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For a split second, I can see the possibility that he’ll really make it through this okay.
Butnotif he gets dumped into some foster home. Not if he gets bounced around until he ages out of the system and never has a solid, safe place to land. The reallygreatfoster families are few and far between around here, and I don’t have any faith that anyone will put the time and effort in with him that it will take to save him from the dark hole he’s locked himself into in his head.
This little boy needs us.
He needs theHawkes.
I pull the door almost closed, leaving it open a tiny crack. “We’re going to leave in a little bit, Al, okay?”
“Okay, Uncle Byron.”
Her constant chatter fills the closet again, and I slip from the room, not bothering to fight my grin.
“Sleigh!”
“Reindeer!”
“Light bulb!”
Everyone’s shouting voices float out from the living room, and I rejoin them to find the game ofPictionarystill in full swing—though, I can’t tell for the fucking life of me what Gabe drew on the board. And apparently, no one else can, either.
But there’s no sign of Luca or Savage.
I check the empty dining room and the kitchen, where Antonia, Storm, and Skye work on cleaning dishes. “Have you guys seen Luca or Savage?”
Antonia glances up. “I think they’re out back.”
Probably sharing a drink away from the fray, which doesn’t sound like a bad idea.
I pause at the bar set up in the dining room and pour myself an Ardbeg, hoping the smoky scotch will help ease away some of the worry filling me. More yelling comes from the living room, and I take a sip and make my way outside to find Luca seated on one of the lounge chairs near the pool, Savage next to him.
The chilly late-December air sends a shiver down my spine as I slowly lower myself onto the chair on the other side of Luca.
He glances at me with a furrowed brow. “Where were you?”
“Checking on Jude and Allie.”
His shoulders instantly tense, and the dark eyes I know almost as well as my own narrow on me. “Are they okay?”
I nod. “They seem to be, but I think we should get out of here before too long. It’s been a lot for him.”
Luca’s jaw tenses, and his hand tightens around his tumbler, likely full of the same thing I’m drinking. Something crosses his gaze that makes my stomach tighten—a look I haven’t seen in years. One I hoped to never see again.
Savage doesn’t miss it, either. “You did the right thing.”
Even though Luca and I both hear his words, I don’t know if either of us believe them.
Luca looks up at him. “I’m not so sure.”
Savage scowls. “The man abused his son. The man made him do things that no human shouldevermake another do. There was only one way that was ever going to end where any of us would be content with it.”
A heavy sigh slips from Luca’s mouth, filled with a thousand feelings I know must be welling inside him right now, and he takes a long sip from his drink.
He gave up the violence of the mob for me, for us, so that we could have a life together without constantly looking over our shoulders. So that I wouldn’t end up dead on the street with another bullet hole in me. But we’ve also paid the price for his past.
The constant whispers.
The dirty looks.
