Children of Redemption (Children of Vice Book 3)

by J. J. McAvoy

  So, I can’t run from this. And neither can she.

  THIRTEEN

  “There is an enduring tenderness in the love of a mother to a son, that transcends all other affections of the heart. It is neither to be chilled by selfishness, nor daunted by danger, nor weakened by worthlessness, nor stifled by ingratitude. She will sacrifice every comfort to his convenience; she will surrender every pleasure to his enjoyment; she will glory in his fame, and exult in his prosperity; and if adversity overtake him, he will be the dearer to her by misfortune; and if disgrace settle upon his name, she will still love and cherish him; and if all the world beside cast him off, she will be all the world to him.”

  ~ Washington Irving

  EVELYN

  “He’s starting to remind me of Liam,” Declan whispered beside me as we both watched the motion on the screen from the study.

  Was he only now noticing? “He always has.”

  “I’ll come back to—”

  “I don’t need you hovering. I finally shook your wife off my back. Don’t make me worry about you, too,” I said to him.

  He frowned, but nodded, walking toward the door. I waited for him to leave before I dialed. It rang and rang and rang until finally he answered but did not speak.

  “Have you found him?”

  Silence, which I took for a yes.

  “He’s needed back home. Whatever you both need to do—”

  “Mom.” For some reason, my eyes watered at his voice. I missed him. I wanted him. I understood, but I wished it wasn’t like this. “I’m glad you’re alright and still with them. I love you.”

  That was it. The rude son of bitch hung up.

  Glancing back at the video feed, I shook my head. “Like father, like sons.”

  Liam, Ethan, Wyatt…all of my boys were so damn stubborn and prideful. Once they set themselves on a path, there was no changing their minds.

  Sedric, my dear…you really left me a goddamn handful.

  FOURTEEN

  “Once upon a time,

  an angel and a devil

  pressed their hands to their hearts

  and started the apocalypse.”

  ~ Laini Taylor

  HELEN

  “Breaking News: This morning, after the governor’s astonishing accusations against the Chicago PD, claiming they had stolen drugs from cartels, which caused those cartels to retaliate against him and other high-ranking officials within the government, it has now come to light that Governor Orton and his wife were in a very open marriage. A video has been released of Mrs. Orton engaged in a sexual encounter with another man. Out of respect for the now departed Mrs. Orton, CDN NEWS will not be airing the video. We’ve reached out for comment from the governor’s office, but no statement has been given…”

  Muting the television, I shook my head. I leaned back into my tub and closed my eyes as I sank deeper into the hot water. “You really are spiteful, Wyatt.”

  “I’ll take that as compliment.”

  I sat up in the water, my eyes now wide open. I dared not turn back, praying to God I was hallucinating—

  “You know, the normal reaction would be to turn around and scream,” he spoke again, reminding me again that praying was useless in this house. Turning around immediately, I opened my mouth to yell, but again he spoke up. “You kissed me yesterday.”

  I sat there, in a tub of rose-scented water, naked as the day I was born. Staring at Wyatt, who stood in my bathroom doorway in his black three-piece suit, his face cleanly shaven, jaw strong, not a single strand of his dark brown hair out of place. His brown-green eyes staring intently down at me…too intently. Everything about him was domineering, and I didn’t know what to do or say…I felt powerless.

  No. “Wyatt—”

  “I’m going to advise you to stop lying to me now, Helen. I’ve had a very long day, and I really don’t want to play games.”

  “Wyatt, get out! What are you—”

  “You. Kissed. Me. Last. Night,” he stated, getting closer and closer with each word. I stared back, moving to the edge of the small distance between us. But not toward him, always to the other side of my tub, crossing my arms over my chest.

