Page 58 of Unleash Hades
“You and Alastair fought for each other, and killed for each other. You defied an entire bratva for each other. And you both feel everything you should. Youloveeach other.” I shrugged. “You should talk to him.”
“I’ve tried.” She sounded very whiny.
“I know your history,” I reminded her. “You have attachment problems–”
“Are you a shrink, now?”
“–But you can trust Alastair. He’s a twat but he’s a good man. And he adores you.”
Her jaw clenched, as though she was chewing up her words before she let them out.
“I’m just so tired, and … and when I struggle, all he does is tell me that it’s going to be fine, and that it’s not that bad and…”
“Because he’s happy, Rose,” I interrupt her in her spiraling misery. “You make him happy. The spawn make him happy. He is the happiest he has ever been, as exhausted as he is, he has never been more happy or grounded.”
I let out a long sigh.
“Don’t take it away from him without giving him a chance to fight.”
“What if he doesn’t believe me? What if he doesn’t care?”
“Then you come to your friend Hugo,” I pounded my chest. “And I’ll beat some sense into him.”
Chapter 19
Calissandra
Leeds Bradford Airport, United Kingdom
Luggage in hand, heartin my throat, I waited at the baggage terminal.
“Is she here yet?” Romulus asked, eagerly.
“Obviously not.” I didn’t need to see Remus to know that he was rolling his eyes at his brother.
So much like his father…
“Don’t roll your eyes at your brother,” I chastised.
Then a familiar set of curly hair appeared - familiar, and so much like our mother’s that it was like seeing a ghost.
“Calissandra?” Her little voice was soft, just like it had been as a girl. But now she was a woman. A strong woman, a doctor, and humanitarian.
Far from the little girl who had adored me as a second mother, she was a woman with her own two feet, a voice, and a life that I knew nothing about. Nothing that wasn’t common knowledge, at least.
“Chloe!” I felt the tear fall down my cheek, as I ran to her.
Audience be damned! Richard be damned!
I should be distant, and cool. Just as Richard would expect me to be. He had spies everywhere, after all. But I couldn’t stop the flutter of my heart as I grabbed Chloe in my embrace. She was still shorter than me but not by much. So different from the last time I hugged her almost twenty-four years ago - when she was six years old, and I still had to take a knee to look her in the eyes.
“Je t’aime,” I love you.I whispered.
She said it back. “Je t’aime.”
I didn’t want to pull away. I wanted to hold her for twenty-four years worth of hugs, and birthdays, and every moment of pain when I could not be there.
“Hugo told me everything,” she whispered, her breath unsettling the hair that curled around my ear.
