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I watch as she smiles and stands, turning to face me. Her gaze finds mine. Right now, she’s not my mom. She is, without a doubt, the director’s wife.
“There is no danger,” she says. “I knew they were trying to get to you. I also knew that they were angry, but Parker was frightened, and I was not going to allow them to do that. We should never be scared, Coleman. We are women of the family.”
Nodding my head slowly, I clear my throat. “While that is true, they are menofthe family, and I know what they are capable of. You should have been scared.”
She shrugs a shoulder, then takes a step backward and places her hand on the back of the couch. I watch as she curls her fingers around the edge, staring at me, her lips curved up into a smile, her gaze looking nowhere else.
“I wiped their asses, Coleman. They would not hurt me.”
Leaning forward, I snort. “Mom,” I hiss just low enough. “We had orders and went through with those orders to take care of not just Uncle Dean but our aunt, too. Trust me when I tell you that you were not safe.”
Her lips part, and I straighten, taking a step backward. I can tell now that she understands the severity of what’s happened. Our aunt’s death was ruled a suicide, but I knew the truth of it, and now she does, too.
“Coleman,” she whispers.
I don’t respond. Instead, Hendrick calls my name, and I turn to see him restraining Andrew, but he’s not hurting him. There is no intent there, and I wonder if he’ll make it out of this room alive. I’m honestly not sure.
Andrew is just a kid. I see a lot of Claire in him. I want him to make it in this life, in this world. “What’s wrong?” I ask, my eyes finding and focusing on Hendrick.
Claire is already on the way toward her brother and Hendrick. I start to move toward them, but then I stop. Claire lifts her hand and cups her brother’s cheek.
Andrew is clearly confused and just a boy. Half of his family has been eradicated. I can’t imagine he feels too happy to be here with the people who just killed his brother and who already killed his parents.
I decide to let her deal with the boy for a moment. Maybe she can calm him down. He murmurs something to her, and I watch as she lowers her head, resting her forehead against his for a beat.
She turns around to face me, her brows snapping together and her eyes wide as she looks up at me with an expression of what I can only describe as worry. I take a step toward her and another, quickly closing the distance between us. I cup her cheeks and rest my own forehead against hers.
“Talk to me,” I rasp.
I know this has to do with Andrew, with her parents and Shelby, but I want to hear the thoughts that are going through her head. I have no doubt there is some shit there she’s got rolling around.
“Talk to me,” I repeat.
She sucks her lips in, rolling them a few times before she lets out a heavy sigh. I feel her hands press flat against my chest, and although it burns my new tattoo, I don’t give a fuck. She can punch me there, and I wouldn’t give a fuck if that’s what she needed to do.
“I can’t leave him. I can’t feed him to the wolves. Andrew is the only good thing my parents ever did. He’s not like them. He’s not like Shelby. Please.”
She begs. And if I were a different man, I would make her sink to her knees and then beg some more. And maybe I will, but it won’t be for her brothers’ safety. I’ll just have her beg for my cock, to come, to suck me, all the above and more. But not her brother.
“Whatever you want, hummingbird,” I murmur. “Whatever you want.”
She lifts her head and shifts back slightly, her eyes focused on mine and nowhere else. Right now, she is the only fucking person not just in this room but in the universe. It happened somewhere between watching her in Vegas and then fucking her in that club, but I fell head over heels for this woman.
“Whatever the fuck you want,” I growl.
CLAIRE
“I’ll takecare of Shelby, but where is Allison?” Hendrick barks.
I can tell he’s agitated. I don’t blame him. Even if he isn’t admitting it, he loves her. It’s clear how distraught he is about her being gone. Then I start thinking about that… she’s gone, likegonegone.
The dead bodies have been removed, Brenda has been taken away by a very relieved but also irate Henry Hamilton, and now it’s just Shelby, Andrew, Hendrick, Wells, and Parker, along with me.
It’s in this moment when I realize that since this whole ordeal started and the men walked into the room, Parker has been completely silent. She’s been observing what’s happening, but she hasn’t said anything to Wells, and she sure hasn’t stood up and run over to him, hailing him as her conquering hero or anything.
“Where the fuck is Allison?” Hendrick asks again, this time a bit louder.
There is nothing but silence that meets Hendrick’s ears. He doesn’t ask anything else. In fact, he marches out of the condo and slams the door behind him. I open my mouth to ask where Allison is but snap my lips closed when Wells walks over to Parker.