  “Wyatt, I really don’t know what you’re talking about right now, but you’re—”

  “You deleted the video feed from your apartment last night. But guess what you forgot to do?” He asked, sitting on the edge of my tub. “You forgot to delete the record that you’d deleted the file from Cain. There would only be two reasons you’d delete the files from not only that night but also the morning after…one, if you remembered what you did. Or two, you honestly were too drunk to remember but saw the feed to try and see for yourself, then realized what you did and deleted it. Either way, Helen, you kissed me, and now you’ve been trying to lie to my face all goddamn day. Making me feel like I’m the insane one.”

  SHIT! FUCKING SHIT!

  I hadn’t forgotten. I was hoping to do it when everyone was asleep and no one could enter Cain! I hadn’t thought he’d have time to go there with all the other shit on his plate. Fucking shit!

  He reached in to put his hand into the water and lightly touched the rose petals that swam under his fingers.

  “So what are we going to do, Helen?”

  I didn’t want to answer. I didn’t want to do any of this right now. So like the child I was, I sank down into the water. Underneath the water, I felt like I could hear the humming of the sea, and it made me feel like I was far away. I wanted to stay here. Pretend I wasn’t about to lose my best friend. About to see everything crumble. I wanted to pretend I was strong and not weak...not hurt. Finally, when my lungs started to burn, I rose up back up. Water dripping down my face as I inhaled deeply.

  “Drowning ourselves only works for Dona,” he said, still not moving.

  “Go away,” I whispered to him. “Let’s pretend none of this happened. I was drunk. Said things I shouldn’t have. So let’s just—”

  “You can’t pretend after you drop a nuclear bomb, Helen,” he whispered, looking away and exhaling. “You and I have always told each other the truth. Even when we didn’t want to hear it. So tell me the truth.”

  “I don’t want to,” I whispered back, no longer caring he was there. I didn’t want to feel trapped anymore. Standing up, I got out of the tub, grabbed my towel, wrapped it around myself and quickly walked into my bedroom—

  “Helen.” He wasn’t yelling at me. But the way he called my name made me stop halfway between by chaise and my vanity table.

  “What do you want from me, Wyatt!” I screamed instead. “Why are you doing this? Why are you pushing me? Why the fuck can’t you just let it go?! I was letting it go. I was going on as if nothing happened. I would have been fine with—”

  “Me fucking the maids?” he snapped back at me. “Me hurting you, Helen? I’m not okay with that. We cannot pretend it did not happen—that is the moment we would both start lying to each other. And if we have to lie to each other every day for the rest of our lives, we will never be the same again. Which defeats the whole entire purpose of us not speaking about it in the first place. Like it or not, Helen, we have to face this—”

  “Stop staying we! You mean me. I have to face it. Yes, fine, whatever! I fucking fell in love with you! I don’t know when. I don’t know why. Yes, we’re cousins. Yes, I know you find it disgusting, which is why you ran out in the middle of the night still fucking bleeding. If I could have stopped, I would have stopped. Do you think I’m thrilled? Do you think I wanted to feel this way? Wanted to fall for the one guy in the world I cannot have? No! It’s embarrassing. It’s painful! Loving someone who is so damn blind and selfish is painful and exhausting. I hate it! I hate you for making me feel this way. I just want to stop. So keep screwing the maids! Screw anyone you fucking want to, Wyatt. I don’t care, I’m a big girl. I’ll be fine. Like I have always been fine. So there! Have I said enough? Can you please get the fuck out now?”

  “Helen—”

  �
��GET OUT!” I screamed, grabbing the vase and throwing it at him, and hating how I purposely missed. And instead of taking the damn hint, he walked toward me and not away. “Wyatt…”

  He wrapped his arms around my shoulders, pulling me toward him, not caring at all that I was soaking wet…or that I’d been yelling at him.

  WYATT

  She didn’t seem to realize she was crying when she was yelling at me. Crying and shivering. But I did, and in that moment, I didn’t really care what she was saying and hugged her. This was natural for me. Holding her when she was upset. Going to her when she told me to leave. I didn’t know how else to be. I didn’t want to know how else to be…which made this very un-normal. Monk was right. If I thought of her like my sister, I’d think she was insane. But I didn’t. So, I needed to shatter that image forever.

