Page 37 of Unleash Hades
“The boys are almost eighteen,” she whispered. “Almost.”
Children ruin everything.
She was waiting for the children’s independence - so that they could be free. So that their inheritance would not be in the control of Dick Davenport.
“Then we’ll all be free to go. At least the boys will be.” She pulled away from me on unsteady legs.
I wasn’t ready to let go of her hair, or her shoulders. I needed to touch her skin just a moment longer, though I knew we’d need to separate soon. I gripped her biceps in my hands, feeling the heat of her skin, letting her tether me to this world.
“If they’re safe, I don’t care what happens to me.”
“Icare what happens to you.” I pounded my chest like a caveman.
“I’d rather you keep my boys safe,” she said, her fingertips trailing up my chest and over my Adam’s apple, before resting on my chin. “And Chloe.”
Then she cupped my jaw in her hands, her soft skin scraping against my stubble.
“Please, if you do anything for me at all… keepthemsafe.”
“I will do all of that,” I said, through gritted teeth. “And take care of you, too.”
Chloe. The boys. They made the bars that caged my sweetheart away. I hated them for it… but I loved her enough to do as she requested.
“You’re always watching me, aren’t you?” She was clinging for comfort. “Sometimes I think I feel it… sometimes I feel like you’re the guardian angel I can’t see, but I can feel. But I know that’s silly…”
“I am,” I interrupted her. “I’m always watching.”
I felt the tension crawl up my neck and into my jaw.
Was it possible that she felt my eyes on her? No. There was no scientific data that could possibly back that up. But wouldn’t it be poetic if she could?
But poetry was not reality. She had no idea how much I had done. She probably thought these were just platitudes. But it was very, very real.
I had kept her safe. Every riot, every bomb. I was there. If not me, then one of my colleagues. Any moment she was in harm’s way, we were there.
Except once… one time, when things got out of hand.
The image of a single incident that caused her harm - the one I could not rescue her from - came to mind then, haunting me the way it often did when I raged at the distance between us.
I had failed her once.
And it would never happen again.
“You have no idea how much I have seen.” And I always kept score.
“When can Iseeyou?” she whispered.
“Soon,” I promised. That was the only honest answer that I could give.
“Please…” she whispered, “If anything happens… make sure you take care of my family. Please, protect them.”
“I will,” I said, hating that her thoughts were always for others, never herself. The fact that she took so much. She had made herself the whipping boy, no more free than the girl beside the She-Bear. “I am at your service,” I swore, again, as I had ten years ago. “Always.”
Chapter 11
Calissandra
Islipped into theempty hallway first. Hugo said he’d wait a few minutes then follow after.
