Because that was creepy as fuck.
“Umm. Okay. But really, what are you going to tell my kids?” I asked as the city came into view. I didn’t dare glance at his speedometer to see how fast he’d driven to get there so quickly. It felt like it took me an eternity to get to his murder shack of a home, though that might have had something to do with the fact that I’d been scared out of my ever-loving mind.
“I’ll tell Ines she has a new unicorn-vomit room and all the princess dresses she could ever want. She’s two. She doesn’t understand how relationships work,” he answered, and I had to shrug at that one. My girl could throw a mean tantrum, but mostly she was easy to please. Throw something pink and sparkly at her and you owned her soul.
“And Axel?”
“He’s a little man. I’ve got him covered.”
“He’s six,” I argued.
“I’ve been six before. He understands men better than you think. And regardless of who his biological father was, I swear to you that boy has a lot of me in him.”
“This entire thing is ridiculous. Not to mention illegal.”
“Everything will be fine. You just wait and see, Sunshine,” Ryker teased, setting his hand on my thigh to stroke my yoga pants affectionately. “Do you want to put your money where your mouth is?”
“Well apparently, all my money is gone, so there’s that,” I pointed out, making him snort a laugh.
“Okay, I didn’t want your money, anyway. I think if I can convince Axel all is well, and that this is normal, I deserve a kiss.”
“You sneaky fucking bastard,” I growled. Glaring at him, I plucked his hand off my thigh again and set it back on his side of the car. “No.”
“I’ll get one, anyway.”
I wanted to tell him he wouldn’t. I should have been able to tell him he’d never get a kiss from me, but somehow, the words just didn’t feel true.
I couldn’t go to anyone for help. I couldn’t let my kids know that the guy was crazy.
And my body seemed to think it was time to end my eighteen-month celibacy, since Chad and I hadn’t had sex for nearly six months at the end of our marriage.
Ugh.
What the hell was happening?
Eleven
Ryker
I was no stranger to The Peterson School for the Gifted. I’d hand delivered each of my more than generous monthly donations over the past few months to prepare for the coming turn of events where I had a son in the school.
I tried to picture what Principal Blanchet would say when I strolled up to pickup Axel and she realized I was connected to the woman she allowed the President of the PTA to bully. I hoped it tamed her shit down a bit, because even though she hid behind her neat and proper exterior, she acted like a bitch in heat when she saw me. Some women just thought they needed a taste of bad in their bed, but she’d never know what I felt like.
That was for sure.
What I had never done before was walk up the sidewalk to the front gate with Calla’s hand held in mine. She protested, pursing her bowed lips at me and giving me a glare, but kept silent. Anyone else and I might have worried, but I knew Calla like the back of my hand. I knew all her tells, knew every step she’d take and what she would do before she tried to run.
She wouldn’t get far, because I’d chase her. I would always follow her, but I’d had enough of living in the shadows of her life. It was time for me to live front and center with her, to enjoy the sun and the way she lit up the world. She just needed to accept it.
A few of the moms stopped to stare at us as we passed, and I immediately regretted not grabbing my suit jacket on the way out the door. Calla had distracted me with her pathetic half-attempt to walk out the door, like she’d genuinely thought she’d get anywhere. She would soon figure out that she wouldn’t. The only reason she’d fallen back on her snarky attitude was because she knew just how helpless she was.
So she’d try to annoy me until I didn’t want her anymore.
She just didn’t realize that I thought her attempts to be irritating were adorable.
The closer we got to the front doors of the school, the more hesitant Calla’s body language became. Every afternoon I watched her get more and more cautious when she came to Axel’s school. The mornings were one thing, when she could drop him at the gate and watch him walk in, but the school refused to let a child go unless a parent or guardian physically signed them out in the office. That meant Calla had to endure the judgmental glares of other moms, because even though she had finished at the studio hours ago, she still hadn’t had time to change into something these women thought appropriate.
