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52
IRINA
Scar’s phone rang from its place on the nightstand, dragging me out of the deep sleep that came from my medication and the warmth of him pressing into my spine.
“Fuck,” he groaned, rolling his weight away from me to flounder for the phone. He blinked away the sleep in his eyes, finally managing to slap his palm down on top of it and pull it into the bed with him.
Whatever he saw on the screen had him hoisting himself up to sit as he hit the green button to answer, tossing back the blankets and swinging his legs over the side. “What’s wrong?” I asked, rolling over to face him as he ignored me.
“What is it?” he asked, the deep baritone of his voice echoing through the silence of the room. Something in my veins buzzed, something within my body knew that this phone call in the night was just wrong. “Yeah. Okay.” He nodded, hanging his head forward as he spun to look at me.
His gaze was sad as he pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers, storming into the closet and coming back with a stack full of clothes for the two of us. “Get dressed,” he said, setting my jeans and sweater on the bed. I hurried to do as he said, wondering what was important enough for us to be pulled from bed in the middle of the night.
What was important enough for him to let me go wherever he was going, to leave the safety of the Bellandi Estate for the first time since I’d been rescued?
He hung up the phone, shoving his legs into his own pair of jeans and pulling a hoodie over his head. The look was oddly casual compared to the way I’d grown so used to seeing him, either wearing a suit or shorts for his workout.
“What’s going on?” I asked, settling the hem of my sweater at my waist and heading for the bathroom. I dragged my brush through my hair, fighting against the snarls that came from sleeping so deeply that waking me was near impossible.
“Your friend Megan had a scare tonight. She’s safe, but your father says she insists on talking to you and you haven’t answered your phone in months,” he said, referencing the cell we kept turned off in the drawer of his desk.
I wasn’t quite ready to handle the pressures of going back to work and the influx of responsibilities that would come with it. I needed it and the release it provided, but dealing with people was something I couldn’t quite handle. As much as I loved my work with the kids, this time spent in a bubble of bliss with Scar was what I needed here and now.
I needed to ignore the real world for a little while longer before I could figure out what my new place in it would be.
“The guys are meeting us there. We’ll ride with Matteo and Simon.” He typed something on his phone, probably texting the emergency group chat I knew he shared with the Bellandis. He’d somehow programmed it so messages to that chat came through as phone calls, ringing loudly enough to wake the dead.
“What happened?” I asked, dread settling in my stomach. There was only one reason I could think of that Megan would need to see me so desperately she would wake me in the middle of the night, especially when she’d been on the phone with me when I’d been taken.
The things she must have heard…
She knew just how badly I needed the time off, and she’d done everything in her power to give me that and rise to the challenge of running Fresh Start in my absence.
“Let’s go,” Scar said, tucking his phone into the back pocket of his jeans. He grabbed his gun from his nightstand drawer and moved to his desk, yanking another out from under the surface and tearing the tape off from it. He checked it, handing it over to me. “I’m pretty sure you know how to use this,” he said, raising an eyebrow.
I realized just how much he knew about the day I’d been taken, and accepted the gun from him with trembling fingers. The last time I’d held one, I’d shot a man after I’d bashed another’s skull in with a fire poker.
“You keep it,” I said, shaking my head and handing it back to him. “You can give it to me if I end up needing it, but…”
I didn’t want to voice the negative association, the reminder that I was a killer as much as any of the Bellandis. That I’d become a Bellandi woman through the blood of my enemies.
I just didn’t have the husband to go along with that title.
“Alright,” he said, tucking it into the back of his jeans as he settled his favored gun into the holster he kept at his waist.
He guided me from the bedroom, taking me to the foyer that caused my heart to skip every time I laid eyes on it. Matteo was waiting as promised, two men at his side.
I recognized Simon, knew him well from the time I’d spent around Ivory and Matteo in the past year. The other man was a vaguely familiar face, someone I’d seen in passing but never gotten to know closely.
“Irina, this is Calix. He’s going to be your security until we resolve our conflict with Murphy,” Matteo said, earning a glare from Scar.
“No,” I said, shaking my head as I remembered what had happened to the last man who’d protected me. “Absolutely not.”
“I agree,” Scar said, wrapping an arm around my waist and tugging me into his side protectively. I could have snorted at the show of possession if I hadn’t been inclined to agree. Men were not my favorite, and being alone with one other than Scar was too much, too soon.
“You don’t need to worry about that.” The man named Calix chuckled, turning his molten silver eyes my way. His hair was a deep brown, nearly raven in color. He crossed his arms over his chest and studied me, saying, “Incest has never been my kink, dear cousin.”
Scar stilled at my side, something like panic locking his muscles solid for a single moment.
“I don’t have any cousins,” I said, shifting at Scar’s side. Whatever weirdness he had going on, my father had no siblings.
“I believe you met my father once when you were just a girl. Be grateful you’ve not had the misfortune to make his acquaintance since. He hasn’t gotten any more palatable with age,” Calix said, stepping forward and leaning in to brush his lips against my cheek.
Scar growled.
“You’re Eugene’s son?” I asked, furrowing my brow. I could see some sort of family resemblance, from the shape of his nose to the color of his hair, but Eugene was cold. Calix radiated with a warmth, even if it did seem to be bathed in the fury of a man who would slaughter his enemies at the first sign of rebellion.
“Yes. Your only cousin on your mother’s side,” he said, tilting his head thoughtfully. “You look just like her from the photos I’ve seen of her when she was younger.”
“I do?” I asked, wondering if I would be able to see them one day. Somewhere deep inside, the little girl who longed for her mother to return still waited, lurking beneath the surface and waiting to erupt at a moment’s notice when it seemed plausible.
“You do,” he agreed, tucking a strand of my hair behind my ear affectionately. Scar swatted Calix’s hand away, seeming unmoved by the family relation. “Most of our family is psychopathic at best, so you and I are going to stick together as the humans of the Regas family.”
I laughed, realizing how instability must have run rampant in my family line if most of my maternal family was psychopathic.
“As touching as this reunion is,” Simon said, grumbling through his yawn. “We have somewhere we need to be. The others are already on site.”
“Is anyone going to tell me what’s going on?” I asked, letting Scar turn me away from Calix’s knowing, playful grin and toward the front door and SUVs waiting for us.
There was nothing but silence in response.
* * *
