Total pages in book: 28
Estimated words: 27485 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 137(@200wpm)___ 110(@250wpm)___ 92(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 27485 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 137(@200wpm)___ 110(@250wpm)___ 92(@300wpm)
Kai shook his head. “Michael…”
“Our life makes enemies,” I stated. “Our strength threatens people.”
I looked around, making eye contact with all of them. For years, I didn’t stop them from doing whatever they wanted, because I wanted them to embrace what they were, but I was not going to let Kai feel like he’d done something wrong, when the alternative was Mads doing nothing and those kids being lost to us forever.
“We’re not changing,” I told them.
Kai stepped up to me, almost glaring. “And in another ten years when another enemy, or the child of an enemy, creeps up to surprise us again?”
“They won’t want to mess with your kid in ten years,” Will joked.
“This isn’t funny!” Kai growled, not caring who heard him. “My kid—”
“Didn’t go looking for any of this!” I finished for him. “None of this is his fault. He did what any animal on this planet does when someone threatens its life.”
Kai fell silent, and I didn’t back down. I knew what he was worried about. I understood. What if a bully got on Mads’s last nerve someday? What if he got into a fight and caused more harm than he bargained for?
What if everything he’d learned at the dojo and with his grandfather had turned him into something we couldn’t control?
But none of that would happen.
Not really.
Mads was taught just as much about when to fight as he was taught how to fight. The only thing that unnerved me was how much more efficient he was at it than me.
“Now, let’s go home and light the fucking tree and tuck our kids in,” I told all of them. “With any luck, what happened tonight spreads like wildfire, and anyone with a beef will think twice about coming for us or our kids again.”
“Hell yeah,” Damon muttered.
He and Will headed off, climbing into the cars, while Kai and I stayed with our gazes locked.
“We’re all watching him,” I assured Kai. “We’re all raising him.”
Kai wasn’t alone.
His jaw flexed.
“He could be a million miles away, living in hell right now,” I pointed out. “He brought himself and that little girl home tonight.”
We taught soldiers to kill people to save a nickel on a barrel of oil. Whatever Mads did or didn’t do tonight, he’d had no choice.
Finally, Kai’s eyes dropped, and his chest caved as he nodded.
Mads was safe. That was all that mattered.
We walked to the cars, climbing in.
“Did someone say presents?” I called out as I buckled my seatbelt.
Octavia gasped and then yelped, already forgetting the incident, her sights set on the promise of everything under the tree.
After picking up Athos and the rest of the kids, Will driving the busload back, we returned to St. Killian’s to find the winner of the treasure hunt waiting and ready for their prize.
The kids were shuffled upstairs to get bathed and into their pajamas, while Rika and I pushed through, presenting the trust to Tucker Adams and his girlfriend, Amanda Leigh. While David stayed at the Pope with Taylor and Kai, Damon and Will smuggled the body out of the house to the waiting truck, so Lev could deliver it to the coroner.
We had so much shit to deal with tomorrow.
And to try to keep quiet.
A round of applause, a champagne toast from the remaining guests, and the house finally started to empty after about forty-five minutes.
The kids rounded the fifteen-foot tree, lighting more candles as only a few remained lit in the whole house, the wind outside howling through the nooks and crannies of the old church.
I stood back, watching the kids open presents—except for the one they saved for Christmas Day—playing with their toys, showing off their new gadgets, and throwing the books to the side that we tried to make sure was on every holiday list, just in case they ever took an interest.
Damon held a package wrapped in brown paper, looking at it almost nervously, like he wasn’t sure he was ready to open it, while Octavia ran to the window bench, plopping down next to Madden. She colored with her new Crayola markers that her parents had refused to trust her with up until now, as Mads sketched with his new pencils and pad.
She kicked her legs back and forth.
I slipped my arms around Rika, hugging her close. “Kids bounce back, don’t they?”
My God.
She laughed. “I think Octavia knew what the rest of us didn’t.”
“Which was?”
“She was never in any real danger.”
I watched the kids, Mads probably drawing another bird, as his cousin tried to act just like him with her purple marker.
“Have they caught the boat?” Rika asked me.
“The weather’s too bad.” I kissed her head, my hand resting on her stomach. “They’ll need to wait until morning.”
I wondered if there was anyone on it, or if the three men had manned it all on their own.