Chapter 145: Someone Lurking
- LAWSON -
The funeral chapel is packed. I manage to slip in after everyone finds their seats and take a standing place in the back, partially obscured by one of the chapel’s decorative columns.
With the sunglasses, hat, and ugly trench coat I’m wearing, no one should notice me with how many people are here. No one would ever imagine that Lawson Mobius would dare show up looking like this—like some grungy, downtrodden man off the street who may have only known Jansen from a fleeting encounter.
But I couldn’t miss father’s funeral. I couldn’t let Dex win. He should have killed me, because he’s not going to control what I do with my life. I may not have a future at our father’s company anymore after Dex took that right away from me, but I’m sure as hell going to say my final goodbye to the old man.
Maybe—just maybe—if all things go to plan, I’ll take something important with me when I go. A final farewell and fuck you to my brother. What do I have to lose anymore? Not much.
Meanwhile, having to sit back here and watch everyone from behind when I know who they are, when I know their faces and stories, when I have played such an instrumental role in many of their professional careers and businesses, is making the pain from the broken bones in my face flare through the medication.
All of these eyes should be on ME today. They should be comforting ME. They should be asking ME what’s next for the company, because I can reassure them. I can provide them security. I AM Mobius Media. Dex only just arrived! What the hell does he know?
I thought I had my emotions under control enough to show up today and stay quiet and keep to the shadows. I paid off that bullshit backroom quack of a doctor so that I could slip out of treatment early, and he took the money despite his questionable affiliations, no doubt because he thought I was in poor enough shape that I would have to return. What customs agent would let me out of the country like this when they can’t easily match me up to the picture on my passport? But now I’m getting restless in my seat listening to other people talk about my father.
Dex walks to the pulpit, and my bruised hands curl into fists. But I shift further back behind the column and into the shadows so there’s no chance he’ll take notice of me.
All of the words coming out of his unbruised, unbroken face only serve to make me angrier. When he sits down and I get a brief look at the hand that he brings to his lips—the woman he apparently is comfortable enough with to showcase his relationship in front of everyone who matters—I have to walk out before I do something stupid.
Dex’s gangster family is here, so I won’t get very far if I show my face. The shadows... that’s where I’m going to have to stay for now. That’s fine. It just means they won’t see me coming.
- RAYA -
When Dex brought me up to the front of the chapel to sit with him, nerves flooded my system with all the attention that was immediately directed our way. But the love I felt in that moment surpassed it. He held my hand and never let it go. He kept me by him, only leaving my side to give the eulogy—the beautiful, touching eulogy honoring his father.
As much as I know Dex needed me in that moment when he came and grabbed my hand, I almost felt that he was my shield instead—my protector—blocking all the whispers and stares, drawing me closer instead of distancing himself when it was clear others were silently scrutinizing and probably making judgments—the Mobius Media employees anyway.
This is clearly not a man concerned with his image. This is a man led by his heart, trusting that his heart will lead him the right way. And god, if I don’t respect that more than anything. I’m not sure I could love him more or look up to him more than I do today. But I’m definitely looking forward to testing that theory, and I hope we have a lot of time in the future to do it.
The cemetery plot is beautiful. It’s in an area separate from the rest of the gravesites and overlooking a small pond with a bench nearby. An angel watches over Dex’s mother’s grave, gracefully suspended in an expression of benevolence for the woman who meant so much.
Patches of sunlight filter through feathered shadows cast on the ground from the tree crowns above. A gentle breeze blows, ruffling tissues and hair of the black-clothed guests who have gathered on this beautiful day to see Jansen Mobius put to rest.
Dex remains quiet, never letting go of my hand—fingers entangled with mine just like his precious soul is. Both of his parents will now be at rest here, and the enormity of this loss and the beauty of it is so great that I can’t keep my own tears from falling despite how strong I want to remain for him.
I imagine Jansen choosing this space for his beloved wife to be buried after her passing, and now his body is being committed to the same earth. They’re still together, and I feel with overwhelming certainty that they always will be.
