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“Wyatt, I said no,” Liam told him sternly as we entered the car to sit beside him.
“Can’t we negotiate? I promise to get one for Ethan and Dona this time.” He smiled, and I laughed outright.
“Do you want to negotiate or compromise?” I asked, as I ran my hand through his hair.
He shrugged. “Whichever one gets me a burger.”
“Rule seven,” Liam reminded him.
Wyatt pouted as he crossed his arms. “Never argue with the boss.”
“That’s right, so why are we still talking about this?” he asked him.
“Fine, let me starve. Dona will never speak to you again,” he sighed, as he reached into his navy blue jacket pocket to pull out his mp4 player. Turning his music on, he shut us out and I fought with all my might to keep from laughing.
Liam groaned, as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “I can hear my father laughing at me. But honestly, I don’t remember being this frustrating,” Liam whispered.
I squeezed his thigh. “I’m sure you don’t. Relax, he’s just taking after Ethan,” I said.
“You just had to get pregnant again so soon after Ethan. As if handling him wasn’t more than enough.”
“Excuse me? Whose idea was it to take a second honeymoon—?”
“We never had a first, so how could there be a second? Besides, you loved London, Governor. ”
I wanted to kick him. Instead, I copied Wyatt and turned my back to him. I still couldn’t believe that it had been eight years since we’d gotten rid of Avian. Eight years since I’d gotten pregnant again, with twins this time; Wyatt Sedric Callahan and Donatella Aviela Callahan. I loved them both, but sometimes I felt the same way when dealing with Donatella as Liam did with Wyatt. It must be due to the fact they were so much like us. Donatella had Liam wrapped around her fingers so tightly, it wasn’t even funny.
It had been eight long years of controlled chaos, and because Liam and I never wanted the events that took place to ever repeat, changes needed to be made. We were now more removed from the drug trade. The trade was still overseen by us, but we no longer got our hands as dirty. Weed had taken off big time, and we had the largest hold on the market. There was still a demand for the usual though—cocaine, meth, and heroin, but they were no longer made in Illinois. After all, Liam’s plan for the first female governor of Illinois was to clean up the streets and actually do it.
We’d taken a page from the Roman playbook—we basically allowed sellers to keep moving a product in exchange for less violence. It wasn’t about the money, it was about the power; the control. Avian taught us that.
Drug dealers were strangely civil when you had a gun to their heads. Lesser gangs and cartels were a different story. They tended to get out of control and we were usually forced to send in a clean-up crew. It took a good dozen group deaths for the rest to get the bloody message. They had no idea who we were and that only served our purpose by scaring the shit out of them. With Chicago shining as it was, I was elected not only once, but for a second term. I had been in office for almost five years now.
At first, I thought that Liam should’ve been the one to run, but he’d pointed out the fact that he needed to keep up the business aspect of our lives…though I knew he secretly enjoyed having his Mad Hatter title. I had given this state almost five years, and now everyone was waiting on edge to see what my next move would be.
“Melody.” Liam pulled me from my thoughts, as he showed me an alert on his phone. “Apparently someone in the FBI has been checking up on us.”
It wasn’t unusual. The FBI checked out every governor…mostly because they were usually corrupt. The only difference between them and us was the fact that we couldn’t be caught. Once the J. Edgar Hoover Building was rebuilt, Liam and I donated one hundred million dollars towards the new technology labs. Unknown to them, Declan, Monte and I had set up an alert program. If anyone ever looked into our names, or our lives, we knew about it instantly and we decide how to handle it.
“What are they looking at?” I asked as he scrolled through.
“Tax returns.” He shook his head before he placed his phone back into his pocket.
“Of course,” I snickered as Wyatt relaxed into my arms.
“This picnic is going to drive me mad though.” He groaned as we pulled up at the park. “Promise me you’ll be nice.”
“I’m always nice.”
“You know, after all these years, I still don’t believe you.” He winked at me.
Ignoring him, I pulled out one of Wyatt’s earbuds. “We’re here and I think I see burgers.”
He sat up and pressed his face against the window. “I can’t see anything, all the cameras are in the way.”
Bloody press. We couldn’t leave the goddamn mansion without them following us around.
“We’ll be out soon, and please be nice to your cousins,” I told him.
“I’m always nice, Mommy,” he said matter-of-factly.
“Like mother like son,” Liam muttered behind me causing me to elbow him.
LIAM
“Daddy!” Donatella screamed the moment I stepped out of the car. She ran as fast as she could before she leaped into my arms.
“Now, who are you?” I asked, as I held her out in front of me. She was an almost carbon copy of her mother; dark brown hair, a dazzling smile…but she had my eyes…my green eyes.
“Daddy, you know who I am.” She pouted at me.
“You look familiar? Have you ever stolen one of my ties?”
“I’ve borrowed some.”
“Now, I remember you.” I pulled her to my chest. “You eat all of my favorite cereal, borrow my ties, and play pranks on your brothers.”
“Daddy!” She giggled, and wrapped her arms around my neck as we walked to the grassy park. She hid her face in the crook of my neck, annoyed by all the cameras just as much as I was.
“Mr. Callahan, does your wife have future plans to run for President?”
“Mr. Callahan, what are her plans for the rest of her second term?”
“Ladies and Gentlemen,” I turned to them, as I shifted Donatella to my hip. “When my wife makes a decision, you will all know about it. Now if you’ll excuse us, we have a family picnic—”
“And burgers!” Wyatt yelled from further up ahead. He wrapped his arms around his mother as if it would save him from me. Mel tried hard to hold in her laughter, I could see it as she patted his head.
Wyatt was her baby.
“We have a picnic and burgers to attend to,” I said to them.
Donatella wiggled out of my arms and I found myself wanting to pout as she ran to Wyatt and grabbed his arm before they both took off towards Neal who stood around the fire pit.
“Food trumps father.” Mel rubbed it in before taking my arm.
“You would think we never fed them,” I muttered, as I scanned the area for any sign of Ethan.
He wasn’t with Mina and Neal’s kids. Neal had adopted Mina’s daughter the year before she had given birth to their son, Sedric. Mina was good for him, and more importantly good for us, since she was now Melody’s campaign manager. For Neal, I knew what attracted him to her the most was her blunt honesty…she was an open book. She had told him on their very first date that it was Mel who wanted them together. He was pissed at her for all of five seconds before deciding not look a gift horse in the mouth.
