“Pretty uni,” she said.
“Only the best for the prettiest girl in the world.” She giggled when I booped her nose just like Calla did, and I turned to find Calla watching our interaction with interest. Noticing every little detail that I knew and exploited.
“Is that a Maserati Levante?” August asked, stepping forward to let his hands hover over the hood. He didn’t touch her, and I knew as a car man that it was for fear of leaving greasy prints on the paint. The Maserati just wasn’t the kind of car that could pull off that kind of look.
“Sure is,” I said as I closed Ines’s door and took Axel’s hand to help him around to the other side. “When you come over, you can take it for a drive. I’ve got a 1970 Chevelle in my garage I’m working on fixing up. I imagine you’d enjoy getting your hands on her. She’s a real beauty,” I said, and he laughed at me.
“You shitting me?”
“Nope. I’m restoring the entire thing. It was in rough shape when I got my hands on it, but she’s starting to shine now.”
He laughed again, turning to clap a hand on Calla’s shoulder so hard her body shook under the force of it. He’d always treated her like one of the boys at the shop and didn’t seem to care that he stained her shirt with his greasy hands. “Well, Calla Lily,” he said, the affectionate term making my heart tighten in sadness for my girl. Her mom’s favorite flower had become her namesake after she died. “You’re fucked. See you soon.”
His laughter echoed through the garage as he abandoned his daughter to my mercy.
I grinned at her as she climbed in the passenger seat. “Why can’t I drive?” she asked with her arms folded across her chest once I’d taken my spot behind the wheel.
“I’ll let you drive once I’m sure you can handle a stick.” Calla gasped. She would be so much fun to torment, and I’d waited long enough to do it. I smirked at her glaring face. “Don’t forget, you owe me a kiss, Sunshine.”
Twelve
Calla
When Ryker pulled up to the house and the gate opened, I did everything I could not to scare the kids. I didn’t scream or make a fuss when it closed behind us, and I thought I deserved a damn medal for that alone.
I didn’t voice my horror when he turned onto a split in the driveway that took us into the woods. Was there anything the man did that wasn’t creepy as fuck?
It led us around the side of the warehouse, and when we came up to the side, the building was bigger than I’d ever expected in my first glimpse inside. And I’d thought the renovated interior had been like something out of a magazine. Pushing a button on the rearview mirror, an enormous wall of steel and glass panels slid open on a track and folded in on themselves to reveal a four-car garage that was so pristine it would make my father weep if he ever saw it.
I couldn’t let him come here.
Ever.
My sensible mom-sedan looked ridiculous parked next to the Chevelle he’d mentioned, and even I felt like I might purr at the sight of it. It desperately needed a paint job, but I could see the signs of just how much work Ryker had put into restoring it already.
I wanted to hate it, but I had to admit he’d done a stunning job.
Dad made most of his money on custom builds at his shop, so I was no stranger to muscle cars and the signs of a good restoration. The fucker just had to be good at the one thing that would earn him bonus points with my Dad.
Ryker hopped out, going to the back seat and pulling Axel free before I’d even snapped myself out of my stupor. There had to be a way to get us out of Ryker’s sight, and then we could go to Jason without putting him in danger. As a Detective, he had more clout than most of the other people I might consider turning to, and the pseudo-father relationship he’d formed with the kids since Chad’s death ensured he’d help us. I had no idea what Ryker was capable of, and until I did, I had to proceed with caution.
I’d never be able to live with myself if someone died because of me, but if he touched me I’d probably cut his balls off. I doubted he’d have much use for me after that. I supposed that was probably a light at the end of the tunnel.
I jumped out of the car, pulling Ines out of her seat before Ryker could get to her too. “Surprise!” she squealed, holding out her arms for the brute of a man who just swept my daughter out of my arms and carted her to the door that must have led into the main house. The door that Ryker strode through led into a hallway, and when I turned to close it behind me I watched the garage doors slide closed with mounting horror for only a moment before I turned to follow where my kids joyfully went off with a stranger.