After she finished work, she picked up Ines and ran errands, went home and cleaned, did any number of things that she would no longer have to worry about with me. She could invest time back into herself again, not because I didn’t love her the way she was, but because she deserved to have a life free from stress.
She shouldn’t have to run back and forth just to balance the kids and work. She had me to help with that.
“Mr. Fiore!” The Principal greeted me the very moment we walked into the front office. She stood from her seat, stepping around her desk and smiling at me with an overly enthusiastic beam that made me wince. “We weren’t expecting you today.”
I felt Calla’s eyes on the side of my face, studying me incredulously. I bit down on the inside of my lip to hide the smile that her attention brought out. With her sweet little face pitched in a fit, she looked so much like her daughter in the beginning throes of a tantrum that I almost wanted to laugh. “I’m not here for a donation today, Miss Blanchet. We’re here to add me to Axel Latour’s list of approved guardians for pickup.” I lifted my hand up, displaying where I held Calla’s hand clutched tightly in my own.
“No, we’re just here to pick him up today,” Calla inserted with a white face. “You’ll have to excuse him, Hulk here is a little overly enthusiastic, but I will continue to pick Axel up every day.”
“Sunshine,” I murmured, turning her face toward me. “I thought we talked about this.”
She ignored me, pressing on with Miss Blanchet like I hadn’t spoken. “Is Axel ready? I still have to pick up my daughter.” The shrewd other woman narrowed her eyes on her, judgment all over her face. I’d known, from a distance, that they judged Calla for being herself and not striving harder for perfection or trying harder to find another man to marry her. But they frowned upon the fact that she had another man lined up a year after her husband’s death too.
I fucking hated women like that. Who spent more time tearing each other down, no matter what the other did. Calla would be damned if she did and damned if she didn’t.
I wanted to make it better, but I also knew that all the times the Principal had made it obvious she’d be available to me would not help Calla’s case.
Fuck.
The Principal called Axel’s class on her phone and a few minutes later Axel made his way toward us with his face pinched in concern when he saw me holding his mother’s hand. Calla tightened her hand in mine, giving me a wordless plea not to scare him. Not to hurt her boy.
She’d realize soon enough that I’d die before I let anything happen to him. I might not have had someone to protect me when I was a boy, but that only gave me a stronger sense of conviction that children deserved to be protected at all costs.
Nobody would touch Axel or Ines.
Over my dead body.
Having him walk toward me for the first time, I realized just how much his face looked like mine. He had my mannerisms, my facial expressions somehow.
As if he’d seen me lurking in the shadows for the past four years and absorbed them into his own person. Like his father had never existed, and there had only ever been Calla and I.
“Hi, baby,” Calla murmured, reaching her free hand out to stroke his hair back from his face. My heart melted into a giant puddle of goop. Watching the way he stared up at his mother with complete adoration, even when he was confused, I
couldn’t help the sense of familiarity I felt.
That was how I felt every time I looked at Calla, so I understood the look.
“Mommy?” he asked, glancing at her hand and then up to me with those dark blue eyes. He swallowed visibly, and I forced myself to clear my throat and smile at him even if I felt like I might explode with everything circling in my chest.
Being a father had been all I’d ever wanted once upon a time, and it had taken years for me to find my way back to being ready for that again. Loving people came with risks, and I knew Calla related to that better than most.
“Let’s go outside, Buddy,” I suggested, and Calla forced a smile down at her son as she took his hand and we went out the doors. I tried to ignore the Principal staring after us like there was an unfortunate gossip mill brewing in her head already. I’d deal with her later, because at that moment I had much more important things to do.
Like explain the new reality to my son and go get my daughter from the grandfather who would undoubtedly have some thoughts.
As soon as we were out the front gates to the school, Axel glanced over at me nervously, but we made it to the Maserati before he opened his mouth. “Who’s that, Mommy?”
