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“We haven’t experienced anything like that,” I said, looking around at my weary, hurting guys. “I guess not yet. Are we gonna hit a wall at some point? I don’t know, but we’ll deal with it when we get there.”
She nodded, and my Kings murmured words of agreement, but they were too exhausted to join the conversation. I wondered if they would have any rules for me once we got there and how they would react when they found out about what I’d done. I shuddered to myself as I imagined the moment I had to reveal it to them.
I hunched over and let my chin nod to my chest, and I closed my eyes as the hum of the helicopter lulled me into sleep. There would be plenty of time to handle the world’s problems. Until then, I needed to rest. As I was drifting away, I felt strong hands on my thigh and my shoulder, and I knew I’d never be alone again.
* * *
“There isa slight fracture of your scaphoid bone, but with enough rest, you should recover perfectly,” the doctor said to Kingston. He had a wrist issue. It was fixable. That’s all I needed to hear.
We were in the penthouse apartment of Selene’s friend. It was a friend who also happened to know Ivan and did business with him regularly, so he offered his luxury suite for us to spend some time to regroup. We needed as much time as it took to heal, and we needed time to plan our next move.
We truly had been lucky in our ordeal. It hadn’t lasted long, only a week or so, and none of us were permanently damaged. The worst was Valen’s wrist, and everything else had been superficial and painful but easy to overcome with rest and recovery.
“Thank you,” I told the doctor. “How much do we owe you?”
I had gotten a replacement phone, marked my last one as stolen, essentially turning it into a nonfunctioning brick, and transferred everything from the cloud to my new phone. All my banking information was there, so even though I had lost my wallet and handbag, at least we had access to funds. I had transferred money to Selene earlier, and she’d brought me a stack of money to handle local transactions.
“Absolutely nothing,” the doctor said with a wave of his hand. He was older and had short blonde hair and clear blue eyes. He wore a casual outfit of khakis and a polo shirt as if he’d just come from a golf game. He was also a friend of Ivan’s, and I’d expected him to do this for free but felt compelled to ask. I was still like that. I hadn’t fallen into the ways of the lifelong wealthy yet, where they expected everything to be done for them. I still tipped more than I should, and I still tried to pay everybody for everything they did. “Ivan would kick my ass if I took money from his daughter. Tell him I’ll take it from him during our next golf game. A thousand dollars a hole.”
I laughed and didn’t tell him that Ivan was missing. It was too important to maintain the illusion of normalcy. Even with these injuries, we’d made up a lie about getting caught in an avalanche on a ski trip in the Alps, not that he would have asked us for details anyway. It felt wrong to let anybody know that Ivan and now Amara were both gone.
He packed up his things, and I walked him to the front door. We said our goodbyes and I stood there alone in the dark of the entryway for a moment as I collected my thoughts.
I was still afraid that Ivan and Amara were gone, I still didn’t know what was happening with Seymour’s disappearance and my arrest, and I had no idea if I could ever catch up academically.
And worst of all, I didn’t know how I was going to tell my Kings about the cheating. About what I’d done with Avery. Logically I could tell myself that I didn’t have a choice. Of course, I didn’t have a choice. Maksim had forced us both, and I had a gun to my head. But it was with my sister, and he had forced me to fake as if I liked it. I could still feel the cold barrel of the gun pressed against my temple as he ordered me to moan.
“Is anything wrong, princess?” Ryker asked as he approached me. He had come looking for me and found me in the dark, probably looking insane, as I replayed the events in my head again and again. He put his arms around me, and I leaned my head against his chest.
“No, not at all,” I replied, smelling the scent of clean laundry and body wash. We’d all taken turns cleaning up and changing into the clothes that Selene had gotten us the moment we got here. The shower had been too small for all of us, and I was genuinely disheartened over it. I wanted them all around me as much as I could get them, and showering alone felt too much like back at Maksim’s. “I’m probably just tired,” I added.
We walked back into the living room, and I scrolled through local restaurants until we found one that looked delicious, and they delivered for the right price. I ordered a variety of dishes, not even sure of what half of them were, but figured it didn’t matter. We were all starving and would have eaten anything at that point. I did make a conscious choice to add a couple of each item on their dessert menu, because fuck it, we needed a treat after all of that shit we went through.
We didn’t talk much as we waited for the food. That was strange. Our moods were so low energy. We sprawled in the living room on the long sofa with Kingston on one chair and Valen on the other. I laid down on the sofa with my head on Ryker’s lap and my feet on Archer’s. I almost fell asleep as they petted my head and rubbed my legs. It was pure bliss and the kind of thing I had desperately craved.
I barely heard the doorbell and wasn’t fully awake when Kingston brought the take-out containers straight into the living room. I was woken up by the overwhelmingly delicious scent of food as it hit my nose. It was strange; the moment we all began to eat, our energy came back. It was an immediate response. Laughter and good-hearted chatting returned just like we always did, and with each mouthful of incredibly perfect food, we got brighter and happier.
It almost felt like things had returned to normal as if I could slough off the events of the past week like a snake shedding its skin. But once we got to the dessert and after a bottle of wine, the Kings began to get flirty with me again, and I didn’t know how to handle it now that I’d broken our unwritten rules and done something so despicable and dirty that I couldn’t be forgiven.
“Here, let me give you a taste of this chocolate cake, my little queen,” Kingston said, holding his spoon out for me to sample the treat he was eating. I leaned forward, took it in my mouth, and ate it.
“Oh my god, that’s delicious!” I exclaimed.
“I want a taste,” Ryker said, but when Kingston held it out to him, Ryker shook his head and got up on his knees off the floor. He sat in front of me where I was seated on the couch and hooked his hand behind my neck. “I mean right from her lips.”
I opened my mouth to protest because I still felt so dirty after everything I’d done, but he didn’t give me time. He swooped in and kissed me, his mouth hot and dominating as I panicked and thought about pulling away.
But the funny thing about being loved is that even when you hate yourself, you can be healed from their touch. His tongue swirled on mine, his lips pressed hard against my mouth, and his breath filled me up like confidence inflating the part of my soul that had been deflated. With each second that passed, I felt the darkness inside of myself being inundated with light.
It was a pinprick at first, with a single ray of brightness streaming in, but that grew until I felt like I could tell them soon. That we could be normal again.
That they would forgive me.
Ryker broke away, reached out, and swiped Kingston’s dessert with his finger. He put the tip in my mouth and said, “I took it all from you, have a taste.”
I sucked the chocolate off, maintaining eye contact as he visibly heated up.
“Fuck, Evie,” Kingston rasped while watching us. He hadn’t called me that in a long time, and it snapped me back towards him like an elastic band dragging me through time and space right into his arms. “You’re so fucking hot. I missed you so much.”
