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Mine. She’s really mine.
And I’m hers.
Sliding my hand over my head, I hope to fuck that I’ve proved it to her. Walking barefoot, sans shirt from the bedroom into the kitchen, I start the coffee pot and feel my brows climb when I see my phone sitting on the island counter. It’s the first time in my adult life—or more like the first time in my life since owning a phone—that I’ve not had the thing sitting close as I slept.
Touching a finger to the screen, I see a notification from my porch camera, and freeze at the sight.
At four in the morning, a taxi pulled up to my house and a man got out of the car. A man I recognize instantly even though I haven’t seen him in over a decade.
A sick weight settles in my gut as anger spills like acid in my chest. I’m at the front door, disarming the system and pulling open the door before I’ve thought it through.
On my porch, sitting in one of my deck chairs, is a man with his head in his hands. He’s bent over, elbows on his knees, shoulders slumped in broken defeat.
The grey suit he wears might be crisp and new, but the man inside it is worn and haggard. White streaks taint the black hair at his temples, and when he lifts his head to lock his eyes with mine, I see the same of the hair on his unshaven face. Deep lines crease the skin around his eyes and mouth, a telling sign of the years he’s lived with the witch he’s lived with.
“Cole.” I don’t flinch at the name. Refusing to let him see the name as the weakness it is, I fold my arms over my chest and lift my chin.
“William.”
“My little girl is here.” His eyes—I now see they are red-rimmed—slide to the still open front door of my house.
“She’s not your little girl. She hasn’t been your little girl since the first time you failed to protect her from that bitch you call a wife.”
His head bows again, and a sound leaves his lungs that is on the pathetic side of sad. There’s a long pause between us, then, without lifting his head to look at me, he says in quiet defeat, “Can I take that to mean you’re protecting her now?”
“I’ll protect her with my last breath.” Anger has my fists clenching tight. “Something you should have done, as her father.”
“I know.” He lifts his head to look at me. Shame and failure shine bright in his gaze. “I failed her. I failed my family.”
“Fuck your family. You failed the only good thing that came out of that shit show.”
“I know.” I’m only slightly impressed when he doesn’t drop his head again. Instead, he clasps his hands together between his knees before he leans back in the chair. “I’m here because,”
“Tav?” My gaze snaps to the open door to see Olympia coming closer. Her expression is confused, and she’s wearing nothing but one of my t-shirts. She looks delectable, and I want to do nothing more than send her limp-dick father away so I can devour her again.
But when she steps from the house onto the porch, her body jolting in surprise as she takes in her father sitting there, I know that’s not happening anytime soon.
“Dad—” Surprise nearly knocks her back a step, but I catch her. Tugging her back into my chest, I wrap my arm around her waist and thank fuck that she’s tiny and my shirt nearly hits her knees.
“Sweetheart.” William stands and sweat beads on his forehead. “You haven’t been taking my calls.”
“I blocked you,” my girl says coolly. Around her waist, my arm pulses.
William looks like he’s seconds away from falling to his knees and crying a river of regret. The sight clearly has my girl softening, because gentler, she tells him, “I blocked everyone.”
“I understand.” William nods more to himself than her. “I left your mother.”
“Good. It’s about time. I-I’m proud of you, Dad.” She really sounds like she means it.
“I should have left her a long time ago, and I should have taken you with me when I did.”
“Why didn’t you?” The hurt I hear in her voice has my fading anger returning. “Why didn’t you stop her from hurting me?”
“I—I just broke, sweetheart.” The man’s thin shoulders slump. “I just broke.”
“You started drinking.”
“That’s the path many broken men take,” William admits shamefully.
