“And Caine, you be good,” Bess said, waving a finger at him. “Don’t go upsetting Brodie. Zara is off-limits.”
“That’s why I want her so bad, Mrs. P. I make no promises,” he drawled, winking and touching her chin like she was a nineteen year old in his sights.
But Bess was having none of it. “If you want to be Kindred, you look after them all, not just the pretty ones.”
Caine shrugged. “We’ll see,” he said and opened the door. “Are we getting this show on the road, or what?”
Caine would need to take it easy for a while, and he would need to rebuild his strength. She’d been told there were ample facilities at Brodie’s manor that would allow him to do that. Tuck hugged her, threw an arm around Kadie and followed Caine outside.
Brodie grabbed the back of Zara’s neck and pulled her, but she resisted for a second. “Devon, you can come and stay with us soon, right?”
Devon nodded. “I’m desperate to see where you live.”
“The house is beautiful,” Zara grinned.
“I can’t wait to see it,” Devon replied.
The inside joke was that they all knew the houses were the same. Zara left her husband to come over to kiss her cheek, then hugged her. “Thank you for fixing Zave. He was broken for so long… I don’t know how you did it, you’re amazing.”
With two long strides, Brodie seized his wife’s neck and hauled her off. “Fuck sake, baby, we need to move. Zave has to get back here before it’s fucking night out.” He landed a scowl on Bess and Devon. “Neither of you go near those rooms. You leave Saint and Wren exactly where they fucking are, you hear me?”
Both women nodded. Bess hurried forward to pull Brodie down to kiss him. “You do us proud, chief. You do Art proud.”
The compliment was more than he could handle, so he simply nodded once and took his wife out.
Bess kissed Zave and then melted away, leaving Devon alone with her husband. “You’ll be back tonight?” she asked.
“I’ll be as quick as I can. I’m not any happier with you being here with Saint and Wren than Brodie is. You’re going to hear a chopper overhead in about ten minutes, it’s Petri and a bunch of other guys. They’ll stay outside, but if you need them…”
Typical that he was adamant to look after her. “We won’t,” she said, and he took her into his arms.
“Please do as I tell you, shy. I’ll worry the whole way there and back.”
Before he went to the first auction after they were together, she’d said the same thing to him. “I command you not to,” she said with a smile, and he kissed her again.
“I made you a new toy,” he said. “I want to play with you when I come home.”
Tempted and tantalized, she would fight the urge to go hunting for it while he was away. “I’ll never say no to that… What happens now? Can we just be normal?”
“Normal?” he asked, contemplating this until a smile curled his lips. “As normal as a couple who live on a remote island, with two full-time prisoners in residence, and two corporations under their command.”
Yeah, ok, so maybe they weren’t exactly textbook normal. “As normal as we can be for a couple who are also part-time members of a secret crime-fighting group.”
“I don’t think we’ll be fighting crime for a while,” he said. “Something’s been missing this last couple of months.”
When he lowered his gaze to her torso, she shook her head and laughed. “I can’t hide anything from you.”
“I don’t know why you would try,” he said. “As soon as the others are gone, we’ll get you the best obstetrician in the city.”
“We have a doctor on-site,” she said. “I think I’d like to give birth here, in this house.”
“I have never said no to you before, anything you want, you get, Mrs. Knight.”
“I was worried that you would be against it.”
“Against it?” he asked. “You told me you wanted children, and Bess loves having people to look after. It won’t be easy keeping the kids away from our secret prisoners. But, in a year or two, Grant will realize he has nothing to go back to. He’s a dead man with no future, no identity.”
“And Thad?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Either we disown him and cut him loose in the city or we get over it. We’ll figure it out in time, we’re family. He’s fucked us over and I’m pissed at him, but we’re Kindred.”
“Yes,” she said, taking his hand to put it on her belly. “Generation after generation, we’ll be proud to teach them, and one day, they’ll pick up the mantle.”
“You’d let them?” he asked. “Do something so dangerous?”
“Dangerous?” she asked, narrowing one eye. “What the Kindred do is right. As long as we stick to priority one and watch each other’s backs, our love will keep us safe. There’s nothing that can get in the way of that… Because there’s nothing stronger than Kindred love.”
Thank you for sharing this adventure!
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Finch (Kindred #6) Page 28