I hadn’t prepared them for strangers who clung to me, only for strangers when I wasn’t around.
People like Ryker made parenting impossible. None of the rules I’d taught them seemed to apply to him, so what the hell was I supposed to tell them to make them understand that the man was dangerous, when I couldn’t actually tell them he was dangerous?
“Do you want to see your rooms?” he asked the kids, and my eyes widened as I picked up the pace to fling myself into the door that led to the main living space. It was still as massive as it had been earlier, but the space tucked in the corner that had been empty before was filled with things from the kids’ playroom at home. Ines’s toy kitchen looked absurd next to the beauty of the natural stone and grey cabinets in Ryker’s kitchen right next to it.
There was a little couch, an area rug, and shelves for her favorite toys. I didn’t know where the couch and rug came from, because the playroom at home hadn’t been that organized.
Axel’s video game system was set up on the stand below the flat screen in the living room, and they had positioned a baby gate at the bottom of the stairs. Ryker opened that gate, taking the kids up. He let Axel lead the way, bringing up the rear. The wall on the side of the stairs was extreme, and I hadn’t noticed earlier the way it was a recent addition. I wanted to melt that he’d thought to make his home safe for Ines, because I imagined the warehouse had been much more striking when the stairs and loft upstairs had been open the way the designer meant it to be.
I followed them up, catching the gate before it could close. The metal contraption seemed too complicated for me to figure out, so it at the very least comforted me that Ines wouldn’t be at risk. There was another one at the top of the stairs, and Axel couldn’t get it open. “Slide the button over and then lift and it should swing out,” Ryker said, and Axe managed just fine somehow. Even though the metal of the gate seemed like a prison, apparently my six-year-old could handle it.
Watching my kids round the corner and walk around the loft was too much for me. As they walked past the office with the solid glass wall and then around the corner, I spoke. “Ryker, can we talk about this? I don’t think—”
“Nope,” he grunted. When he stopped at the place where the hall forked in opposite directions, I sighed.
“Mommy, do we live here now?” Axel asked, his little eyes peering up at me in confusion. Down one end of the hall toward what I assumed was the master, a mover came out of the door and gave Ryker a nod.
“Should be all set, Sir,” he said as he passed us in the hall.
Ryker grinned at me before going in the opposite direction of the Master. The halls were bright, a light grey that tinted just the slightest bit blue, and with the skylights in the ceiling, natural light flooded the space and illuminated the random industrial art pieces hanging on the wall.
They were like sculptures made from wood and metal, designed to lay flat against the wall and pieced into intricate patterns. “Boss’s wife’s friend Duke made them,” he said in explanation. He didn’t seem fond of the man, but no one could deny the unique beauty of his art. “Nursery.” Ryker tapped on the door on the right briefly and then turned to the one on the left. I blanched, looking down at where Axel peeked at my stomach in confusion.
Nope.
I would not relive that conversation with my son. Ever.
“Do you have a baby?” Axel asked, saving me from t
he awkwardness of not being able to ask him. What would it tell my son if I didn’t even know that the man who’d moved us into his home had a baby?
Fuck sake, where had my life gone so wrong?
“Not yet,” Ryker declared, shoving the door on the left open. “This is the bathroom you and Ines will share." Subway tile covered the space, making it look bright, and a blue vanity with double sinks gave it a splash of color. It was better than my master bathroom at home. “Down there are your rooms. Ines on the left, Axel on the right.” Axel’s curiosity outweighed his hesitation, and he fled down the hall to throw open the door.
“Mother puffin!” he yelled excitedly, and he disappeared into the room.
“I hate you,” I whispered to Ryker, and Ines only giggled in response.
“Ready for your room, Princess?” Ryker asked her, tapping Ines’s foot playfully.
“Uni! Uni!” she shouted, and I stepped up to peek into Axel’s room with a sigh. Some boys had plastic car beds. Evidently my son had one that looked more real than any other I’d seen, built into the room and looking like a car in the shop. He had his own desk and chair, with a bookshelf, and all those things sat on a platform he had to climb three steps to get to.
