Page 180 of Deceit

“Nah.” I step forward, towering over her scent of watermelon, long lashes, and faint freckles. “You’re one because this isn’t your thing. Your style.” I cock my head to the side. “So why don’t you tell me what’s going on?”

One of the babies, the one she’s closest by begins to fuss, and she promptly turns to pick it up. The little thing is wrapped in a purple blanket and when I expect her to talk to it or calm it down, she does the furthest thing I’d ever want her ass to do.

“Here—” She gently shoves the baby into my chest, forcing me to take it or let it be dropped on its head. “—watch her for me.”

“Her?” My palm finds the back of its skull on instinct and big, dark blue eyes locate mine.

“Atlas,” Blue says while I’m being exorcised by a small little bundle of curls. She grunts and sucks on the pink thing in her mouth. “Emmy’s daughter, Bishop. Keep up.”

Right.

The reason why everything feels worse and empty in my life. When it’s late, and I can’t sleep, I feel as though one more secret that comes forth is going to break me.

Emmy’s daughter.

“I just need to warm up the formula. Can you fucking watch her for me, or are you going to plan another assassination on a two-month-old?”

Slowly I shake my head, apparently brain-dead or stricken with a swift stroke, I’m not sure.

Blue steps closer, positioning Atlas so that she’s lying within the crook of my arm and in the perfect position to suck the soul and hate out of me with her eyes.

“Be right back.”

Atlas keeps sucking on her pink rubber thing, and I can see her little gums moving around it as she continues to just stare.

And me, I have nothing to say.

This is Emmy’s fucking daughter.

My girl is in this tiny human being.

She was inside her growing and listening to her voice. She was with her when Emmy was giving birth, unconscious from what I somewhat gathered.

A little girl who would never fully know how amazing her mother was. But every time she looked in the mirror I hope she felt her.

Atlas has soft and kind eyes, her rosy cheeks moving with each suck of the pink object between her lips. And her brazen gaping at me reminds me of how Emmy never backed down from me or any of the boys.

She’s absolutely beautiful.

Atlas suddenly makes a slight grunting noise which makes her brows furrow before she relaxes.

“Yeah, I know, kid,” I mutter to her, then release a harsh sigh. “I fucked up.”

More suction on the plastic piece in her mouth as she expectedly ogles me for—I don’t know—more of an apology?

Another thing that her mother would do.

“I hope you’re like her,” I add on. “Give all those boys shit. Maybe hand your father an early heart attack.” I flick my eyes to Mills, still talking to Reagan, but his attention is already glued on me before breaking away.

He knows I’m not going to hurt these kids.

He’s aware that no matter what Emmy did, I’m screwed. The older I get, the softer I’m becoming.

That I’m not asextraas I used to be when I had tons of built-up anger and stress from almost a decade ago.

And how can I fight a woman who isn’t here? Who left her children behind and named one of them after me?

Every time I hear the other damn kid’s name, I’m going to remember it. I’m going to wonder why the hell she did it in the first place and if she ever loved me. The constant and exhausting questions that will circulate in my brain until I die.

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