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“I only killed him after I got the information,” Diego says softly. “I know how important this is to you.”
Thalia stares at him, disbelief coloring her features.
“Would you care to explain just how you know so much about the people in my house?” Rafe asks from the doorway. “I’ve spent years trying to track Kirrill down, and the last three days trying to find the rat, but perhaps I’ve been looking in the wrong place.”
I glare at my husband. “Don’t even start with that shit. If Diego wanted to he could have killed me the same day Sebastian took out your father. Hell, he could have killed any of us a hundred other times. Instead, he has been keeping me alive while I have been putting myself at risk.”
“Willow,” Diego says, placing a hand on my shoulder. “Your husband has a right to question me and my methods.” He turns to Rafe. “It doesn’t mean I am going to answer your questions but feel free to ask them.”
“I don’t fucking like you,” Rafe says, venom coating his words. “And if it weren’t for my wife, I would have had you put down like the dog you are, a long time ago.”
“Understandable,” Diego muses. “But then you would lose an asset.”
“You haven’t been anything but a pain in my ass!” Rafe snaps.
“That’s because you’re wound so tight.” Diego chuckles, pushing my husband’s buttons. I want to jab him in the ribs but I also want to see where the hell he is going with this. “I am here to help. Whether you care to believe me or not. My loyalty may lie with Willow but she is loyal to you, so you get me too.”
“I wish I could get fucking rid of you,” Rafe mumbles as he stares into the bag. “But you may turn out to be useful. You’ve been able to do something Dom couldn’t accomplish in four years.”
“He helped,” Diego says, gesturing to the doorway.
Standing there, like an avenging angel, is Dominic, covered in blood from head to toe. In his arms he holds a sleeping toddler against his chest.
Chapter Twenty-One
Those We Know
Rafe
Three Months Later
Roman holds out the brand-new set of throwing knives I just gave him, the kind of enthusiastic glint in his eye that comes with a long-awaited wish. He’s been throwing for hours under Sonja’s tutelage, and something tells me this isn’t his first time. Perhaps he picked up skills back at the Hernandez compound under Sebastian’s watchful eye, though I doubt the abusive asshole ever let the kid so much as touch a plastic butter knife, lest it end up buried in his back. No, it’s more likely that he met an old friend of mine at the Academy who gave him a few side lessons between classes.
Perhaps one day he will give me the joy of telling me about his experiences there. If he ever talks again. But perhaps that’s not Roman’s preferred method of communication.
The sideways grin on my wife’s face when I presented her with a beaming Roman gives me just as much pleasure. All the money and power in the world is worthless if the same treasures can’t make the people who matter happy.
The boy displayed the slightest apprehension when I drove him out to the warehouse Dom and his bodyguard outfitted for today’s purpose, but since Willow sat in the passenger seat, any threat he sensed dissipated. Even though we’d fought, he recognized, or at least seemed to, how much we loved each other.
“They’re yours.” I smile without teeth as the boy appears to have an aversion to them.
Who knows what his uncle did to scar him, but as his verbal skills haven’t improved with schooling, it’s likely no one will ever know.
“I missed you.” Willow fluffs the boy’s hair fondly.
He rolls his eyes and jerks his head to the side. He might not talk but he can communicate his needs just fine.
“He was safe in a school I chose,” I say carefully, glad I omitted the truth of Sonja’s impromptu rescue action when her eyes narrow. She is pissed that I withheld this from her for so long and I am sure I will face her wrath once we are alone.
Not that I took him as a certain woman in blue leather sneaked her ass into my house and thieved what was mine. I still ached at the thought of him gone, but for the message she sent me four hours later with a picture of my old school with herself and a grinning Roman standing by the towering wrought-iron gates.
I pull my shit together and face my wife. “The same one I attended as a child. Rough, and strict, but good connections. To put him through I had to claim guardianship, even though he’s of age now.”
Willow’s lips soften in the filtered light of the warehouse from the high windows above us, and her eyes shine for a different reason than her baby brother’s. “Thank you.”
I smile gently, holding out an arm and she comes to me, sliding into the vacant spot at my side as though she never left. “I wanted to have him back here as an early birthday present to you.” I press my lips to her forehead, using my forefinger and thumb to lift her chin, and move my kisses slowly downward.
A loudly cleared throat stops my progress, and I sigh.
