AN OMEGA'S CYCLE: TRAPPED IN HEAT WITH MY FOUR STEPBROTHERS.

ADRIAN’S POV

I stared at the report for so long that the words on the screen seemed to become blurry.

Was this what I had expected? I had expected inconsistencies, I had expected something that would prove Jayden had fabricated the entire story to save himself, I had even been prepared to find an old family record that contradicted the DNA report and gave us enough evidence to dismiss everything he had said. What I hadn’t expected was for the investigator to confirm it. The names matched, the dates matched, the old records he had managed to uncover matched the information Jayden had given me, and buried among the documents were records of several private meetings between my father and Jayden over the past few years.

I scrolled through the report again, hoping I had somehow misunderstood it, but the conclusion remained the same. Jayden was my father’s brother.

I slowly lowered the phone and looked at my brothers.

"Jayden was telling the truth about being Dad’s brother," I said, keeping my voice low as I placed the phone on the table between us. "The investigator verified the family connection, and he found records showing that Dad and Jayden have been meeting secretly for years. There are enough documents here that we can’t dismiss this as some story Jayden invented to manipulate me. I don’t know what their relationship has been like all these years, but whatever it was, Dad deliberately kept it away from us."

Elijah stared at me as though he hadn’t understood the words. "You’re telling me the man we’ve spent our entire lives calling Dad has been hiding an entire brother from us, and that brother is the same person who kidnapped Nicholas and tried to keep him from coming home? I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do with that information because none of this makes sense anymore. Dad knew Jayden existed, he knew what Jayden was doing, and yet he still stood in that hospital with Mom and acted like he was just as desperate as we were to find Nicholas."

Cassian leaned forward and took the phone from the table, reading through the report himself while Adrian watched his expression change. "This is worse than I thought," he said, scrolling through the photographs and records with a growing frown. "These meetings weren’t random. Some of them happened recently, and the dates overlap with the period when Nicholas first started being followed. If these records are genuine, then Jayden wasn’t some stranger who happened to target Nicholas. Dad knew him, and he knew exactly where he was."

Roman remained silent for several seconds before looking at me. "What are we going to do now? We can’t confront Dad without knowing how much he knows, and we can’t tell him we’ve discovered all of this because Nicholas is still vulnerable. If Jayden is telling the truth about Dad being involved, then we can’t keep Nicholas in the same house with him while we figure it out."

"I know," I replied, rubbing my forehead as I looked back at the report. "That’s why we’re leaving the house today. Nobody is going to confront Dad yet, and nobody is going to tell him what we’ve found. I want the investigator to keep everything confidential, and I want him to continue looking into the connection between Dad and Jayden without letting either of them know that we’re aware of it."

I immediately called the investigator and he answered quickly.

"I’ve gone through everything you sent me," I said, turning away from my brothers so I could concentrate. "From this point forward, you don’t discuss this investigation with anyone except me. Don’t contact my father, don’t approach Jayden and don’t tell anyone that you found evidence connecting them. I want every document preserved exactly as you found it, and if you uncover anything else, you bring it directly to me."

The investigator paused before answering. "Understood. I’ll keep everything confidential, but I should warn you that the information I found suggests this relationship goes back much further than the recent meetings. There are older records that I’m still trying to trace, and some of them may require additional verification."

"Do whatever verification you need," I replied, glancing at my brothers. "Just don’t let him know we’re investigating him."

"I understand."

I ended the call and returned to the others.

Elijah was still sitting there, staring at the floor. He looked completely lost and I understood why.

Out of all of us, Elijah had been the most emotionally involved in finding Nicholas. He had been the one who had chased after him, the one who had received his call from the warehouse and the one who had blamed himself repeatedly for not getting to him sooner. Now we were telling him that our own father might have been connected to the person who had put Nicholas through all of that.

