Page 227 of Boy of Ruin
She deserves it.
That, and so much fucking more.
Mav rolls his eyes. “You know they’ll make you come if you don’t—”
I sit up straighter, my arm still slung around Sid’s chest. She presses her nails lightly into my skin, like a warning, but I don’t give a fuck anymore.
“They let him threaten my wife.” I don’t say his name, because he doesn’t deserve to be remembered. He doesn’t fucking deserve to be spoken of, ever again. This is the last I want to say about it. “I have enough fucking money to buy the goddamn world without working another day in my life. If they want to throw the occasional murder my way, fucking fine. So be it. But until I’m good and goddamn ready,” I rap my knuckles against the table, “I’m done. They can come.” I smile at him, his eyes hard on me, and Ella glancing at the ceiling, probably wanting to be anywhere but here. “I’ll fucking kill them if they touch my girl again, but they’re more than fucking welcome to come.”
Maverick clenches his jaw, that tattoo pulling down as he glares at me. “I need you back,” he says quietly, and Ella glances at him, sidling closer, and no doubt putting her hand on his thigh under the table. “I need you back because I can’t do this alone.”
Sid stiffens in my lap. Her fingers are still wrapped around my forearm, but she leans forward a little. “Why go?” she asks her brother, and I stare at him, waiting for him to answer the fucking question. “Why bother?”
Ella’s eyes dart to Sid’s. “You can’t just give up the 6,” she says, surprising me. “We all know that’s not how it works.”
I always knew she was smart and not just good at sucking my dick.
Mav wraps his arm back around her shoulder, pulling her close, and she smiles up at him. He’s smiling too, but then his eyes find mine again and the smile is gone. “We could make it better, if we wanted,” he says quietly.
I bark a laugh at that. “And if we don’t?” Because I don’t fucking care. Like Cain once said, someone else can handle that hero shit. It’s not for me. My son doesn’t need a hero. My wife, either. She’s not one. He won’t be one, I’m sure of it.
I’m fine with that.
Villains get shit done. Heroes are a great distraction from the bloodshed behind the scenes. The hard work that’s necessary. Not every life deserves to be saved.
“You don’t want to protect anyone else from going through what Angel did? What he did?”
I tense with those words, and I know my wife isn’t breathing in my lap.
I hold her closer, a warning and a comfort.
“Nah,” I tell Maverick. “I don’t have time to give a fuck about anyone else right now. My family is my priority.”
“And what if that happened to your son?” Ella chimes in, and I want to ring her fucking neck. “What if someone took him, sold him off to be used?” She darts her gaze to Sid, blushing as she does.
Sid, for her part, is silent, until she says, “If someone touched my son, I’d fucking gut them,” and my dick grows hard all over again.
I kiss her neck, smile at Maverick. “That part,” I tell him.
He rolls his eyes. “Don’t you want to know if they’ve got any other kids being abused right fucking now? Being used as fucking sex toys, just like Sid? Being throat fucked and—”
“Shut the fuck up,” I snarl, holding my wife tighter, as if squeezing her hard enough to cause pain will stop her from hearing the reminders of her past.
“Exactly,” Mav says. “You don’t want to hear it, but it could be happening. And it’s up to us to fucking do something about it.”
For a long moment, no one speaks.
And when I ask, “Baby girl, you wanna burn that shit to the ground?” I don’t. I really, really don’t. It might make me a fuck, but I already know that.
What I want is to keep my wife safe. My kid safe.
I want her by my side, all the time. I want to tuck her against me, never let her move without me knowing about it.
I never claimed we had a healthy marriage, but fuck if it isn’t exactly the kind of toxicity I want.
“Yeah,” she finally says, twisting around to stare at me, her big silver eyes locked on mine. “I do.”
I hold her gaze for a moment, biting my lip.
