Page 76 of Crimson Tears

“Watch how you speak to my wife,Father.”

I take a deep breath as Evie tells him to mind his own business. When the door shuts again, I look back to her.

“Who told you that having love for more than one person wasn’t normal, Boris?”

I rub a hand over my face in thought.Dammit.

“No one.”

Evie smiles softly. “Sounds to me like you are letting what you perceive society thinks, rule what you allow yourself to feel.”

I do not respond to that. One, because she is correct. Two, it does not require a response.

“What is it that is holding you back?”

“I do not have feelings for Cillian like Lev has for Damien, or even how Alexi might have for them.”

This time when she smiles, I can tell she is holding back a laugh. “Boris, you don’t have to feel any kind of way about Cillian that you don’t want to. You can both love Nessa and separate that from how the two of you feel for each other.”

“Really?” I question. I have never seen it done like that before. Even Evie’s friend Laney has two partners, but they are with each other as well.

“Boris,” Evie reaches out for me, wrapping her small fingers around my arm and squeezing. “Family and love are what you make it. Living without any of my men would make me feel as if I were missing a limb. How would your life feel without Cillian?”

I ponder that idea for a moment because some of it would be easier. But every time I saw Nessa struggling, or each moment I could not be there for her, I would think I had failed her in some way by not giving her what she needed. Even walking away felt like I failed her. I promised her together, promised forever, then I turned my back on her.

“It would feel like something was missing,” I admit.

She drops her hand and glances up at me as a new worry tears at my heart.

“What if she cannot forgive me?” I ask, ashamed of what I have put her through.

“I have a very strong feeling that she already has.”

With that, she walks back to the car and gets in, leaving me with my thoughts. I still feel confused and worried, but for the first time, I think I am starting to understand what my son has found with Evie.

It’s not about how the group is coupled up, it is about something so much greater. Family.

And dammit, the kid is family now.

Chapter 23

The power came on sometime later, and I have taken to sneaking looks at the watches of the men who come to guard us. Not because I need to know what time it is, but because Nessa now has a raging fever.

With the power on, the speakers in the room pick up on the words outside. I try to stay quiet, not wanting to give away that we can hear each other just yet.

It turns out these guards are mouthy feckers. In the past two hours, I have learned that the children they traffic are beingauctioned off to the highest bidders by a woman. She sells them in groups and Donovan bought around forty of them.

It’s expected that the kids will take a year to train up, and they move them in some kind of pattern, but I struggle to understand their words perfectly. Some of them are as young as six years old.

The same age Enya was when I met her in the back of that van.

They all go quiet the minute Green steps into the room though, almost as if they are afraid of him. Hell, I’m afraid of the guy.

He walks into Nessa’s old cell, surveying all of the dried blood on the ground, and laughs.

“I didn’t think she was going to wake up from that last round. You’ve got a feisty little one in there.”

I refuse to give him a reaction, so I stand unmoving with my arms crossed.

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