Page 76 of Always Salty

“You’re sure that it’s Apollo’s son?” I asked curiously.

“There’s no doubt in my mind. Because all of them have that little birthmark right there.” She got up and pointed at the screen, which was still frozen and buffering. “That one right there on the side of his neck. It’s a heart. Every last first-born boy has had it for eight generations now. Plus, they have the bluest eyes. Like the sky in the middle of a sunny day.”

Now that she pointed it out, I had seen the eyes and the birthmark on Apollo before.

“Fuck,” I said. “Call him.”

Cutter pulled out his phone and left the room.

Hours later, when we were lying in bed, Keely had her head resting on my chest. Neither one of us was asleep, and both of us were thinking.

The last couple of hours were crazy.

Apollo had literally stormed the hospital looking for his son, and it’d been on every available news outlet that was broadcasting.

The congresswoman dying, and then the little boy they’d found chained up in her bedroom, had been on every news outlet that was known to man.

And Apollo trying to get to the little boy? That’d made national news.

But he was there now, and the little boy was safe.

“Do you think that she was hurting him?” Keely asked.

I swallowed hard. “She was.”

“How?” she asked.

“From what I saw? She was beating the shit out of him,” I said.

Hopefully my other suspicion was wrong.

Hopefully, he’d only been with her for a short time.

The setup in her place, from what I could tell, didn’t say long-term.

But…

“I’m glad you killed her,” she whispered into my chest.

I pulled her in deeper. “I wasn’t going to until I saw.”

She ran her fingers between my pectoral muscles.

Which, of course, caught the attention of all the fuckin’ cats we still had.

Two of them pounced, causing Keely to giggle.

I, on the other hand, winced.

“Their claws are very sharp, darling,” I teased.

“Whoops.” She laughed, then sobered. “She’s why I don’t want children.”

I squeezed her to me and turned, displacing the cats that’d tried to take up residence on my chest.

The cats fell behind me and curled close, uncaring that they’d been moved.

I pulled her in close and said, “You don’t have to have children, baby. But know that if you do, if you decide you want them with me, I’ll fight with my last breath to keep them safe.”

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