the corner of a cloth napkin, his eyes not meeting mine.
I frowned and turned to Tyler, but he was watching his wine glass with a look very similar to Ethan’s. Confused, I searched for answers across the table. Alec’s hands were clasped in front of him, his brows furrowed and his eyes fixed on the table. Next to him, Josh was the only one meeting my gaze, understanding in his eyes, as always, but also sadness.
The whole room had fallen silent, but Josh put me out of my misery. He cleared his throat. “Our parents were killed in Japan. In Tokyo.”
My heart sank. “I am so sorry for bringing it up.”
“You didn’t, baby.” Ethan’s hand went to the back of my neck. “I did.”
“A lot of people died that day.” Henry spoke up from the head of the table. He held Olivia’s hand as she discreetly wiped away a tear. “It was tragic.”
“Yeah, it was all over the news, even here,” Lucian added. “Joyce had just arrived there and then went radio silent. Those were the worst twenty-four hours of my life, thinking I’d lost half my family and both of you too.”
I gasped, my eyes going wide. “Holy shit! I remember this. I was only eight years old, and we were in Tokyo for, like, a day, and then this awful thing happened, and next thing I know we’re on a train out of there. Were you guys all there? Were we mere streets from each other?”
Alec remained silent, his eyes still glued to the table in front of him, but Tyler answered. “We’d crossed the street—the four of us. We were ahead of them and just made the crossing signal, but they had to stop. If they’d called out, made us wait with them . . . or if they’d rushed to catch up with us . . .”
Josh picked up where Ty left off. “We were thrown to the ground and knocked unconscious, but they all . . .” He cleared his throat again. “I don’t remember it. I was told all of it when I woke up in the hospital, but they were all killed pretty much instantly.”
The room once again descended into tense silence. No one made eye contact with anyone else. Dot and Charlie looked from their parents to Lucian to my guys with just as much curiosity as compassion in their eyes. I had a feeling no one had spoken much about this before, and they probably didn’t know all the details.
Before I could make an awkward attempt at changing the subject, Alec spoke. “It was like all the sound was sucked out of the air, and there was a split second of perfect stillness—everyone paused, knowing something wasn’t right but not knowing what. Then I felt this . . . surge. Like something crawling over my skin but also through me—something intense and powerful. And then the world just . . . exploded. There was fire and shit floating around in the air—like cars and concrete bolsters. Everyone just dropped. Fell to the ground and never got up again. I was thrown down with the others, but I didn’t get knocked out. My cheek was pressed into the concrete.” He lifted a hand to his face absentmindedly, ghosting his fingers over his skin. “And I lay there, and I watched the life drain out of my mother’s eyes.”
Tears pricked at my eyes as my heart broke clean in half for him. For all of them. Images of the last time I’d seen my own mother attacked my mind—her hand slipping out of mine, her terrified yet surprised face. That image would haunt me for the rest of my life. Knowing my guys were dealing with that same pain—that they knew exactly what that felt like—just twisted the knife.
Yet in some perverted way, it also felt good. The fact that all four of them had experienced the same depth of pain and loss I had made me feel even closer to them. It was yet another thing threading us closer together, strengthening our relationship and Bond.
Our Bond . . .
I gasped, my hands flying to my mouth as the tears spilled over, trailing messy, wet paths down my cheeks and over my fingers.
Alec finally broke his stare-off with the table to look at me, Ethan dropped his arm to my shoulders, and Tyler gripped my knee, leaning forward to look into my face.
“Let’s stop talking about it for a while.” For once Josh