When final words are said and Dex walks forward to take the first handful of earth to drop into his father’s grave, a chill takes the opportunity to swiftly crawl up my spine. There have been lots of eyes on us since we arrived, and as unsettling as that is, none of them bothered me with Dex by my side. But this is different. I have to fight the temptation to whirl around and try to catch the person’s glare that is fiercely and unapologetically boring into me.
Is it Grace? Would she seriously be sending hatred and jealousy my way today of all days?
I shake it off and try to cast it out of my mind. Whoever it is, it doesn’t matter.
Once the graveside service concludes, I stay by Dex as he receives condolences from many of those gathered before they leave. I would go find Rory and Dad to see if they intend to come to the reception, but Dex has graduated from merely holding hands to wrapping an arm around my waist like he suspects I might drift away if he doesn’t keep me anchored. And why in the world would I fight that?
Even when Dex’s family comes by and his aunt starts talking to me in a separate conversation while he speaks to his uncle, he doesn’t let me go. His persistence at keeping me close would make me giggle if it weren’t entirely inappropriate to do that here.
"You are coming to the reception, right? We will see you there?" His Aunt Gemma’s deep brown eyes seem to be willing me to say yes.
"Of course," I smile. "I will be there."
"Good girl," she smiles back, kissing my cheek and patting it afterward.
Why receiving that kind of praise from his aunt makes me feel so accomplished, I’m not sure. Probably because she is so sweet and warm and welcoming and because she is the closest thing that Dex has to a maternal figure in his life.
If Aunt Gemma accepts me, it means a lot—even if she is calling me a "good girl" and patting me like a cute little pet in the process. I might not appreciate that from anyone else, but I don’t mind it from her at all.
"We all love seeing you together. He needs you," Gemma says more confidentially, glancing Dex’s way while he is absorbed in conversation.
"I’m here. I’m not going anywhere," I assure her.
When Gemma gives me one last smile and walks away, I catch a glimpse of a dark figure in the distance standing under the shade of a tree. He isn’t in this private area of the cemetery for Jansen’s burial. Instead, he’s standing outside of it, beyond the gentle sweep of a hill, apparently visiting a grave over that way.
Despite his sunglasses and the dark shade of a hat obscuring his face, he’s staring directly at me. I feel his veiled glare as clearly as if it consists of sharp, stabbing knives.
That chill from before finds the base of my spine again and skitters up, setting all my hairs on end. But just as soon as I register the warning my body is imparting to my mind and fear has a chance to twist like knots in my stomach, the man is gone. He just... vanishes. Did I imagine him?
"What’s wrong?" Dex asks, so deep and unexpected that it makes me jump. I didn’t even notice he had finished the conversation with his uncle.
"Nothing," I tell him, forcing a smile and trying to ignore the knots in my stomach that won’t die.
"Raya, tell me."
He bends and places a gentle kiss on my neck, replacing the recent shiver of fear with an entirely different kind. Then his tender, probing eyes return to mine, and I can’t hide from him.
"There was a man," I say, wetting my lips and feeling the absurdity of how this might sound. "He was across the way."
"A man?" Dex’s brows pinch, and Luciano appears out of nowhere like he’s been silently summoned. He and Dex exchange a brief look. "Where?" Dex asks. "What was he doing?"
"Just staring," I shake my head, trying to convince them or maybe myself that it was nothing.
"At you?" Luciano asks this time, something dangerous overtaking his features.
"It was nothing. I’m sorry. Just forget it."
"We’ll be the ones to decide if it’s nothing," Luciano says.
"Where was he?" Dex asks, ignoring his cousin.
Without answering, my eyes flit back to the tree where I spotted the mysterious figure. Dex gives a quick nod to his cousin, and Luciano leaves... headed in the direction that my eyes gave away.
"It’s nothing. I’m sorry," I say when Dex’s hand runs down the small of my back. "It was probably just my imagination."
"Don’t apologize, angel," he says. "Just let us make sure you’re kept safe, okay? Even if it’s from nothing more than ghosts."
