Page 49 of Assassin's Heart
I closed my eyes and breathed out a curse. That one piece of information explained so much about Remi’s brother.
“Where did you go?”
Remi shrugged. “There was nowhere to go. Nowhere safe.”
“So…” I considered his words, the posture of his body. They’d run, but… “You lived on the streets.”
“We took care of each other,” he said, rising from his chair to gather the tray.
They’d had each other and no one else, no one to keep them safe. Not like Brooke. How had that affected them, three little boys surviving on their own? The streets were hard enough for adults, much less…
My stomach turned. “Remi—”
He was almost to the door. “You get Brooke in bed while I take this downstairs.”
Something about the words made me hesitate. “You’re not staying here tonight, Remi.” The bed was big, but not big enough for three. Besides, I didn’t want Brooke seeing Remi sleeping with me. There’d be too many questions I couldn’t answer.
“I’m definitely staying here”—he opened the door before turning back to me—“right there in that chair.” He jerked his chin toward a deep, plush armchair in the corner. “Brooke will wake up tonight. She’ll be scared. And I’ll be there to assure her she has a guard watching over her every minute.”
There was that damn melting/ovaries exploding thing again. I really wished it would go away. Especially since this time it was mixed with a seeping disappointment that Remi wasn’t staying for me.
Get a grip, Leah.
“Put her to bed,” Remi was saying, seeming oblivious to the internal psychoses duking it out in my brain. “I’ll be right back.”
He moved to pull the door closed, then stuck his head back inside. “Oh, and Leah?”
“Yeah?”
“I expect a good-night kiss when I get back.”
The door closed behind him. He couldn’t have moved a step away, though, because when I let a curse loose, his laugh reached me before fading down the hall.
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Chapter Twenty
Remi —
The crick in my neck had totally been worth it. For the first time in my life, I’d felt worthy. Powerful. I’d kept watch over the two females who meant everything to me, soothing away the nightmares with a few gentle words when either woke up, and this morning, despite feeling like shit from lack of sleep, I also felt like captain of the fucking universe. Like I had found the one thing I was meant to do for the rest of my life.
Now I just had to convince Leah to believe it too.
Letting myself out just before seven, I closed the bedroom door behind me and went to take a shower. Half an hour later I was working on breakfast for six. Six. Holy shit. How had our little family of three, relying on no one but each other, doubled in size so fast?
I almost asked Levi that when he followed me in, but kept my mouth shut, not quite ready to let his particular brand of logic become a downer this morning. Eli arrived shortly after, then Abby, meaning everyone was in the room when Leah walked in with Brooke.
My brothers stilled immediately, their eyes on Leah’s little girl. I could read the same fear in their eyes that I’d felt yesterday, the sameholy shit, it’s a tiny human! How the fuck do I handle this?Followed almost immediately bydon’t say the wordfuck, damn it!Why was a child so terrifying? Maybe it was because we knew how easy it was to screw up a kid. Maybe it was because it had been a couple of decades since we’d been allowed to be kids. Maybe it was because we couldn’t predict their actions like we could some asshole looking through the scope of a Remington 700.
Either way, it was best to treat them like a Tyrannosaurus rex—don’t move and maybe they won’t see you.
“Hey, everyone,” Leah said, leading Brooke by the hand.
A chorus of hellos had Brooke’s step hitching as they approached the table. Steeling my courage, figuring Brooke had to get used to me sometime, I stepped in to give Leah a quick kiss on the lips. Her eyes went wide, darted to Brooke, but I wasn’t going to hold back for her daughter’s sake. Brooke wouldn’t trust me if I lied, with words or actions.
“Good morning, little one.” I held out my hand. “Would you like to meet my family?”
The wordfamilyseemed to settle Brooke’s nerves, as if being related meant the others were safe too. That hadn’t proved the case with Ross, necessarily, but it would with the people in this room. When Brooke slid her tiny hand into my enormous paw, I got that same feeling I’d had earlier, like my chest had puffed out to twice its normal size and my head would no longer fit through the door. She was trusting me. So fragile and innocent, and she was trustingme.
