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MINKA
Cato Malone is now eighteen years old. He was just a child last week. But with a birthday just passed, and access to fake IDs since he was old enough to look reasonably grown, his world has been nothing but extremes.
Drugs.
Guns.
Crime.
Women.
His father was the kingpin of a New York mob family, and his brothers, next in line for the throne. Cato is the youngest of five, raised predominantly by Felix Malone, the second oldest. Their father is dead, and the first-born son is my next-door neighbor—shunning New York and everything that includes. Tim wanted out, which means Felix has become the new leader of the family and the face on uncountablewantedposters in every police precinct across the country.
Felix is unhinged, annoyingly charming, and although it’s not ideal, he’s in charge.
“He can’t stay here!” I move through the bedroom I share with Archer Malone—the second youngest, and my husband—in black slacks and a simple t-shirt bra. My hair is wrapped in a towel, and my healing shoulder pinches with the effort of my movements.
A recovering reconstruction and a bleeding disorder means I heal slowly. But my work ethic had me returning to my office long before my homicide detective husband—ironic, I know—was ready.
“Archer!”
While he remains smugly silent, watching my tirade and lounging beneath the sheet that provides his only modesty, I spin from my closet and glare into his perfect green eyes.
“Cato is not living with us,” I grit out. “I can’t be what he needs.”
“You’re exactly what he needs.” My husband sits up on our bed so the white cotton sheet drops to his lap, his muscular chest growing with adrenaline as he reaches out and hooks his arm around my hips.
He yanks me toward the bed, viciously fast and potentially painful for my injury, but he wouldn’t be Archer Malone if he didn’t ensure my safety first and foremost.
So he drags me onto his lap and cradles my shoulder so I feel nothing but support and excitement washing through my veins. Then he knocks my bundled towel away and peers down into my eyes. His smile and his stubbled jaw shift with the movement. “You’re all anyone needs, Minka. The kid has moved across the country just to be near you.” He pauses to flash a wicked grin. “Aren’t you flattered?”
“No!” I smack his hand away and huff. “He’s a child, Archer, but he acts like a grown man.”
“He’s been treated like a grown man his entire life,” he counters. “This is all he knows.”
“And now he wants to live here?” I drop my head back in frustration and stare up at the old ceiling. Paint peels in some spots, and water damage stains others. “I can’t be his mommy, Archer. And I can’t be his girlfriend.” I bring my gaze back to his and purse my lips. “I’m a married woman.”
He chuckles low on his breath and folds his back to drop a kiss to my flattened lips. “He doesn’t get a chance with you romantically, Mayet. And he wouldn’t know what to do with a mommy. But he’s seeking family, and for right now, he just wants to be here. We should let him.”
“You saynear,” I growl, “buthesays, ‘bring me to work, and let me sleep on your bedroom floor.’”
“That’s not true!” Cato inserts from the hallway, where he lingers on the other side of our closed bedroom door. “I never asked to sleep in your room.” But he stops and laughs. “Unless you mean in your bed. In which case…”
I shoot a glower back to Archer—and sigh when he only sniggers.
“He was never taught boundaries or manners,” he mumbles, so only I can hear. “He doesn’t know how to be normal.”
“So you want us to finish raising him?! He’s eighteen. He should have basic life skills figured out by now.”
“He knows how to kill a man,” Arch whispers. “And how to shoot a gun. He knows how to negotiate a life, and how to protect himself and his family.”
“He thinks sleeping with his therapist is part of the one-hour deal he’s paying for,” I groan. “And that hitting on his brother’s wife is entirely appropriate.”
“The second is just an asshole testing his boundaries. He wouldn’t actually go to bed with you.”
“Yes I would!” Cato retorts from the hallway. “I’d pay good money to bag an old chick if she looked like you, Minka Mayet.”
“Oldchick?!”
