We don’t always get everything we want, but if we try really fucking hard, sometimes we might just end up with what we need.
And I need him. I need all of them.
I just hope they need me enough to stick this out.
However this ends up, whether we sink or swim, we’ll do it one way and one way only—together.
All four men are seated at the breakfast table when I walk in, Fem trotting at my heels. He pauses at the sight of so many male humans in one place, grumbles, and then curls up in the far corner with his head on his single paw, glaring daggers at them.
I pause in the doorway to the kitchen as four sets of eyes swing my way. There’s a difference in the atmosphere when they’re all together; it’s a seismic shift in temperature. It’s hot and sticky and strange.
I shake off the feeling, toss my hair, and move over to the coffeepot.
“One cup,” Crown says, because he just has to be an asshole like that.
Sin scoffs at him.
“Really?” He looks my way. “Has he been this bossy all week?”
“Pretty much,” I agree, realizing that my declaration last night is about to make things just that much more difficult for all of us. Pretty sure the guys were waiting in a sort of limbo, wanting to see if I’d actually keep this pregnancy or not. If they were betting men, I think they all would’ve bet on the wrong horse.
“Don’t treat her like a child,” Sin warns Crown, the VP’s voice of reason the way Crown’s always been the voice of reason for Cat. “It’s off-putting.”
“My mother drowned herself in caffeine when she was pregnant with me,” Grainger offers up, and it could very well be the most personal thing he’s ever told me about himself. Raelynn Grainger. I’d love to know more about that woman, and why the hospital staff thought she might show up.
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” Crown asks dryly, giving his sergeant-at-arms a sharp stare. “Look how you turned out.”
“Right. A young officer in a powerful club. With a gorgeous girl and a baby on the way. I’m a total fuck-up.” Cade leans back in his seat and threads his fingers together behind his head. He’s still in pain, that much was obvious from having sex with him last night, but he hides it well. He lets his dark gaze trail over to Beast who, of course, has yet to say a word on the subject.
If it bothers him that he knows for sure that this isn’t his baby, he doesn’t let on. He’s such an honest person, he’d likely say something if it did. There’s reassurance in that for me, in knowing that I have someone around that I never have to worry about. If Beast is upset, he’ll just tell me. If he doesn’t like something, he’ll voice his concerns.
“So we’re really doing this then?” Grainger adds, when nobody interrupts him or corrects the ‘gorgeous girl’ part of his statement. “Fucking Christ.”
My lips twitch as I turn around and hold out the mug with a sad moue.
“I like it best when you make it,” I tell Cade, giving him a look that makes him scowl and scoff.
“Hell woman,” he snarls, shoving up from his chair with a slight grimace. He manages to walk the pain off, coming over to me and snatching the mug from my hand. “Sit down.”
I grin because, shit, this should be fun. I’ll let them baby and pamper me all they want indoors. Just so long as they don’t think I’ll stay here for the remainder of this stupid war.
This won’t be over until I spill blood with my own hands.
I take Grainger’s seat, looking up just in time to see Grey step into the room.
He goes completely still, like a wolf who’s just stumbled on a cave full of grizzly bears. His silver eyes dart around the room before landing on Grainger’s back, on the patch with the black moon eclipsing the devil’s grin of a bloodred sun.
My most ornery lover turns back in time to see that he’s being watched. I remember that the two of them met before, and that it didn’t exactly go well.
“What the fuck is this piece of shit still doing here?” he snarls out, and I see the fingers of his left hand twitching against the pistol on his belt. Grey’s eyes snap down to the movement, and I see that intelligent gaze of his working out a solution, an escape.
I must be that escape because his gaze swings over to mine and locks on.
“Cade,” I warn, but he just scoffs and moves over to the table, slamming the mug down so hard that some of the liquid sloshes over the side. Fem snarls from his position on the far side of the room, hackles raised at the smell of violence.
