Page 3 of Another Round
“Fucking shit, sweet baby. What have you done?”
The endearment he’s used for me for as long as I can remember breaks the last bit of resolve I had, and I slump against him. Letting him hold me. Accepting his comfort even though I don’t deserve the consolation.
“Are you okay?”
I nod against his crisp white dress shirt. Not sure why he still has his suit on at three in the morning, and I probably don’t want to know.
“Do you know how upset your mother is going to be?”
I shudder from the hardness of his tone. He puts up with a lot of my bullshit, but the one thing he won’t tolerate is anyone fucking with her. Including me. “I know. I’m sorry.”
“That’s not good enough this time Evie.”
It’s not good either when he calls me by my name. Proof I really am fucked despite how gentle he’s being with me. I have to fix this fast. “I’ll talk to her. I’ll make sure she knows I won’t ever do anything like this again. I’ll never—”
He shuts me down by scooping me up. Unwilling to listen to my excuses and promises and apologies. Carrying me inside toward the same doctor who treated Theo’s road rash when he wrecked his Dad’s motorcycle while they practiced escape maneuvers. Our injuries are probably pretty minor compared to the other treatments he gives to my Dad’s men in the middle of the night that I’m not supposed to know about but do anyway.
“It’s too late for all of that. Things are going to change, and I don’t give a damn if you like it or not.”
Which pretty much guarantees I’m not going to. But even I realize there’s nothing I can do that will make him change his mind. No one is more stubborn than my father.
Surprise bolts through me from the name popping up on my screen. I haven’t talked to Nick DeMarco in probably more than twenty years and never really expected to again. I abandoned that world a long time ago, but I always respected DeMarco so I’ll give him the courtesy of answering. Especially because of the leg work it must have taken for his team to track me down for him. I set my mug on the table and swipe my mobile off the glass top. “This wasn’t a call I was ever expecting to get, mate.”
He matches my chuckle, which is a good sign. He wouldn’t be so jovial if he needed me as desperately as he did the last time I worked for him.
“I wasn’t sure if you’d remember me.”
“Well fuck Nick, I’m not that old.”
“Yeah you are.”
It’s true. At least it feels like it sometimes. Somehow aging from twenty-four to forty-five in what seems like just minutes. Other days, when I can’t stop thinking about how things should’ve been, death can’t come for me fast enough. “How’s that beautiful wife of yours?”
Guarding Shae was one of my most unusual, yet also my most favorite jobs. I stayed way longer than I ever intended or should have. But she was sweet, the money was great, and I only had to kill a few arseholes to keep her safe.
“Perfect as always.”
Can’t fault him for being enamored even after all this time. Nothing wrong with a man so utterly in love with his wife, especially when he’ll do anything and everything he can to protect her. “Would she say the same thing about you?”
“Yeah, but we both know she’d be lying.”
We laugh again. He’s a lot more mellow than he used to be. A good woman who gives you the family life you didn’t even know you wanted does that to you. Bittersweet how true I know that is. How much I miss it. How much I should have appreciated it before it was stolen from me.
“But it’s my daughter Evie who I need help with this time.”
The only birth, besides my son’s, that I ever witnessed. I knew even then that baby would give her father hell when she refused to breathe until I dragged my fingernail down her tiny pink heel and made her scream to life with fury. I was right then, and he’s paying the price now. Luckily he can’t see my smug grin. He doesn’t need me rubbing my accurate prediction of her personality in his face. Especially when I hear the worry pulsing in his tone. “I guess she’s not doing as well as her mum then.”
“Looks just like her, but she’s got my personality.”
“Then you really are screwed.”
“Fuck if I don’t know it.”
No offense intended on my part or taken on his because we both know how stubborn, calculating, and deadly he is. Those same traits in a young woman have got to be a nightmare. Yet despite everything I’ve ever wanted to the contrary, I have absolutely zero parenting experience. Nothing I can do for him or for her.
“Some piss ant bastard punched her when she called him out for cheating on her best friend.”
That comment ends my sentimental musing. Fire burns through me as he fills me in on the details of what happened, and the fingers of my free hand instantly curl into a fist. I don’t even know her since I left the job when she was only a few months old. But I do know how much I despise men who hurt women. Triggering my need to end them for their mistreatment as painfully as possible.