  Releasing her only slightly and lifting her chin up, I stared down at her. My heart was drumming like mad for the first time ever.

  “Wyatt, don’t me pity me...”

  “Stop trying to discern my feelings,” I said seriously, though I couldn’t help but smirk. Before she opened her mouth to tell me to get out, or leave, or that she hated me, or loved me, I kissed her lips gently. And in that second, neither of us closed our eyes. We stared at each other as I kissed her. Like we were daring each other to stop, to pull away first.

  And somewhere between the staring and the kissing, she gave up. Her eyes closed, and she wrapped her arms around me, leaned in and kissed me back, forgetting she was in nothing but a towel…forgetting everything else. And when she forgot, I could, too. Pressing up against her, her breasts against my chest, putting my hands in her wet hair, I kissed her back. My tongue slipping into her mouth, and that was it.

  There was no going back.

  There was no running away.

  I knew there was a very high chance this would blow up in our faces, but right now, as I squeezed her ass, as I cupped her breast, as my dick hardened, I couldn’t give a damn.

  KNOCK.

  “Helen?” Darcy’s voice came from the other side of the door.

  We both froze, our lips breaking away, but only slightly. I could see the panic starting to rush back into her brown eyes.

  Placing my finger on her swollen lips, I shook my head.

  It didn’t take long for her phone to beep from its spot next to her bed. She tried to move from me, but I held her steady.

  “Wyatt…” her voice trailed off, and I was pretty sure she was in the early stages of shock. Finally, she managed to get the words out. “This is insane.”

  “Everything this family does is insane,” I reminded her.

  “We’re cousins.”

  “We’re second cousins, and you’re adopted anyway.”

  “We can’t do this.”

  “Haven’t you noticed I make it a habit of doing what people tell me I can’t do?” I grinned. She just frowned, trying to pull away…trying being the key word.

  “This isn’t a joke, what we’re doing is—”

  “Is what we want.” That’s where I was getting confused. That’s why I felt so conflicted…I was fighting what my body clearly wanted and what I thought I should be doing. That wasn’t me. “I’m selfish remember. I do what I want. I don’t want to think. I want to simply enjoy. Enjoy with me, Helen. Let’s forget about everything else, and everyone else. And give into our instincts. If that makes us bad, fuck it, we do bad things daily. Let’s see how deep this goes. How bad we are. Let’s figure out what it is we’re feeling. No one else has to know until we know.”

  “How do we manage to do that? Sneak into each other’s rooms at night?”

  “For now, no.” We didn’t need that type of stress now. Releasing her, I took a step back. “Your place in the city…outside of the city if we must.”

  “Like your mistress?” she shot back at me.

  I thought that over for a second, and while my cock was throbbing with the very idea of what that meant, I still didn’t want to do that to her. “Not that.”

  “Then what?”

  “I don’t know. Let’s talk it over tomorrow at dinner…like a date.”

  “And if people ask questions—”

  “We’ve gone out to eat before. No one has ever questioned it, nor would they, lest you give us way—”

  “You’re the one with a hard on right now, so…you’d give it away, not me,” she shot back. And hearing the word hard on from her lips, the same lips I’d just been kissing, shouldn’t have turned me on as much as it did…and by damn, it did.

  The façade was gone.

  I wanted to screw her till the only thought in her mind was of me and my cock, fucking her into oblivion, I wanted to see how far she was willing to go with me. How far could we go?

  That was it.

  This didn’t disgust me. It excited me. I was excited by this.

  I was the moth this time, to her flame. I couldn’t help it. From the new look in her eyes, I could see something had switched for her, too.

  Isn’t the very definition of being a Callahan about doing whatever the fuck you want when you want without a goddamn care? Monk’s words came to mind.

  Yeah, it might just be.

  “Can you go, so I can get dressed now?” she asked me.

  I nodded, moving to her door. “But if I were you, I would be mindful of how you dress from now on.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means you let out the monster, Helen. Which means your clothes will end up on the floor at some point. Don’t make it harder on either of us.” I unlocked the door, and not wanting to tempt myself further, I walked out and closed the door gently behind me. I made it down the hall to my room as if nothing had happened.