“This is an invitation for trouble,” Grainger says, directing his words at his vice president and not me. He points his right hand at Grey. “Dashcam footage that was clearly obtained from a mafia car—god Gaz was a moron—isn’t much of a smoking gun, Crown. Whatever you think Cat knows, it’s nothing compared to this. If he finds this boy here, he will hang the five of us and smile while he does it.”
A shiver traces over my skin because Grainger’s probably right.
Cat knows I’m a traitor, that I saved Grey, and that his officers helped me cover it up. But he doesn’t know that I’ve been communicating with the don’s last, living heir. He certainly isn’t aware that the boy’s been living here. Or that I plan on helping him ascend the Grey Wolfe throne.
“As of yesterday, we’re still checking everyone who goes in and out—and not on my orders,” Crown offers up, giving Grainger a sidelong look. “Cat doesn’t trust us anymore, remember? He expects deflection.”
“We need to prove ourselves to him,” I say, and the room goes quiet, as if every word that leaves my mouth is somehow precious. I don’t know when that happened or how, or if I’m just imagining it, but … “We need to bring him the bodies of the men who killed my sisters.”
“I need to get off the compound,” Grey agrees, nodding but keeping his attention fixed primarily on Cade. Big mistake and one that I know my father’s exploited to his benefit. If you put Beast and Cade in a room with people who aren’t aware of their reputations, eyes always go to Grainger. He’s wildly unpredictable and holds onto this raw anger that crackles deep inside the depths of his soul.
Gazes always go to him in worry, wondering what he might do, what violence he might inflict.
But really, it’s Beast that Grey should be worried about. If anyone were going to kill him, it’d be my husband. He’d sneak up on Grey in the hallway, grab him from behind, and snap his neck like a twig.
I almost smile at that, hiding the expression in my mug.
God, my life is fucked-up. What sort of maniac smiles at something like that anyway?
Fem trots up to the doorway, side-eying Grey with a curl of his lips. I give a small whistle, and the dog ducks beneath the table, ignoring the men to take up a position by my side. When Crown looks down at him, Feminist curls his lips back from his teeth and lets out a rumbling growl.
I stroke my hand over his head, and he puts his one remaining front leg in my lap.
“I have an idea,” I say, my stomach churning at the thought of what I’m about to suggest. “Why don’t we ask Cat to meet us at the house so I can get my stuff? Like … to clean out my room. Maybe we can get a read on him that way. Maybe I could even, I don’t know, talk to him for a minute.”
The thought makes me sad in a way that I can’t explain. For so long, I’ve wanted out of that horrible house with its horrible memories. And yet, now that I actually have an escape route, the prospect of never sleeping in that room again makes me sick.
I can’t explain it.
“That doesn’t solve the problem,” Crown offers up as Cade leans against the counter.
“If you want to get your things,” Beast offers up finally, “we can take you.”
We he says, because even he isn’t enough to keep me safe if the mafia decides to roll up while we’re in that house. That infamous motherfucking house.
“Gidget,” Crown tells me, turning his face to mine in what’s very clearly a warning. “Cat isn’t going to be in the mo
od to talk to you. We can … move you in here, sure.” He pauses to put his hand to his forehead, like he’s in the middle of adjusting to the idea, and rubs at his sun-kissed skin for a moment. “But you’re not going to get anything out of Cat. If we want to get Mafia Brat off the compound, we need a different idea.”
I nod, but I still want to do this.
Move my things in.
Talk to Cat.
Because I really think I am a sadist and a masochist both, all wrapped up into one.
Seeing my bedroom again after all this time makes me feel things that I don’t want to feel, memories bombarding me from all sides, choking me up. I can barely force myself through the doorway and inside, pausing in the center of the room with an empty box in my hand. As I look around, I wonder if I even want anything from this place at all.
“You want me to start packing anything in particular?” Sin asks, putting his forearms up on either side of the doorjamb, his body leaning over me from behind. His comforting scent—cinnamon and tobacco and cloves with that kiss of blood mandarin—wafts around me, making me shiver.