He had a gentle slide that looked like a road to get down. His dressers looked like tool chests, and I just knew, I knew that I would never get him out of that room. Not when he could send his toy cars flying down that slide all day long.
“Mommmmyyy!” Ines shrieked, and I turned and ducked out of Axel’s room to find my girl. Terror filled me, the sound of her high-pitched cry making me think the worst.
As soon as I peeked in the room, my body sagged with relief. My relief disappeared the next moment when I realized my daughter was lost to me.
She was in love.
He’d given her a fucking castle.
The prick.
Ines's bed was covered in soft pink linens, with way more pillows than any one person could need thrown on there. And it was all tucked inside a massive set of turrets like a castle. But at least they functioned as bookshelves. Some of her stuffed animals peeked over the top of the bed frame, looking oh-so-cozy as they hung out up there with plenty of personal space. To think back home, I’d had the nerve to shove them in a chest in her closet.
How dare I?
Her dolls even had a miniature princess bed and there was a massive life size unicorn standing in front of the wall opposite her bed. The one that was painted in pastel colors with a mural of a Unicorn on it.
“There’s something wrong with you,” I muttered to him where he stood, watching Ines dart around the room happily and hug all the toys she didn’t recognize like she needed to greet them each individually.
“I am not above buying them nice things so they never want to leave,” he whispered back, and his arm rounded my waist so he could pull me into his side.
I wanted to stab him. Wanted to watch him suffer for giving my kids something so perfect when they could never keep it. “It’s a little over the top.”
“Does it look like they’re complaining?” he asked, and he guided me back to the hallway to peek into Axel’s room where he was already driving his cars down the ramp. “You got homework, Buddy?” Ryker asked him, and Axel looked up at him and pursed his little face.
My boy loved homework, and I’d never seen him look even remotely disappointed that he would have to do it before. “Yeah,” Axel answered.
“Ten more minutes and then we’ll see if we can’t get it done before dinner.”
“Okay, Ryker,” Axel chirped happily in response. My eyes went to his backpack that he’d tossed to the floor carelessly, and I wanted to cry. It seemed like the perfect analogy for our lives in that moment.
Discarded without thought.
“Axe, we should talk about—”
“Please don’t make us go home,” he whispered, and my nose burned. “It’s awesome here. Ryker will protect you from the bad guys. Can we stay?”
The fact was, even if I wanted to go home, we didn’t have a home. There was nothing waiting for us, no shelter to protect us from the storm that was Ryker as he tore our life apart. Still, I couldn’t help but caution my son before he got too attached. “This isn’t how these things normally go, sweetie. I just want you to be realistic. It might not work out, and I don’t want you to be disappointed.”
“But when we came in, Ryker said this was our home now too. Our house makes you sad. Have you seen your room? I’m sure it’s amazing too!”
“I’m sure it is,” I said, even if I had no intention of sleeping in it. Ines’s bed looked big enough for me to curl up with her. I didn’t have it in me to kill his dreams of staying in that room. Not when he so desperately wanted to stay and the house that made me sad was gone anyway.
Traces of Chad were everywhere, even a year later. It felt like walking into a tomb every time I went into our bedroom, but that didn’t make it okay that Ryker would use things and toys and furniture to turn my children against me and buy their affection. That my son would so easily give in to Ryker’s story about protecting us was like carburetor cleaner sprayed on an open wound, burning away at my fragile sense of self. I’d thought of myself as a somewhat successful single mother and thought I’d given my kids a sense of safety if nothing else.
Apparently, I’d been wrong.
I couldn’t even begin to understand how much money he’d spent designing those rooms. We went into the hallway to give Axel a little privacy as he played, waiting for Ines to be ready to go downstairs. “If your room has a cage and chains, I swear I’ll kill you,” I snarled at him.
