Chapter Twelve
Jonas.
She comes to with a deep inhale after we’ve cleaned her up, put her in some black leggings, a purple cami and my hoodie.
We also have her wrapped up in a blanket laying across my lap, head on my chest. Her feet are in Mav’s lap and Damon is kneeling on the ground, just gazing down at her, rubbing his knuckles across her cheekbone.
He grins at her and she moves her hand from under the blanket until it’s out all the way. She cups his jaw and murmurs something in French but he shakes his head, replying softly. He kisses each of her fingers then has her cup his jaw again, leaning into her touch. “My beautiful wife…”
Raven hums happily in my arms and kisses me under my jaw.
I grin because she’s a fucking mess. Her hair is crazy and the remaining mascara she had on is all over her cheeks, but yeah, she’s fucking gorgeous.
I also don’t miss the way she tries to sneakily look at the tattoo on her wrist. I really hope one day she doesn’t have to look at it.
That one day, all those bad things in her head somehow disappear and she knows we’re real. That all of this is real.
We all let out a collective scream when the blushing flight attendant comes out, speaking to the floor, letting us know that we’ll be landing soon.
She disappears then we all start laughing.
With wide eyes I look at Mav and Damon. “Um… any chance she didn’t hear us fuck our wife until she passed out? ”
Raven lets out a mortified groan and covers her face but I can feel how hard she’s shaking from laughing. She buries her face in my chest so I kiss the top of her head.
Damon blushes and Maverick clears his throat to speak. “I uh… didn’t even remember she was here.”
I feel a little guilty because, same. But we all get in our respective seats, put our seatbelts on and get ready to land.
Once we’re on the tarmac in Spain, I flick my gaze over to Damon who’s currently looking at his phone. Like he can feel me watching him, he looks up, locks eyes with me and sends me a wink.
Fuck yes. Operation: Fuck with Sofia is on.
Mostly, I can't wait for baby girl to see what we have for her.
We climb into an unsuspecting SUV Aleksi has most likely set up for us for it to be this way.
Because discretion is exactly what we need.
And our driver is Ivan, Mom’s bodyguard.
He asks about our wedding, making small talk with Maverick who’s in the front with him riding passenger-side.
The vehicle is taking us not to a house or a hotel, but straight to the outskirts of Madrid, away from all the tourist hotspots.
Raven eyes us curiously but I only grin at her. She sighs heavily and taps her fingers to her knees. I don’t say anything because I’m really excited about this surprise for her. Not only do I think she’s gonna love it, but I’m curious to see how she’s going to deal with her mother exactly.
Sofia is a bitch. The handful of times I was forced in her presence always made me feel sick. She was pretty on the outside, sure. But the ugliness inside of her made me think of a lizard with scratchy scales.
When Raven killed John Weston Monroe, we were only a few minutes behind her.
She wanted to confront him alone, so we heard a few of the things he had to say.
How it was just business. That she was just an asset.
And the only thing I could think was ‘But where was Sofia in all of this?’ My mom doesn’t really like to bring up that I’m adopted, and mostly, she’s never made me feel like I am.
She’s treated me like a mother should, and she’s guided me even in my darkest times.
She’s the best. But one thing my mom does say is, ‘you may not be born of my body, but you are still my son.’
Raven was born of Sofia’s body…
She doesn’t really talk about her life before Sofia married John, but from what I’ve gathered, her dad- a lawyer in LA- was a drunk, which led to her parents fighting a lot.
But he showed up for her. Even toasted. But it caused Sofia to be embarrassed by him a lot.
Raven says that towards the end, that Sofia’s disdain for Raven’s father seemed to have rolled over to her. I believe that.
The SUV comes to a stop in front of an old…
huh. It’s a building not a warehouse. It looks old and crusty on the outside like you’d get tetanus if you touched it too long.
There’s a huge ten-foot wrought-iron fence around it.
It kind of looks like a small, abandoned prison.
The walls are concrete and gray and there’s only a few barred windows every so often but not a lot.
The parking lot is empty save two other vehicles, but I trust Damon and Maverick.
They’ve been in charge of this entire thing since I’ve been busy but keeping me in the loop enough.
I did put my gun in my waistband when we landed, though. Just in case.
We all get out and flank our wife.
We’re led into the facility and it smells like nobody’s been here for years.
There’s water dripping on the floors and yellow fluorescent lights hang every so often.
I get a weird sinking feeling this isn’t a normal warehouse.
Ivan talks to one of the guards posted inside in Russian, and the guard leads us further inside, taking us to a lower level by a back stairwell.
And yup. Conditions down here are worse.
