Page 47 of Unleash Hades
The horrors perpetrated by Dick Davenport, the…husband.He did not deserve the privilege of such a title.
They didn’t know everything. They never would. They didn’t know the manipulations, the schemes, the way he held their children over her head. The way he…
“Is the celibacy worth it?” Rose said, her lips pursing.
She and Alastair fucked like rabbits. No wonder they had twins so early.
I shuddered, thinking of the shit-machines that had taken over their lives.
“If it spares me one of those disgusting little parasites,” I nodded to her children, “Then yes.”
Caledonia Security was getting its fair share of babies. Besides two sets of twins, Chloe and her husband Leo had adopted Asa. The almost-seven-year-old was tolerable.
At least he was house trained.
Our office was starting to look like a daycare during the cold season, when the snot-nosed kids couldn’t be dropped off at daycare. Everyone would stop and coo, and the day would be thoroughly interrupted!
“Did you just call my children parasites?” Alastair came to his wife, planting a kiss on her forehead, before running a gentle hand over her hair. She smiled, weakly. A polite smile. My friend had no idea how much trouble he was in.
Then he leaned down to each snot-nosed baby and kissed their little flat noses. I truly did not see the appeal. They didn’t even look human. They resembled… frogs, with their funny little bent knees, and snuggled arms.
Who would ever want such a wrinkled alien?
“Isn’t that what they are?” I said, frowning.
“The man has the tact of a rabid hyena,” Alastair said, placing a hand on his wife’s shoulder.
I knew Rose wasn’t offended in the least. We had struck up a small alliance since I let her take me at gunpoint to rescue Alastair during the great Irish/Bratva war that installed her father as Pakhan.
“He’s not wrong,” Rose said, with a shrug.
Alastair placed his hands over his heart, as if he had been stabbed there, and dramatically cried, “How dare you say that about our babies?”
He wasn’t offended either. I wondered what social customs made such strange displays of sarcasm an effective mode of communication. It just seemed rife with possible misunderstandings and was a complete waste of energy.
“I’m the one waking up every two hours to feed them,” Rose said with a roll of her eyes. “You’re not their foodbank.”
“I cannot believe what I’m hearing!” Alastair couldn’t keep the glint and small smile from his lips as he stared at his wife, and their children. Even on his worst day, he was still a happy man. I envied that about him.
I wondered if that was because his wife and children made him happy, or if he had simply gotten stupider since falling in love. Or maybe it was both?
My thought was immediately tampered, when I looked at Rose, whose tired eyes looked at her children with a sadness that looked… dangerous.
Like she was on the brink of tears.
Chapter 15
Calissandra
My boys were homeand it was a short time before they would disappear for university. Then they may be gone for good - off to their own grand adventures, and far too important to spend time with their Mum.
My boys had said they wanted to stay in, read, watch movies, play video games, and order terrible American Chinese food. They shooed me out of their rooms, telling me to come find themfor lunch, because after the overcrowding of boarding school, they wanted a moment alone.
It was going to be hard to have them so far away from me again, even if it was for the best. It felt so much like Chloe… how I had packed her things and sent her off without a word. Worried that if Richard knew I loved her that he would… that…
One year into marriage, when our father mysteriously passed, I knew. I suspected, but couldn’t confirm, but deep in my bones… Iknewwhat Richard was. My father’s death was unlikely to have been an accident. A simple medical emergency. Something sinister had happened. I could see it on Richard’s barely repressed smirk, as he went about planning the funeral.
I knew enough to send Chloe away.