I bent down in front of him, dropping Calla’s hand for the moment for me to focus all my attention on my boy. “My name is Ryker, and I knew your father,” I said, and Axel’s eyes widened for a moment before he nodded with a sniffle. I wasn’t above using the things I knew Axel said, the things he wished for in his darkest moments to worm my way into their lives. “I know you wished your mom had someone who could look out for her the way she looks after you and Ines. I know it isn’t exactly the same, but I will look after all of you now.”
Axel looked up at me with wide eyes. “Did my Dad send you? I asked him if he could send a hero to look after my Mommy. It isn’t fair that she doesn’t have someone to protect her from bad guys. What if someone tries to hurt her like they did my Dad?” he asked, and I heard Calla whimper beside me. I knew it killed her to think of what would happen to the kids if something ever happened to her. That it ate her up at night to think she might be torn from their lives the same way their father had been, and still felt his absence, even if he had been a piece of shit.
“I don’t know if he sent me or not, Axe,” I said. “But I know that I care about your Mommy a lot, and I want to take care of her. I’ll need your help though. You think we can handle her and your sister between the two of us?”
He nodded with a smile. “I’m good at taking care of Ines,” he said happily. I knew at his age, I’d have been relieved to have someone looking out for me, but I also would have loved to know I still had a very important role in my family.
At least I suspected I would have, if mine hadn’t been complete shit.
“Should we go pick her up? And then I have a surprise for the two of you.” Axel nodded, a smile tugging at his lips before he looked to Calla.
“Can we have the surprise, Mommy?” he asked.
“Sure, Cookie Monster,” she murmured back with a brief smile. Even though she tapped her foot repeatedly like she wanted to kick me in the balls, she didn’t protest when I opened the back door of the Maserati and watched Axel buckle himself into his car seat before I checked to make sure everything was secure. Calla watched us like a hawk, narrowing her eyes on me when she realized I’d strapped him in properly.
I wouldn’t tell her I’d practiced with a doll a few dozen times first.
I didn’t need to look quite that desperate yet, though I supposed nothing was more obvious than threatening her into being with me. At any rate, Calla was vindictive enough to go spewing that fact to the guys when she met them, and they would never let me live it down.
I suddenly was very thrilled that I’d tucked the doll in Ines room like a present for my Princess.
I grabbed the door for my Sunshine, gesturing her in and buckling her up, much to Axel’s entertainment as he laughed in the back seat. If I had to guess, Calla only had a few hours left in her before the claws came out and she lost her shit, so I’d have to do my best to preserve the peace just long enough that we had the kids tucked into bed first.
Calla’s claws dug into my back wasn’t something they needed to see.
By the time I walked around to the driver’s side, I only barely caught the end of Axel’s jab at his mother’s sanity.
“Grandpa will like this car,” he said.
“That’s the hope, Little Man. That is the hope.” I turned a playful grin to him before I pressed the button to start up the Maserati. The purr of the engine sounded like music to my ears and the way Axel smiled in the back seat felt like he had a lot of me and his Grandpa in him.
“Let’s go get the Princess,” I said, guiding the car out of the lot.
“How did you and Mommy meet?” he asked from the back seat. I took Calla’s hand in mine, pulling it over to rest on my thigh and taking it with me when I needed to shift gears.
“I’ve known your Mommy for a long time,” I admitted vaguely. “We didn’t talk for a while, but I never stopped thinking about her or you and your sister.”
He studied me curiously, the excitement about the surprise fading as he studied my interactions with his mother. “Then how come Mommy never talks about you?”
Calla gave me the “I told you so” look. She didn’t realize just how much I knew Axel had every bit of his mother’s curiosity.
“Your Mom was grieving your Dad, Axe. Sometimes women can be stubborn and not see a good thing for what it is when it looks them right in the face after something like that. She needed me to step in and push her a bit, so that’s what I’m doing,” I answered him with a smile. He studied me with eyes that were too wise for his age, too all-seeing to be natural. Only a boy who’d known pain and suffering could give a man like me a look like that. I would know, since I’d had the same look when I’d been even younger than him.
