Chapter 26
Twenty-Six
Snow crunches underfoot as we walk, the lights and Christmas decorations outside the small farmhouse like a beacon up ahead.
Hendrix and I tossed the bodies into the back of the Escalade for Drako’s men to get rid of.
By morning, you wouldn’t know anything had happened.
His crew is thorough and will even dig up the blood-stained dirt and incinerate it along with everything else.
“I want Andie in on this,” Syn says.
I like Andie and her guys, Keane especially. After the gala when Syn burned the compound to the ground, we’ve kept in touch. Our personalities are similar, so it’s been easy to become friends with him.
“Michael is mine.”
She glances up at me, snowflakes clinging to her hair. “He killed Katalina. I promised her that if she ever needed me, I would be there. I owe her.”
Syn’s big, beautiful heart is a force to be reckoned with. Michael just came after her. Tried to kill her. But her first thought is for a woman she barely knew, who used to be her somewhat rival for Tristan.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“You’re pregnant.”
She full-belly laughs. “Being pregnant doesn’t make me an invalid.”
I look at Hendrix for help.
“I don’t want to be sleeping on the couch for the next month if I agree with you.”
She punches him in the arm. “Hey!”
Changing the subject because I’m not going to let her anywhere near Michael, no matter what she says, I ask, “What is your favorite memory of Christmas here?”
There is so much of her life I don’t know but am eager to get a glimpse of.
Aoife and Syn are complete opposites in many ways, even though their foundations, the core of their souls and their hearts, are the same.
It’s weird thinking about her as two different people, but that’s exactly what happened.
When she lost her memories, she woke up as someone else.
She’s been trying to reconcile the two ever since her memories came back.
Syn’s face lights up at my question. “Honestly? I wouldn’t be able to pick a favorite.
Alana made every Christmas special for me.
We’d bake, make crafts, take long walks, roast marshmallows under the stars, sing carols, and camp out in the living room on Christmas Eve while we watched cheesy Hallmark movies until we fell asleep.
She’d pile presents under the tree for me to unwrap on Christmas morning, always saying they were from Santa, even though I was too old to believe in him anymore.
We’d make Christmas tacos for dinner and write Christmas wishes on paper stars and hang them on the tree.
Simple things, really, but they meant the world to me.
How about you? Do you have a favorite Christmas memory? ”
Snuggling with Mama while we watched It’s a Wonderful Life.
I shake off the melancholy. “Not really.”
Her smile disappears, the corners of her mouth curving down. “Then we’ll have to make sure to make this one special.”
I’m here with her. It’s already special—not counting the dead bodies.
Syn rubs her hands together to ward off the cold because she forgot to grab a coat or gloves when she left the house.
I start to slip off my jacket for her to wear, but Hendrix’s possessive ass sees my intention and quickly wraps his arm around her shoulders, pulling her to his side.
She tucks her right hand into his jacket pocket, then hooks her left hand under my arm and reels me in.
“Hot guy sandwich,” she says.
Hendrix side-eyes me with a glare, but keeps his mouth shut, for once.
The farmhouse is lit up in a multicolored chaos of string lights that wrap around the roofline, the porch, and every tree in the front yard. I chuckle when I see the five-foot tall inflatable Santa rooster.
“Home sweet home,” Syn says, not letting go of my arm as we squeeze up the porch steps.
A Christmas wreath made of pine boughs and decorated with red and gold ornaments and candy canes hangs from the dark-blue painted door, and an old-fashioned porch swing creaks lazily on its chains as the wind blows snow flurries onto the veranda.
Syn opens the door, and I’m immediately hit with warmth infused with the delicious aromas of cinnamon and chocolate.
“This is where I grew up,” she says for my benefit as I get my first glimpse of the interior. There’s nothing grandiose or fancy about this place. It’s simple and rustic. Home. This is a home, well-lived in and well-loved.
As soon as we cross the threshold, I’m pounced on by an exuberant Dierdre. “Merry Christmas Eve! I’m going to be a grandma!” she exclaims and attempts to plop a Santa hat on top of my head, but I’m too tall for her to reach.
Hendrix takes it and slips it over Syn’s head. “I’ll go make you some hot cocoa.” He kisses her lips, then kisses the tips of his fingers and touches her stomach. “Does my baby girl want extra marshmallows?”
Syn rubs her stomach. “He says yes.”
