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Fifty-One
DELILAH
The angels were sleeping, finally. Jace had gone down easily enough, after having spent hours playing with the Little Tikes basketball hoop Liam had brought home with him yesterday. He couldn’t even reach the rim yet, not even on the lowest setting, but it didn’t stop him from trying. Courtney on the other hand…
Well, she’d cried for a good forty-five minutes straight, for no apparent reason at all.
I knew there had to be an underlying reason though, and that’s because Courtney was a creature of habit. She didn’t like her happy little routine interrupted one bit, and whenever one of her fathers was missing or away at the Shop for the night it usually threw her for a loop.
But now there weretwoof her fathers missing, and not just for a single day. Duncan had been gone a whole week now. He’d called regularly on the satellite phone and even FaceTimed us for the first two days of travel. But after going into the jungle, things got sparse and sporadic. And it wasn’t just Courtney who was thrown by the house being so empty, it was an issue for me as well.
Liam did what he could to keep us all cheered up, but I could sense his frustration and helplessness. Lying there in bed with my body wrapped around him, it was like he was only half there. The other half of him was with his brothers-in-arms, deep in the central African jungle. If he could go be with them, he would in a heartbeat. But I also knew he could do more good from here, gathering intelligence and corroborating with the other mercenary companies, than sweating alongside his comrades.
Once Courtney had finished crying herself to sleep, I laid her gently in her crib and took a long, hot shower. I stayed beneath the steaming spray for a good twenty straight minutes, letting the day’s petty troubles wash away from my tired body before slipping into something comfy and cozy and maybe even a little sexy, too.
Stalking the finished part of the house, I couldn’t find Liam anywhere. He wasn’t in the kitchen, nor was he in the living room. I figured he was in the unfinished section of the mansion, checking up on work progress. Since the others were gone, we’d pretty much left the construction on autopilot. Which, considering how many unsupervised subcontractors we had, wasn’t a good thing.
I was about to push the plastic curtain back and step through when I heard something soft… and familiar. Quietly I crept down the bedroom hallway, where voices were floating up, strange and low. I could hear a man talking. And beyond that, the distinct sound of someone crying.
Oh my God…
Liam was weeping.
My stomach felt instantly sick. My whole world felt like it was about to change.
He’s on the satellite phone,I thought to myself.He’s heard… news.
I rushed into Liam’s bedroom, no longer worried about the pretense of eavesdropping. And there was Liam, sitting on his bed. He was staring at his laptop, while a man continued talking in low, serious tones.
“A—Are you okay?” I stammered. “Is everything—”
He looked up at me with tears in his eyes, then nodded and smiled. Extending an arm, he ushered me over.
“Everything’s fine,” he said quickly. “I was just… well…” He turned the laptop in my direction. “Here.”
I looked down at the screen, as he restarted the video. In it, a sharp, handsome man was talking into the camera. He was dressed in a suit but still looked weary, as if he’d just been through a long, hard battle.
“They’re making me do this,” he said, in low, even tones. “The lawyers and all that. But it needs to be legal. There needs to be no doubt, you know, just in case…”
He glanced down, steepling his fingers together. When he looked up again, it hit me.
“That’s Roman,” I gasped.
Liam nodded somberly. “Yes.”
“So if I bite the bullet you get everything,” Roman was saying. “But most importantly, you get Jace and Courtney. I’ve had the bloodsucking lawyers include verbiage that shares custody between all three of you, but there were some specific parts that were easier to bequeath to one person. Legally, anyway. Full power of attorney goes to you, Liam. And not because you’re the biggest badass or the best looking — we all knowI’mthe best looking — but because, well, you’re the one most likely out of all of us to understand what power of attorney actually means.”
I sat in silence, watching Roman go through the rest of his last will and testament. It was more an explanation than a legal, binding agreement. But within the short, four minute video, he explained everything that would happen regarding the twins, the mansion, his estate, and everything else, in the event of his unlikely demise.
“Again, you’re never even gonna see this,” Roman smiled, “so I don’t even know why I’m making it. I plan on living to the ripe old age of ninety-nine, and I’m gonna see those kids grow up to know and worship the angel that their mother actually was.”
The video paused for a second. Or at least, Roman did.
“Butjustin case,” he said, letting the words out slowly. “Well… here we are. And if you’re all actually watching this with your own eyes? I should probably tell you I love the three of you like brothers.”
Roman’s expression slowly changed. He leaned closer to whatever camera he was using to film the video.
“More than my own flesh and blood.”