  It was only when I got through my doors and they shut behind me that I exhaled the breath I was holding.

  “I’m going to bloody hell,” I muttered, pulling my tie off my neck. My skin was on fire, my clothes smelled like her…like roses.

  In less than a second, she’d gone from my cousin to…to a woman. My woman. And the things I did to the women of my past…I was excited to do to her, and so much more.

  Hell? I’m going to be Satan’s footstool. “Mother fuck.” Looking down at my cock, I shook my head.

  This was dangerous.

  This was terrible.

  This was apparently exactly what I wanted.

  HELEN

  The moment he left, I calmly walked over to my bed and just threw myself on it. I am a strong, confident, intelligent, sexy, cute, and beautiful woman…and yet every time I was near him, I lost myself. I lost my edge. I was just…weak. It wasn’t my fault! Who could withstand him? He was always shifting the ground under my feet the moment I thought I could stand on my own.

  When I told myself, I’d love him in secret and pull myself away.

  He came and found me and drew me back in.

  When I confessed.

  He ran.

  When I decided to give up on him.

  He comes back and kisses me.

  “He never plays fair,” I whispered to myself, reaching up to touch my lips.

  We kissed.

  For the second time.

  No. The third time.

  He kissed me.

  I froze.

  Then I kissed him back. Well, that makes it two and a half? It didn’t matter! What mattered was…I knew he was going to hurt me. I had no idea what was going through his mind. If he was just doing this out of pity, or lust, or both. But he didn’t love me…at least not the way I wanted him to.

  I want him anyway. No matter what I thought, no matter what his reasons were, couldn’t I be selfish, too? Couldn’t I just indulge in this? I’d dreamt about it for so long.

  If that makes us bad, fuck it. We do bad things daily. He was right. Ethan, Dona…him. They all did whatever they liked and dealt with the consequences later.

  I’m going to do this. I sat up on my bed, shifting to sit against my headboard. I wasn’t going to expect any
thing. I wasn’t going to delude myself into thinking that this was something…more. I was just going to have fun…be bad…for as long as he was willing to be bad with me.

  Reaching over to the bedside table, I grabbed my cell phone to see whatever Darcy had wanted…except he didn’t want anything.

  Wyatt asked Dad and me to check out a lead about Ivy in Dallas while he deals with things here in Chicago. We’ll only be gone a few days. Luv you. – Darc

  “A lead? What lead?”

  I hadn’t heard anything, and Wyatt hadn’t said anything—not that we were focused on that at the moment.

  But why him and Dad? I instantly felt the goosebumps all up and down my arms. He sent them away. Before he came to see me, he made up some bullshit lead to send my brother and father away.

  He’s serious. When he came to me, he already knew what he was going to do.

  “Sly, charming, smooth-talking son of bitch,” I muttered, shaking my head. How many women had fallen for him because of that mouth of his?

  Fine. If he was willing to do this with me, he needed to know I wouldn’t let him control me. I wasn’t going to be like the others.

  No matter who he dealt with in the past, there was no other woman like Helen Badass Callahan.

  He rocked my world, threw me off my axis.

  Tomorrow I’d do the same damn thing.

  It was the polite thing to do, right?

  I let the monster out? No. The moment he kissed me, he did...he just didn’t know it. Yet.

  FIFTEEN

  “When I'm good, I'm very good,

  but when I'm bad, I'm better.”

  ~ Mae West

  HELEN

  “Aren’t you a little bit old to be hunting down gangsters, Dad?” I asked, lifting my heels out of the display case before taking a seat on my Sherwood sheepskin settee.

  “These old jokes are getting old,” he muttered, and I could hear Darcy laugh in the background. “And to answer your question, dear young daughter, I am the right age to be hunting gangsters…aren’t you too young to be going around calling people gangsters. You sound very lame, Helen.”