Page 92 of PortCity Killers

I would go home with daddy, get fucked within an inch of my life and cuddle up to my favorite person in the entire world. I looked fucking gorgeous. And I was about to down millionaire champagne. The only thing that could have made it better would have been one second of Jaymes's time.

I just wanted to know he was okay. That he was warm and safe somewhere, but I wasn’t stupid. A fool? Undoubtedly. An idiot? Yeah, that was fair. But I wasn’t stupid. Wherever Jaymes was now, he was wreaking havoc. And maybe he would until such a time as that chaos came kicking down his door.

Until then, I sighed, handing my phone over to Valentina. I hadn’t looked at it all day, but feeling the nervous butterflies floating in my system had me clutching onto bad habits and this was one I wasn’t willing to let control me just yet. If Bryce needed to get a hold of me, he would have Aedyn. I’d already texted him that my phone would be off.

“Hold this for me, will you? I don’t want to keep looking at it only to be disappointed when I don’t hear from him.”

She made a small, assuring noise before she plucked it from my fingers, shutting it in the drawer next to us, “If I may?”

“Has it stopped you before?” I teased, but she leaned her hip against the drawer with a solemn face.

“You have a big heart for those you love, and it’s endearing to see. The only love I have ever felt is from Don. It’s...different than yours with your own brother.”

“When did you meet?” I asked.

“Don and I?”

I nodded.

“I do not know. I have always loved him; I don’t remember a time when I didn’t. He is older, so perhaps he will know, but I was born into the children’s home where he was brought in. But that is a story for him to tell you.” She adjusted my crown, gently working her way down to the wayward curls at the back of my head, “Your love for your brother seems much bigger than even ours is for each other. Don and I are loyal, and we love each other because we loved each other before we learned to hate. But you do for your brother things I would not, not if he was the way Jaymes is. You let people into your heart who don’t deserve it.”

I looked away, not wanting her to see the tears ready to fall. She continued, “I am among them, I admit. All I mean to say is that you should be more careful, amore mio. I would not want to become the one you hate because I had to save you from yourself or from him.”

I stared at her, pushing the tears down and brushing them off my cheeks when they fell anyway. Because it hurt so fucking much for others to see how much I would do for Jay when he could barely acknowledge what I had already done.

“I have not loved anyone before but Don and I am coming to realize that there are a lot of things I would do for someone I loved, even if that meant becoming a monster to them.”