions," he admitted with a weak smile. "You want to know what happened with my parents?"
I nodded, my concerned frown pulling my brow as I searched his face. "If you don't want to talk about it—"
He shook his head, cutting me off. "No, it's fine. I want you to know all the parts of me, even the shitty ones." He pushed his own plate away and scrubbed a hand over his face. He looked exhausted, with dark circles under his eyes and longer than usual stubble on his cheeks. The knuckles of his right hand were red and slightly swollen, but it didn't look like he'd done any lasting damage.
"I'll... just keep it brief," he muttered with a bitter smile. "My parents adored Rachel. She was their angel and could do no wrong. Seriously, she could have murdered the family dog right in front of our parents and they'd have blamed me for it."
I wrinkled my nose. "That's not fair."
He shrugged. "I know, but that's how it always was. The only thing I could do that would earn even an ounce of my parents’ good graces was succeed with piano. I swear, I can still remember the last time my mother actually smiled at me. It was when I won a classical composition contest when I was twelve." He blew out a long breath, shaking his head at the memory. "Anyway, suffice to say, they're just all around shitty humans. When Rachel died on her way to attend my concert, they blamed me... and they haven't stopped. This memorial was a crock of shit. Just an excuse for them to milk their rich friends for sympathy and money."
My jaw clenched as I read between the lines. "Were they ever violent toward you?" My question came out hoarse and full of worry.
He flashed me a sad smile. "Frequently. Until Phillip pulled me into his training camp and I met Arch. Then they were too scared to test me."
"Then I'm fucking glad for whatever led you to Phillip. I'm glad you and Arch met and that you can defend yourself. But your parents—"
"Can go burn in hell for all I care," he cut me off. "I'm done with them, and they no longer have any power over me. I have all the family I will ever need, right here under this roof." He leaned in and pressed his lips to mine in a kiss that touched my damn soul.
Family. He included me in that, and it left me totally speechless. Since my mom died, I’ve barely even known what that word meant.
"Yo, who made breakfast, then didn't wake me up?" Kody exclaimed, staggering into the kitchen looking all adorable and sleepy. His hair was sticking up all over the place, and his shirt was nowhere to be seen.
Oh wait, it was on me.
"I made breakfast for MK," Steele told him in a dry voice. "You can fucking fend for yourself."
"Lies," Kody scoffed, "you love me too much to make me—" He cut off as he yanked the oven open, then whooped with satisfaction. "Ta-da, see? I knew you cared." He pulled out a whole additional plate of pancakes that had been kept warm in the oven for him.
He brought them over to the table and sat heavily in the chair opposite me while Steele returned his hand to my thigh.
"So," Kody said, smothering his stack in syrup. "What have we been discussing?"
I quirked my brows at the huge pile of pancakes on his plate. "You saving any of those for Arch?"
"Hell no," Kody scoffed. "He needs to stay in shape for his fight, anyway."
"Fuck you," the big guy himself rumbled as he slouched into the room, yawning heavily. He pulled out the chair beside Kody and snatched three pancakes off his plate without even bothering to use a fork.
"Hey!" Kody protested, swiping at Archer with his blunt knife, but the bigger guy just growled insults back and guarded his stolen food on a spare plate.
"Fucking children," Steele commented with a laugh.
Archer just rolled his eyes at Steele as he licked syrup from his fingers then took a huge bite of a rolled up pancake.
"Actually now that you're all here, we have mail," Steele told us with a grimace. He reached over to the end of the table and pulled an envelope out from under a stack of other, less sinister mail. The handwriting was chillingly familiar, once again, and I groaned.
"Not again," I whined.
"Sorry, Hellcat," Steele murmured, handing the envelope to Kody when he held his hand out for it. "But this time we caught him on camera. Either his inside guy really is gone, or he can't hack through Leon's security."
My brows shot up. "We did?" Steele nodded, then my hopes soured. "But let me guess. He disguised his identity so we're still no closer to working out who he is?"
Steele shrugged. "Yep. But at least we know our camera feeds are secure now."
"True," I muttered, "silver linings. What is it?" I directed my question to Kody, who had ripped the envelope open and pulled out a single sheet of paper.
"It's..." He trailed off, his eyes scanning the paper before he frowned. "It's a paternity test."
My eyes widened in surprise. "For me?"
Kody shook his head, holding the document out for me to take. "No, for Deb... or more specifically, for Deb's baby just before she was killed. It wasn't Zane's."
The silence that fell over our breakfast table was thick with tension. If my mom's secret pregnancy wasn't Zane's... whose was it? Samuel's? And did that mean Zane was back on the table as a murder suspect?
"Well," I murmured, scanning the document and comprehending very little of the information there, "that's one way to kill the mood over breakfast."
Steele winced. "Sorry, Hellcat."
"Not your fault," I replied with a sigh. "Just a reminder that we're nowhere even close to done with this mess. Do we think Zane might have..." I trailed off with a wince and handed the document over to Archer to read.
"Do we think he could have killed Deb if he found out he wasn't the father?" Archer tilted his head to the side, considering. "Maybe. It depends if he even knew about this, though. This is addressed to Deb, not Zane. There's every chance she had the test done without his knowledge."
I groaned and rubbed at my eyes. "So it could have been Samuel's baby. Which caused Zane flipped his lid and kill my mom, along with the entire household staff, then, I don't even know, came back six hours later and let me out of the closet…" I wrinkled my nose. Even knowing Zane, that didn't make sense.
Steele nodded, thinking. "Or it was someone else's baby entirely."
"Fucking hell," Kody muttered, then took another forkful of food.
"Why do I get the feeling my stalker wants to help us find my mom's killer?" With a sigh, I dropped my head into my hands. "Which means he doesn't know that we already know Kruger is behind it. This is getting really confusing."