Page 75 of Ramsey & Emerson

“Okay…well, now that we know what’s going on, I need to get back to my office,” Deke announced. “I’ve got back-to-back meetings this morning, and I think Dash will have the kids this afternoon, so I need to knock out the important stuff before he brings them.”

“I still can’t believe our babies have babies,” Liam said as he stood up from the chair. “We’re officially old men.”

“We were old the second that God assigned us to our fucking parents,” I pointed out, reminding him of how we’d had to raise ourselves because our parents had all been worthless.

“Too true,” he agreed, grinning again.

“Let us know if you need anything,” Deke said before both men made their way out of my office.

As they shut the door, I chuckled to myself as I walked over to my desk. I should have expected a visit since it wasn’t often that I lost my shit on someone. My anger was always ice-cold, and when I extracted my revenge on someone, it was always without theatrics or remorse. The only time that my temper flared was when it came to Emerson. Since the day I could walk, she was the only person that could bring that volatile side of me out in the open, and it wasn’t pretty whenever it was on full display.

After sitting down behind my desk, I brought my computers to life, ready to start my day. Though I could do this shit in my sleep, worrying about Emerson still made it challenging. It was imperative that she was happy because anything less wouldn’t be good.

Not good at all.

Chapter 2

Emerson~

The only good thing about my husband working long hours was that it allowed me to do the same, and I needed the extra time with a job like mine. Growing up, I hadn’t ever imagined that I’d become a social worker, doing my best to help troubled or neglected kids, but when presented with the opportunity to actually do something with my life, social work had been my choice of burden. After all, I had enough in common with these children toactually hearwhat they were telling me whenever I interviewed them.

Glancing around my office, you’d think that I had everything under control. However, that was until your eyes landed on a mile-high pile of paperwork on the left side of my desk. No matter what, there was never going to be enough social workers for children in need, and that wasn’t me just being negative. There were too many children being born to parents that shouldn’t be parents, but that was the world that we lived in.

I ought to know.

Now, while I’d been raised by a violent father, my mother had tried her best. However, like anyone with a drug, alcohol, or gambling addiction, my mother had been a victim of her love for my father. No matter how many times he would beat her, cheat on her, or mistreat her in general, all he had to do was say that he was sorry, and she forgave him. She’d been mentally and emotionally weak, and that weakness had allowed my father to beat on me as well. I couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t beaten me, but I also couldn’t remember a time when I still hadn’t loved my mother, despite her weakness.

It hadn’t been until he’d gone and killed her that everything had changed for me. I’d never known a rage like that before, and there were lots of times that it threatened to reappear whenever I was working on a particular case. My ability to sympathize with these children and the situations that they were in was the same thing that made me feel murderous at times. After all, old ghosts never really went away; they just haunted you more quietly as the years went by.

Still, despite how my childhood had shaped me, and despite how I should be more traumatized than I was over how my father had beaten my motherto death, I had a good life. Yeah, my marriage was an unhealthy case of co-dependency, but it worked for me and Ramsey. I also had two children that had their challenges but hadn’t grown up to be complete assholes, which that in itself was a bit of a miracle. They were a lot like their father, and when one was a math prodigy and the other a hacking genius, they could have both turned out a lot worse than they’d had. However, at the end of the day, they respected their parents, and that was a lot more than most kids did these days. In fact, for as many kids as we all had, the fact that only Crew and Lennon were a problem still felt like a win.

At any rate, between dealing with Liam and getting a degree in marketing, Roselyn had also raised three sons, Chance, Neo, and Gideon, and none of them had ended up in jail not once.

As for Delaney, she had managed to give Deke four kids on top of getting her law degree, and had she left it up to Deke, they would have had a lot more. However, after giving him Dash, Crew, Zane, and Lennon, Delaney had put her foot down hard.

Now, thankfully for all of us, Ava had given Ace two girls, Delaney Jr. and Maggie, and like the godsend that she was, she had also chosen to be a stay-at-home-mom while Ace had gotten his law degree, and I’d be lying if I’d said that Ava hadn’t helped raise every single one of our children. She’d been the emergency mom, and I’d lost count of how many times she had rescued one of the kids while the rest of us had been in class or at work.

So, twenty-five years after my father had murdered my mother, RMM Securities & Investments was a global financial powerhouse, my kids were raised, happy, and healthy, and the same could be said for all of the people that I loved. Though not all related by blood, we were family, and all of us were blessed beyond what we probably deserved. Still, I wouldn’t trade a day of my life for anything.

When my personal cellphone chimed, I grabbed it off my desk to see who was messaging me. With so many people in our family, it could be anyone.

Ramsey:Leaving the office soon

I stared at the text, my heart still thumping hard in my chest whenever I saw Ramsey’s name pop up on my phone. I knew that it was unhealthy for me to love my husband as much as I did, but I couldn’t help it. From day one, Ramsey had own pieces of me that he shouldn’t have had.

Honestly, it’d be terrifying if I didn’t know that he loved me back just as much. In fact, it was probably safe to say that Ramsey loved me more than I loved him, but when I thought about how much I loved him, that didn’t seem possible.

Me:I might have 2 take sum work home with me, but I’ll b leaving soon 2

I sent off the text, knowing that he wouldn’t care if I was taking some work home with me, especially when he did it often himself. Ramsey just cared that I was home with him, not caring if I was working or watching movies. Twenty-five years later, he still just wanted me next to him, and he’d gotten worse when the kids had finally moved out of the house. Though the front door was always opening and closing with kids stopping by, at the end of the day when the sun was finally setting, Ramsey insisted on me being home with him, and that was okay because there was nowhere else that I’d rather be.

Ramsey:Do u need me 2 stop anywhere 4 anything?

I couldn’t help but smile when I read his text. Even though some people might say that he owed me the consideration, I’d left the past behind me a long time ago. I had a good life that outweighed whatever mistakes Ramsey and I had made when we’d been teenagers. As for any of our arguments after that, I wasn’t afraid to fight with my husband. Since there wasn’t anything on this planet that could tear us apart, fighting with him was just part of the passion that we shared for one another.

Me:No…I’m good

“Girl, what are you still doing here?”

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