Köhler (Book 9 of the Köhler Series)

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This was good. Since it was only her fingers and not a body, this could only be a good sign that Talia was still alive. That much they could be thankful for. No matter how much time passed, the fact that she wasn't there hurt. Xerxes also saw that their father was becoming emotionally exhausted. Luca couldn't afford another heart attack and knew it was liable to take him out if he did. It was something that none of them wanted or could handle.

Losing Axel was enough, and most of them had difficulty getting over it. Yeah, they all knew his time was coming, but Emmanuel decided to bring it on sooner than it should have. Even though Reece's grandparents were still there, his grandmother wasn't in the best of health. Over the course of a few months, Innis's health suddenly got worse, and it was like having to deal with Axel all over again. Now they were waiting for her to die and trying to figure out what was going on with Talia.

"Have you been drinking?"

"No, although I need one," Xerxes spoke as Gen walked into the room with his wife and brother Lucas. He knew it seemed that way since his eyes were red, but it was only because he was high as hell, fooling with Elijah and AJ. Both had come to his office earlier wanting to smoke, and he should have said no, but X needed something to calm his nerves.

"Baby...."

"Blame your brothers-in-law. Babygirl, I promise you I haven't been drinking. You can come and give me a kiss if you want to make sure I'm telling you the truth. The one thing I never do is lie to you. You know that." X smiled, making his brother smirk.

"So, what do you asshole want?"

"Nothing. Your wife wants us to go out and chill. I was thinking we could get Dominick to come with us. We need to pick his brain, X. I'm still not convinced he knows nothing."

Lucas had a point; Xerxes felt the same way. Deep down, he felt that their brother-in-law was hiding something. Dom was too fucking quiet for his liking acting as if he was too heartbroken to help search for his wife. Then it was this best friend shit, not wife or the love of my wife. To Xerxes, it was guilt. Either way, he wanted to know. This could be the way, or they could make things worse, but it was only one way to find out.

"Where we going?"

"The club, but your spoil ass twins want to go to the shooting range. I told them that their father would take them." Riley laughed, making Xerxes nod, but he knew it wasn't only Xylia and Xavier going. The whole crew was about to be behind them.

"That's fine, but tell Avery and Harper they're not going. I'm training them with real guns this time...."

"Yeah, place a gun in Xy and Zay's crazy ass hands." Lucas sighed as if his daughter wasn't just as crazy. Xerxes knew he had crazy ass children, but they got it from him and their mother. Just as they were crazy like their parents, it wasn't anything normal about their families, and now that he thought about it. There was no reason to act normal. They should have stuck to their roots, but of course, they wanted to honor his Opa wishes.

"Don't act like Ava isn't crazy, but before we go, I need to speak with my parents. I will call when I'm ready." He said, making Riley and the other two leave the room just as Adele and Luca walked. Dele made it a point to stop all three of them to get them a hug and kiss before letting them leave, and as always, she hugged and kissed X, which caused Luca to say something about him being spoiled.

"Tell me you know where that box came from."

"Dad, it's only been a day. Itsuki is still working on it. We know it came from Russia, but that is all I can tell you at this point. Like I've been saying, this has something to do with Dimitri, maybe something that is coming back to kick him in the ass, but we know that she is still alive...."