“I … don’t know,” I offer up, looking down at the bed where I had my first time with Grainger, and my second time with Sin, all within the span of an hour. I’ve sat on this bed and had conversations with Reba. I’ve taken a pregnancy test under Beast’s watchful eyes. I’ve applied eyeliner while talking to Crown about his hopes and dreams.
I … sat on this very bed while Posey leaned in my doorway and Queenie sat on the edge of my mattress, smiling over at me.
I’ve had my ass beaten by Gaz in this room.
I’ve had my father put a gun to my head and pull the trigger just before dumping my bloody dog in my lap.
My hands start to shake, but I make myself move forward, tossing the box on the bed as I fight the feelings, pushing them back to the edges of my consciousness. Sin moves into the room beside me, as connected to this place as I am.
He helped me move these very boxes in after Cat bought this place, upgrading us from the shithole we grew up in. Sin watched over me and my sisters here. He rejected the opportunity to be our head of security, thinking that he was doing the right thing and then coming to find out it was a regret he’d have to live with forever.
The first thing I do is pull Queenie’s cookbook out from between my mattress and my box spring. After Gaz hit me, and it got knocked under the fridge, I retrieved it the first chance I got and stashed it here.
Flipping it open, I stare at Queenie’s signature handwriting, the flowers on the tails of the Q’s, blooming on the dots of the I’s. My hands begin to tremble again, so I throw the stupid fucking thing in the box and try not to think how this is the end of an era.
It’s like, my life started the day my sisters died. Does that make sense? Everything else prior to that was just filler, just backstory. Now, I’m preparing myself to close the final page on this chapter. It makes me feel odd, like I’m sitting in front of a computer, a blank page in front of me, desperately trying to figure out what words I should use to start my new story.
“Hey,” Sin says, drawing my attention around. He’s got a framed picture of my sisters in his hand. His silver eyes are dark and as distant as my heart. He looks up to meet my gaze before passing the picture over. I very carefully place that in the box beside the cookbook. “We don’t have to do this right now if you don’t want to. In fact, I could come over here by myself and pack it all up on a different day.”
“No,” I say, resolute in my determination. I have to do this. I need this. I cannot heal if I don’t open up some of those old wounds; they have to drain. They have to leak. It isn’t pretty. Actually, it’s as disgusting as it sounds, feeling those hideous scars torn asunder just so that I can bleed all over again. “I can do this.”
I open my nightstand drawer, reaching in to grab Queenie’s sonogram.
I stare at that for a moment before putting it in the box. Another item, another memory, a different time. Sin watches me for a moment before opening my dresser drawers and frowning at the emptiness inside. Right. Because Cat took all of my clothes before I left. I’m sure he burned them all.
Doesn’t matter.
I have Posey’s old clothes, and our styles weren’t completely at odds. I’m a bit more ‘goth girl’ and she tended toward ‘girly-girl’ but we both like things a bit … revealing, a little slutty.
I’m not surprised when Nellie knocks softly on the doorjamb before coming in. Her face is a mask of pain, and her eyes are shiny with unshed tears. Looking at her now, I know that Cat made the right decision, keeping her from learning about Gaz’s death. She might not survive it. Everyone has a breaking point, and if it wasn’t the death of her daughters, it could very well be the death of her only son.
“Thought you could use a hand,” she offers up, and even though my throat gets tight, and I want to say no, I make myself nod. I’m not sure I could talk right now if I tried. My mother moves into the room, setting another empty box on the desk beside Sin’s and helping empty the drawers.
We’ve decided to leave the furniture behind. I don’t know what, exactly, our sleeping arrangements are going to be like at the farmhouse. Sin and Grainger just now got back, and we haven’t exactly had the chance to iron out details like that.
But I know that I don’t need any of this. There’s furniture in every room of that house, and I could buy myself a whole new set with the guys’ money if I wanted. A smile almost quirks my lips, but then I hear Nellie let out a small sound.
I whip around to look at her and find her with her hand pressed tight across her mouth. She has one palm braced on the surface of the desk, her body shaking with sobs.