“It’s going to be a girl,” Hendrix quips as he disappears into the kitchen.
“You wouldn’t be able to handle a girl, Hendrix Knight!” Dierdre shouts after him, somehow magically producing a set of reindeer antlers from thin air and practically trying to climb me to put them on my head.
Syn snatches them away and tosses them to Tristan as he comes around the corner. “She’s on her fourth cup of eggnog and a bit touchy-feely. You’ve been warned,” he says.
I’m amused when Dierdre sticks her tongue out at him. “Don’t be a bah-humbug.” Looking up, she flashes a toothy grin at Syn and me. “You’re standing under the mistletoe.”
Syn glances up, then at me, one eyebrow arched in interest, but it’s the wicked smile that appears on her lips that makes my throat go Sahara dry and my heart to literally stop beating.
“I don’t fucking think so.” Tristan shoves between us and kisses Syn in the most inappropriate way, considering I’m right fucking there. He could have just pissed on her leg to mark his territory. It would have had the same effect.
When they come up for air, Syn blinks up at him dreamily and licks her lips, then darts her gaze toward me. “I’ll go see…if…uh…if Hendrix needs any help,” she finishes and dashes off, taking Dierdre with her.
Tristan manhandles me the rest of the way inside the house and kicks the door closed. “Do we need to be worried about another unwanted visit tonight?” he asks, physically dragging me into the living room.
A nine-foot balsam fir, with an antique angel sitting on top instead of a star, stands adjacent to the fireplace—a real one with actual wood crackling in the fire, not one of the gas fireplaces everyone seems to have these days.
“No.” In an hour, the property and the house will be surrounded with men, who won’t hesitate to kill on sight anyone who tries to get within a mile of this place.
Constantine turns from his view of the window where he’s standing. “We need to send a message.”
“I agree,” Tristan replies.
Walking over to the tree, I touch one of the handmade ornaments. A pine cone reindeer with brown pipe straws for antlers, tiny gold jingle bells for eyes, and a larger red jingle bell for a nose. “I’ve got it handled.”
“You’re not making a move without us. They came after our wife and our child,” Tristan emphasizes, making sure to put me in my place and remind me that Syn’s not mine, no matter what a piece of paper says.
I don’t try to argue what’s really going to happen, whether they agree with it or not.
I’ll do what I have to do in order to keep Syn safe.
Fuck them and what they want. It’s my family, my bratva brotherhood and their connections who are jumping in to help.
They are putting their lives on the line for me because Pyotr and Drako will always have my back, no questions asked.
Tristan is your family, too, my subconscious tries to remind me.
Sitting on the couch, one ankle crossed over my knee and my fingers curled around a full glass of eggnog I won’t drink because eggnog is utterly disgusting, Bing Crosby’s crooning voice sings about a white Christmas as the snow quietly drifts down in fat flakes outside the window.
The living room, warmed by the crackling fire and the press of body heat, glows brighter than the twinkling tree lights with Syn’s happy laughter and Dierdre’s drunken joy.
My half sister gets very loud and, just like Tristan said, very touchy-feely when she’s under the influence.
I’ve never gotten so many hugs in my life as I have within the last hour.
My attention returns to Syn. Always to Syn.
The gravitational force of her beauty, of her, are too strong to escape.
I take in every nuance, memorize every detail, like how her eyes deepen to a sapphire blue when she laughs, or how she absentmindedly tucks wisps of her hair behind her ear as she talks, or the way her entire countenance lights up every time the guys show her even the smallest of affection—a light touch to her neck, a gentle kiss to her temple, a hand brushing over her pregnant belly that’s barely a bump yet.
Every so often, she looks my way and smiles. I live for her smiles. They help fill those gaps in my heart that my unrequited love for her have carved out and left hollow.
Seeing her happiness sustains me. Just to be near her. Witness her joy. It’s enough. Because sometimes, being near something so beautiful, even when I know it can never truly be mine, is a gift in itself.
Syn erupts into breath-stealing laughter at something Constantine whispers in her ear.
“I won’t know until I open it,” she replies, ripping off the wrapping paper to the first Secret Santa gift—apparently a new tradition she insisted on starting this Christmas.
Her face turns redder than her hair when she peeks inside the box. “As a medical student, I can assure you that this size is anatomically impossible,” she says while giggling, holding up a lightsaber-sized, purple dildo.
Good god. How does that even fit…anywhere?