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“I forgive you, but I can’t go back to how we were. Maybe not ever.”
Cece nods her head, the corner of her mouth curling up into a small smile. “Okay. I can live with that, but Mer, I love you. You are my best friend, and I will always protect you and Ares. That I will promise you.”
“Ahh,” I hiss after yet another gulp of the mommy juice. I need to move to the harder stuff. “The weapon.”
She laughs, and I join her, shaking my head. “Our life is crazy.”
“I mean—” Cece gestures to Preacher. “Ya think?”
I can’t stop staring. Ares is curled into Niko’s bare chest as if he’s the perfect piece of a missing puzzle. The curtains are closed, but the light from the bathroom is enough to illuminate their edges. Niko’s body is somehow bigger than I remember, as if he’s spent the past two years gaining muscle in places I didn’t know muscles were. His tattoos are all visible, and although I know the story of most of them that I see exposed, I know that Nik is a lot like me, who gets tattoos for the art, much less that they mean anything.
I pull the covers over, sliding between the sheets after a long, hot shower. Cece told me the cleaner was going to be here any second, and that by the time I woke in the morning, it would be as though nothing happened the night before. I struggled to see it. The blood had long since dried in the cracks of the tile, something I’ll obsess over for weeks until I know I’ve cleaned it enough. I try to close my eyes, willing sleep to take hold, but everything that happened tonight keeps traveling through my mind.
What does this mean now that Niko is back? I can’t be with him knowing the only reason he came back was for Ares. That’s enough to make me respect him again, but not enough to make me love him.
As if I have a choice.
Meraki has always been good at making assumptions. She’d fuck around, fill her own head with bullshit, and then wonder why it was so hard to get through to her. Hiding a kid, though? My fucking kid? That’s something I never thought she would do. She can say that she had never hidden Ares, but the fact that he was never allowed out of the confinement of the Cathedral would say otherwise. Pierre had this area locked down tighter than Area 51. No one was coming in, going out, or even hacking any software to see inside, and if they did, he would call us to take them down, or more accurately, he would call Ari. It was a faultless plan, and I never thought anything of it. Not even when I ran background on Jessica. I saw that she came from an orphaned home and was wanting a scholarship at Meraki’s school. That was enough for me to know that Meraki would have taken her in because of the similarities between the two of them.
Jess is packing up her things, moving around the kitchen while watching me closely.
“I make you nervous,” I tease, kicking my leg out from under the table.
She doesn’t look my way. “No—I—”
I lean forward. “If I make you nervous, you’re fired. You wanna be the sole babysitter for my son and the prince of the les beaux voyous, you bet your ass you better toughen your shit up.”
Her hands work in overtime as she places the lid to her coffee on her cup, her eyes finally coming to mine. She’s young, really fucking young.
“I wouldn’t let anything ever happen to Ares. He is my world and has been since the day he was born.”
I did the math in my head, tracing back to the date when Pierre had me run background on her. It added up to Meraki hiring her when she was around four months along. Made sense. She probably wanted to get a feel of her before committing.
“I’m going to be late.” She quickly scurries out through the family room, and it’s not until I hear the front door close when Meraki enters with Ares on her hip.
Holy fuck, this kid… he is perfection. As soon as his eyes land on mine, they light up and he pushes away from Meraki and reaches for me.
“Huh,” Mer mutters, passing him over. “It’s like he’s known you all along.”
My eyes come to hers in an instant, and her cheeks flush a brilliant peach.
“Wait,” she says, her mouth turning downward.
I rest him on my knee, kissing his head while making it pointedly obvious that I have my fucking eyes on her. Go on. Ask me.
She lowers herself down onto the chair that’s tucked beneath the table. She looks good as hell this morning too, dressed in a little white blouse that ties between her two perfectly swollen tits while showcasing the curves of her abs. She has always had a dancer’s body, but I don’t know… since the birth of Ares, it looks grown, sexual, and just more… more.