I almost stop in my tracks when I realize there are cells.
Good.
I can hear Sofia scream something in Spanish but it’s so fast I don’t catch what she says.
Raven stops in her tracks and turns to face us.
Her eyes narrow into a cute little death glare and she marches right back up the stairwell, so obviously, we follow.
Once we’re alone in what I’m assuming is an old office ‘cause there’s a desk, her hands fly up so fast and my baby looks so cute when she’s mad.
What the actual fuck! Why is she here? Why are we here? What is going on?!
It’s Damon who speaks just as fast as she’s signing. “Amourette, we were able to track her here. Aleksi was able to set this up for us. This is our wedding gift to you.” He pauses momentarily while he searches her eyes. “What do you want to do?”
One hand goes to her side, the other to her forehead, rubbing it, then scrubs it down her face.
She starts pacing but she’s visibly shaking.
I want to go and comfort her but I’ve learned that when she needs space to figure it out, it’s best to let her mind work in that mysterious, villainous, beautiful way.
My gorgeous killer queen. God, I love her.
She keeps pacing back and forth, running her fingers through her hair, only to grip it towards the back of her skull, where her crown would settle so her hair is out of her face.
She stops, puts a hand on her hip and very slowly turns to face us, cheeks puffed up and exhaling slowly so they flatten again.
When she lets go of her dark tresses, they curtain forward, framing her face and fuck. She’s so pretty.
Can you call Aleksi? I need to ask him a few things. She signs a bit slower this time but I know she’s still a little mad. Oooooh I wonder if she’ll take it out on me when she heals a bit more from the pounding we gave her on the plane?
Damon nods, plucking his phone out of his suit jacket. “Of course, Little Bird.”
He FaceTimes Aleksi, who answers with a huge smile. It’s loud around him and there’s lights hanging behind him. “Hey man, my guys just told me you got there on time. Is everything okay?”
Damon nods. “Yeah, Raven just has a few questions she’d like for you to answer.”
“Cool. Let me leave this restaurant and I’ll call you back in less than five. Just gotta pay my tab.” He hangs up and it takes him about fifteen minutes to call again. This time he’s in a car. “Alright, what’s up?”
Damon turns the phone to face her. She starts signing but Damon interprets for her. “I think I know what I want to do. You’re good with tech stuff, right? Sabrina said you… stream, or something?”
Aleksi scoffs out a laugh like he’s going ‘duhhh.’ “Yeah, I stream.”
Raven nods, eyes moving about the room, gnawing on her bottom lip. Her brows furrow then rise. “D… Do y-you th-think you c-could f-find the d-deed to the M-M-Monroe m-man-mansion?”
I can’t see Aleksi’s face from this angle but he makes a humming noise in his throat.
“Yeah.” He pauses. “Actually, I’m in Madrid.
Maksim and I thought you might need me so I flew in.
If you give me about an hour or so, I can get to you.
I just have to stop by somewhere and get supplies but it shouldn’t take me too long. ”
Raven nods and signs Okay.
Damon says a few more words to Aleksi then hangs up. Raven sits on the edge of the desk and bows her head, hair hiding her face. “What are you planning, Little Bird?”
Her head snaps up and an eerie smile crosses her lips but she doesn’t answer.
It’s like a switch in her turns off. I’ve seen it the few times I’ve witnessed her kill. The only time she wasn’t able to do it was when we had to take care of Axel. She had the knife right at his throat, right there, going in for the kill, straight for the jugular… but then… she couldn’t.
And we couldn’t let him survive.
I couldn’t let him take another breath.
Damon allowed me to go crazy. He let me beat Axel until he was a gurgling, purple, bloody mess.
And I was gonna do it. I was going to slit his throat.
I was aching to feel when he took his last breath beneath my grasp…
But it was Damon who suggested we let him die the way Raven did.
And it was Maverick who told us burying a corpse over a freshly dug grave was the best way to go - nobody would think of going out to look for that unless they were to exhume the body for whatever reason.
So, while Raven was catatonic and Damon and I were cleaning our mess, Maverick was looking up obituaries. He found one of some old guy that had died of a heart attack. So that’s exactly what we did between the three of us. We took care of it. And our bond has never been stronger. Especially now.
There are times when I want to ask Maverick if he feels guilty, but then I see the way he looks at Raven, that I know he doesn’t.
It was a bad thing we had to do to get to the good part.
And even then… it didn’t feel so ‘bad.’ It felt right.
The only thing that felt wrong was Sofia getting away. And now we have her.
And my baby has a look on her face that tells me some kind of justice will be served.