Page 84 of Crimson Flames

“Can we watch it next?” Kai asks and I grin at his enthusiasm. I knew I liked this kid.

“I’ll get it for you and we can watch it soon. I think everyone here might want to go to bed.”

Kai glances around the room, noting that half of us are nodding off as the movie comes to an end. “It’s like eight thirty,” he says with a roll of his eyes.

“We’re old,” Nessa says, curling into Boris’ side. The man hogged her during the whole movie and made me watch as she ate some of his pistachio ice cream.

It was torture, and I’m not talking about watching her lick the spoon and wishing it was my cock torture. I’m talking about witnessing the woman I love willingly eat a dessert that is intentionally flavored like nuts.

I shake slightly as a shiver of disgust runs down my spine. Half of these people must not have taste buds. Laney is curled up on the couch with her two men, one of them fast asleep on her chest as she strokes his hair and the other holds them both close.

Evie and her men take up two of the couches, sprawled out so that they can all touch each other. Akio and Adrian look exhausted with two little girls fast asleep in their laps.

Okay, maybe this isn’t so bad. My girl is smiling, and my soon-to-be adopted kid looks happier than I ever knew possible.

The movie comes to an end, and Damien stretches out before kissing Lev and Evie. When he stands, he looks over at Kai.

“So when do you start training to be like one of us, Kid?”

Nessa sits right up, hand in the air. “No, no, nope. He already agreed. No guns, no drugs, no murdering.”

Damien’s excitement falls before he looks at me. “Damn, she took all the best things.”

He shakes his head, walking over to start cleaning up. I help him grab a trash bag and get to work on the popcorn buckets and no less than ten empty Twizzler packages.

When Nessa and Laney leave the room with Evie, saying they need to organize invitations for the island university, I finally feel like I can speak.

“She never said no knives, teaching him to get out of zip ties or ropes, or how to diffuse bombs.”

I swear Damien actually glows with excitement when he realizes I have a plan.Because yeah, no way in feck is my kid going to not learn how to do everything possible to stay safe.

“Fuck yeah, bro,” Damien says, high-fiving me.

Kai walks over then, his eyes squinting like he knows we are up to something. Damien throws an arm around his shoulders before pulling him close.

“Don’t you worry, little man, I’ll make sure you don’t miss out on all the fun stuff. She also never said I couldn’t teach you about torture.”

Kai laughs, shaking his head.

“She might kill you,” he says.

Damien shrugs. “If I die, I die. No need to worry about it until then.”

“Memento Mori,” Kai says. The phrase makes me freeze.Remember, we all must die.It’s often a phrase used to brainwash soldiers into believing someone else's fight is worth their life. I don’t want Kai to ever think that his life isn’t worth more than someone else’s fight.

“I studied Latin phrases in college,” I say. “I was always intrigued by the different gods that everyone used to worship, and I wanted to know more about them and their origins. The phrase Memento Mori was originally used to remind Roman generals who celebrated their victories a little too hard, that even they will die one day. It was a way to humble them. Yet, like all good things, history changed that.”

I stand, walking over to my soon-to-be son to teach him a lesson I once had to learn on my own.

“The underworld uses that phrase with their soldiers, tricking them into thinking that life is meaningless and fleeting, that the only thing that truly matters is what you die for.”

Kai looks at me with interest, absorbing my words and taking them to heart.

“But what matters most, is what you live for.” I pat Kai on the shoulder, squeezing tight as the words that saved me, the ones I have tattooed on my thigh, ring in my mind. “Memento vivere.”

Remember that you must live.

“How do you know that saying?” Kai questions as Damien stares at us as if we have two heads.

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