“Mom?” I ask as Sin steps aside so that I can take his place. It almost hurts to reach out and put my hand on Nellie’s shoulder. When I say that we’ve never had a normal mother-daughter relationship, I mean that. We don’t touch casually; we don’t hug; we don’t have heart-to-heart chats.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers, removing her hand from her mouth and placing it palm down on the desk for more support. She looks ridiculously unstable right now. “This is just … it’s a lot for me.” She looks over at me, and I see that her makeup is already streaked from the hot tears dripping down her face. “Your father and I bought this house with you kids in mind, to give you a better life. To give you things we never had for ourselves. This was supposed to be a place of healing for all of us.” She turns away from me, as if she can’t bear to look at me while she talks.
“I’ll be right outside,” Sin whispers, giving my wrist a small squeeze as he passes by, stepping out to wait in the hallway. Just like old times, he leaves the door open so that he can keep an eye on me.
“Instead, my last child is leaving and I …” She trails off, her blue eyes glossy and distant. When she sways slightly, I grab onto her arm, and she turns to look at me with a sense of urgency in her face. “I knew you’d all leave eventually, but it wasn’t supposed to be like this.”
I choke on the pain, on the remembered sight of Gaz’s blood splattered across the wall of our father’s office. The lie lodges in my throat like a knife, and I feel suddenly like I’m the one that’s bleeding to death, soaking the floor in crimson. My knees get weak, but through sheer force of will, I keep myself standing.
“What am I going to do now?” Nellie asks me. No, more like pleads with me. She’s still beautiful; she’ll always be beautiful. But neither of us are fools. Well, I might be a fool in love, but I’m experienced enough to know what the world thinks when it looks at my mother.
An aging beauty. A mother of four with only one living child left. A husband who’s fifteen years her senior and lives a hard life. Eventually, Nellie will be all alone, and I’ll be the only one left to comfort her.
“I …” I start, but I don’t feel equipped to handle this situation. What do I do? How do I soothe her, knowing that I’m holding onto a lie? Gaz is dead, Mom. He’s gone, too. He’s gone, and if you kne
w that, you’d fall apart. “I’m pregnant,” I manage to choke out, watching as her blue eyes widen slightly, and a surprised smile takes over her mouth. Some mothers might be upset to hear that their eighteen-year-old daughter was pregnant. Normal mothers. Healthy mothers.
“Already?” she asks, and then pauses, pairing that information with what she already knows. “Oh. Beast is …”
“Don’t worry about that part,” I tell her, grabbing items off the surface of the desk, including that wooden husky carving that Reba got for me, the one that I once chucked at Grainger.
“Are you happy?” Nellie asks, and I can hear in her voice that she is, but that she’s trying not to get too excited.
I consider that question as I pile items into the box, determined not to let the sadness of this moment overwhelm me.
My whole family is dead, I think, feeling this emptiness inside of me that I so desperately want to fill. That’s why I’m doing this, I realize, why I so suddenly and surely know that I can do this. I can have a kid, and I can do everything right that was done wrong to me.
I don’t want to be the only one left in this godforsaken family, the only Kesselring, the only club daughter. People have children for all sorts of reasons. Most of them are, if you really think about it, selfish as hell. Nobody brings a child into the world out of kindness because we all know how cruel and dark it really is.
So if I want a baby for myself, what does it matter?
“I’m happy,” I say, but when the words come out, they’re dripping with myriad emotions. I look over at Nellie, overwhelmed with empathy for a woman that I told myself I hated. For years. God, I really was young and stupid, wasn’t I? For once in my life, I admit to myself that I actually don’t know the answer to everything. I actually don’t understand everyone and everything. My cynicism is a defense mechanism, and my hatred is a shield. “Or I will be. I know that I will be. Because I won’t allow myself to be otherwise. If you’re not happy, you have to search yourself and ask why. And then you have to fight to change the things you don’t like.”
I Will Revel in Glory Page 20