I navigated through the traffic, making my way to August’s shop.
“Is that why she’s glaring at you?” Axel asked. I gave him a grin.
“I’m stubborn? That’s what you’re going to call it right now?” Calla asked, and I snickered with Axel who seemed to enjoy someone other than him and his sister getting chastised for once.
“Yep,” I grunted.
“My father is going to rip you to pieces,” she whispered in response, and I might have been afraid for that very reason if I didn’t already have my key to the castle sitting in the backseat.
When we pulled up to the front of the garage, Calla jumped out of the passenger seat as quick as she could and moved to get Axel from the back like she thought I might drive off with him. I wasn’t into kidnapping kids, not unless they came along with Calla’s sexy ass apparently, anyway.
I followed behind them as they hurried into the shop, and Calla kept glancing over her shoulder at me to see if I was still there. I didn’t know if she expected me to wait in the car or what, but if she thought I would honestly be afraid of her father, then I needed to work on my presence a bit. I ate worse men than August Nilsson for breakfast.
“Calla Lily,” her father said, stepping up and pressing a kiss to his daughter’s cheek as Ines clung to her legs. “Everything alright?” he asked, eyeing me over his Calla’s head.
“Yep. Everything’s good,” she said a little too brightly. Calla was many things, but a proficient liar wasn’t one of them.
“You gonna introduce me to your friend?” he asked, and Axel threw himself into his grease covered grandfather for a hug. I could just imagine the joy that laundry proved to be for Calla.
“I’m Ryker, Sir,” I said, stepping up and holding out a hand for him to shake. He eyed it warily for a moment before he finally shook it.
“Ryker says he’s going to take care of Mommy!” Axel inserted in his enthusiastic voice. Calla winced visibly, and I knew she thought about how that must have made her sound. She may have stayed home with the kids when she’d married Chad, but sh
e did it because she wanted to and because she valued her time with them more than her need to provide for herself. It hadn’t been because Chad expected it, or pressured her into it, or because she wanted to live a pampered life. It was because they could afford it, and there was nothing more important to her than those kids.
Having lost her own Mom when she was born, Calla wouldn’t waste a single day.
“Is that so?” August asked, crossing his arms over his chest as he raised an eyebrow at his daughter. It was the quintessential look that told her she had some explaining to do.
“It’s new,” I said in her defense. “I just move fast when I see something worth keeping. I’m taking a couple days off to get to know the kids. Why don’t you call Calla and make plans to come to my place? Ines won’t be here for a bit since Calla is taking off too, but you’re always welcome with us.”
I could feel Calla’s glare without looking at her, but her father didn’t seem to mind the way I told him our plans and ignored Calla’s input. From what I knew of his relationship with Chad, it hadn’t been the most open. Calla had always acted as an intermediary for their conversations, even after they’d been married for years.
That wouldn't fly with me. A grown man could have his own conversations. At least he was, if he was even remotely respectable.
Chad had been nothing but a snake in disguise.
“I’ll do that,” August said, and with that I turned my attention to the princess that clung to my woman’s legs shyly.
“I heard you like unicorns,” I said. “There’s a brand new seat in my car waiting for you, and it just might have unicorns on it.”
“Uni?” she asked, peeking up at me from around Calla’s leg.
“Should we go see?” I asked with a smile, holding out a hand and letting her come to me. When she put her hand in mine shyly, I lifted her into my arms and plopped her onto my shoulders. She squealed with laughter, clinging to my shoulders tightly as I strode to the front of the garage and got her hooked into her car seat. I could vaguely sense Calla and her father following with Axel, but my focus was entirely on the little girl stroking the unicorn fabric happily. It was worth every penny I’d spent to have it custom made.
Grieved Loss: A Dark Mafia Romance (Bellandi Crime Syndicate Book 3) Page 7