"What are we doing about Nicholas?" Elijah asked eventually, lifting his head. "We can’t leave him here. If Dad is involved, even if we don’t know how deeply he’s involved, Nicholas can’t stay in this house. None of us know what Dad might do if he finds out what we know."

"He’s right," Cassian said, placing the phone back on the table. "We need somewhere Dad doesn’t know about, somewhere Jayden doesn’t know about either, and somewhere we can control who comes in and out."

"My penthouse," I said immediately. "Dad doesn’t know about it, and neither does anyone outside the people I’ve trusted with it. We’re taking Nicholas there."

Nobody argued and I stood.

"Then we need to act normally," I continued, looking around at each of them. "Nobody storms downstairs and starts accusing Dad. Nobody tells Mom anything until we’ve worked out how we’re going to protect her too. We pack what Nicholas needs, we tell everyone we’re moving him somewhere more comfortable because of everything that happened, and we leave. If Dad asks questions, we give him a normal explanation. We are not giving him any reason to suspect that we’ve discovered anything."

Cassian nodded. "I’ll help you pack."

We left the room together and headed toward Nicholas’s bedroom.

He was awake when we entered. He looked at all of us with confusion as we came in, particularly when Cassian walked straight toward the wardrobe and started gathering clothes.

"What are you doing?" Nicholas asked, sitting up against the headboard.

"We’re taking you somewhere else for a while," I explained, moving toward the desk and beginning to gather the things I knew he would need. "You’re going to stay at my penthouse until we figure out what happens next. It’s safer there, and you won’t have people constantly walking into your room or asking questions."

Nicholas looked between us. "Why are you suddenly moving me?"

I could see the suspicion forming in his expression, so I kept my voice calm.

"We think you need somewhere quieter," I said, placing his belongings into a bag. "You’ve barely had time to recover since you came back, and this house has become chaotic. The penthouse is private, secure and much quieter. You can rest there without having to deal with everyone coming in and checking on you every five minutes."

Nicholas looked toward Cassian. "Is that really all this is about?"

Cassian gave him a reassuring look while folding another set of clothes. "That’s what we’re doing, and honestly, I think you’ll prefer it once you get there. Nobody is asking you to do anything complicated. You’ll have your own room, your own space and security around the building. You can sleep, eat and recover without feeling like you’re being watched every second."

Nicholas hesitated before looking back at me. "But Mom and Dad are here. I can’t just leave without telling them."

"I’ll handle that," I said, zipping the bag closed. "You don’t need to worry about the conversation. I’ll tell them that we’re taking you somewhere quieter while you recover, and I’ll make sure Mom knows where you are. You don’t need to stand there answering questions or explaining yourself when you’re still trying to recover from everything."

He looked uncertain. "I don’t want Mom to think I’m running away."

"She won’t," I replied, walking over and placing the bag beside the door. "I’ll speak to her myself. You’re not running away. We’re moving you somewhere safe for a few days. That’s all you need to think about."

Nicholas slowly nodded. "Okay."

We helped him gather the rest of his things, and within the next several minutes, we were moving through the house as normally as possible.

We left through the main entrance and got into the cars. Nicholas rode with me, while the others followed behind. As we drove away from the mansion, I kept checking the rearview mirror, not because I expected someone to follow us but because I couldn’t stop thinking about the possibility that my father had been watching everything we did without us knowing.

Nicholas sat quietly beside me, looking out of the window.

"Are we going far?" he asked after several minutes.

"Not too far," I replied, keeping my attention on the road. "You’ll see when we get there. It’s somewhere I’ve kept private for a long time, and nobody will bother you there."

He nodded and returned his attention to the window.

I said nothing else but my hands tightened around the steering wheel.

Jayden had told me my father wanted Nicholas gone.

The investigator had now confirmed that Jayden and my father were brothers and that they had maintained a secret relationship for years.

That didn’t prove everything Jayden had said. But it proved enough for me to stop trusting my father.

And until I knew exactly what he had been hiding, Nicholas wasn’t going back into that house.

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