“Why would I have a cage in our bedroom?” He seemed genuinely confused that I’d suggest such a thing, and that he so clearly didn’t understand the position he’d put me in was overwhelming in itself.
“Because I’m obviously a prisoner here,” I spat at him. “You’re even using my kids to do it.”
He chuckled darkly, reaching out a hand to cup my cheek as he stared down at me and his blue eyes darkened in the absence of the kids. There was a moment where something flashed through his expression, like the hint of a dark place that threatened to pull him under, but he shook it off the next moment and his eyes blazed in desire again. “Sunshine, I don’t need a cage to make you mine. I think I’ve proven that.” He released me as suddenly as he’d touched me, stepping back and turning to go down the hall. “Come down when you’re ready.”
If it had been only me, that would have been never, but I knew it was only a matter of time before Ines got hungry, and a hungry terror was not something I needed to deal with.
I slumped against the wall, letting my head bang against it while I waited for the kids to emerge from their private oasis.
There was something wrong with that man.
✽✽✽
Bedtime was always a nightmare. Axel needed a shower. Ines needed a bath. Each kid wanted their own bedtime story in their bed.
As much as I loved the quality time with them, their staggered bedtimes didn’t help matters. It was late by the time the kids had eaten and settled down from the excitement of pizza for dinner that had pushed them over the edge.
We didn’t eat out much, didn’t do the takeout thing. So many food options were difficult for me since I didn’t eat meat, so it just became easier to cook my own meals. Chad hadn’t been pescatarian, but without him the kids had slowly just started eating everything I cooked since making two meals was miserable. I couldn’t even remember the last time they’d had pizza, and I felt horrible for that.
With the additional full bath in the master, Axel had darted in to take his shower while I got Ines through her bath in their shared bathroom. It felt strange to see the bedtime routine cut in half, and by the time Axel came charging down the hallway in his pajamas, I was already pulling a very cranky princess from the bathtub and towel drying her hair.
“Pick out your story!” I called out to Axel.
“Okay!” he hollered back, a
nd I resisted the urge to smile at Ines. She scowled at me when I pulled her princess nighty over her head.
“Pink!” she protested.
“I couldn’t find it. You get the purple one tonight.”
“Pink!” She stomped her foot.
“Uh oh! It’s the bedtime dragon! Did she eat the princess again?” I teased, grabbing the comb to run through her shoulder length hair quickly.
“No dragon,” she pouted.
“Then stop acting like one,” I said with a smile, lifting her into my arms to go read to Axel. Normally I’d read to Ines first, but since I had every intention of curling up and hiding away in her bed, it made sense to reverse our routine.
When I walked into Axel’s room, Ryker perched on the edge of the platform, reading a chapter out of the newest book Axel had brought home from the library at school. I brought Ines in, bouncing her soothingly on my lap while I waited for Ryker to finish reading. Even if I wanted to strangle him for taking story time from me. He seemed determined to insert himself into every facet of the kids’ lives, like he was their father, and that just did not fly with me.
I wouldn’t have been okay with a man I dated acting so high-handed with my kids, let alone a complete stranger. It was only nine o’clock at night, and I already wanted to curl up in a bed. To do that, I needed to get through the bedtime routine, but that didn’t mean I wanted to lose that time with my kids.
Ryker leaned forward, kissing the top of Axel’s head warmly and whispering goodnight to him.
“Goodnight, Cookie Monster. Holler if you need me,” I murmured, kissing Axel’s forehead and then taking Ines to her room as Ryker closed Axel’s door. “I’m just going to get her settled. It could take a while.”
“No worries,” Ryker grinned at me, stepping into her room and pulling back the blankets of her bed. I crawled in with her, pulling the covers up over us as I picked out one of her shortest stories from her turret shelves. Ryker perched on the edge of the bed, and I tried to ignore his presence as I read my girl a story about unicorns. When I finished and closed the book, Ryker took it from my hand and replaced it on the shelf.
Grieved Loss: A Dark Mafia Romance (Bellandi Crime Syndicate Book 3) Page 8