AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Micah, however, wasn’t like the guy I’d been around earlier. He wasn’t smiling. He simply nodded his head at Blaise and said nothing. I let out a relieved sigh.
“She has your number when she’s ready to see you. We need to go,” Blaise said to Liam.
I tried to step forward, and Blaise’s hand tightened on my waist.
I glared up at him. “Let me tell him goodbye,” I said through clenched teeth.
Blaise’s nostrils flared like they did when he was controlling himself. “Tell him from here.”
I pushed my fingernail into his chest. “Back off and let me do this my way. He’s my father, Blaise. He trusted you to come here. Now, stop it.”
Blaise took a deep breath, and his hand finally released me. I gave him a grateful smile, then stepped forward to Liam. I felt awkward now, but I had to do this. Our time had been short, but I had a promise of more.
When Liam opened his arms for me to step into for a hug, I went willingly and tried very hard not to let my emotions get the best of me.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
“I’m here. Always. Don’t be a stranger,” he replied.
“I won’t. I promise,” I told him.
Then, I stepped back, and he let me go. Blaise’s hand was on my waist immediately. I rolled my eyes at Liam, who looked like he was fighting not to laugh. Then, I waved one last time and turned with Blaise to walk away. Back to the life I belonged in.
Thirty-One
Liam
“She doesn’t have a fucking clue, does she?” Micah whispered beside me. The note of awe in his voice was understandable.
“Nope. I tried to warn her, but she refuses to believe anything bad about him,” I told Micah.
“She just poked his chest with her fingernail and scolded his ass in front of us,” Micah said. “And the bastard didn’t flinch. He took it. She won,” he said, shaking his head. “Damn, she’s a badass.”
I chuckled. “No. She is in love with a man we don’t know. I doubt anyone does. He will go out tomorrow and probably blow some motherfucker’s head off, but she won’t know it. She’d never believe it.”
I watched as the daughter I’d thought I’d never know punched a massive man holding the door open for her in the arm and said something to him with the same sass I remembered in her mother. She trusted the monsters that were known as The Family, and it was clear they adored her.
Damn, Etta would be proud of her. My throat burned as I thought of the fact that she was missing it all. She deserved this. She’d have been a damn good mother.
“Do you trust him?” Micah asked me.
“With my daughter, yes.”
He sighed. “What about us?”
I glanced over at Micah. “Because of her, we’re safe. Well, I am. If you open your damn mouth and piss him off, I don’t think you’re safe. In fact, I’m not sure Madeline likes you much. Walk the line, son,” I told him and turned back to watch the black SUVs drive away.
She’d come back to visit. I knew this wasn’t goodbye. But it still made my chest ache to see her go so quickly.
“Does she know he killed nine men for her?” he asked me.
I shrugged. “She thought his men had killed two. I told her it was five, that he had gone after the others.”
Micah laughed. “So, she thinks he killed three?”
“I wasn’t sure she could handle the truth or if she’d even believe me.”
Micah nodded. “Yeah, it’s hard to believe one man could walk into a meeting and take out nine armed men alone, then walk out like nothing had happened. Word was, he’d used a silencer, and no one knew they were all dead in there until hours later, when they hadn’t come out.”
“I tried to tell her he was the Devil, and she got pissed.” I chuckled. As if I had come up with that name for him.
“Fucker is obsessed with her,” Micah said.
“He really is,” I agreed.
Micah sighed then. “I’d been willing to face your wrath for her, but I’m gonna choose life and let that one go.”
I laughed loudly as we walked back into the house. One thing that Blaise Hughes was good for, for sure, was keeping my whore of a VP away from my daughter.
“Damn, it’s a shame though,” he muttered. “Women like that don’t come around often.”
Damn if I didn’t know it. No one had ever been like Etta. I’d live this life with a void that could never be filled.
Thirty-Two
Madeline
Blaise held me against him the entire ride to the private airport. He said little, and I left him alone with his thoughts. I knew seeing me touch Liam and being that close to other men had been hard for him. He needed to work through it because I intended to see my father again.
