Chapter 52
LEONORE
When I wake up the following morning, the bed beside me is empty.
I open my eyes, sit up, and look around me. I slept in. I press my palms into my eyes and feel the haziness of sleep drain away.
I don’t remember falling asleep. Just waking up enough in the middle of the night to feel Silas wrap his protective arms around me.
Butterflies dip and soar in my belly when I think about him. About how protective he is of me. How he has my back and would destroy any threat to keep me safe. But most importantly, that he accepts this dark twisted part of me that tends to slip out when backed into a corner.
It was his voice that brought me back.
I think he might be the only man who can handle me, and if I sound like a foolish girl for believing in him wholeheartedly, then so be it.
I hear muffled voices coming from the kitchen, and then Larissa’s sudden giggling, and I smile. We’re all safe.
I make my way down the stairs toward the kitchen.
But before I reach it, I come to a complete halt because I can’t quite believe what I’m looking at.
Silas has Larissa on his shoulders as he flips pancakes at the stove, and she’s giggling so hard her entire body is shaking. His niece, Alexis, only slightly taller than Larissa, is sitting on the counter beside them, kicking her legs back and forth as they watch on with excitement.
Nessa and Gia sit at the kitchen island nursing a cup of coffee in their hands, talking among themselves.
While I watch them, my heart swells so fast it hurts.
And I’m grateful. So damn grateful that Larissa seems undisturbed by what happened yesterday. In fact, although everyone is slightly battered and bruised, everyone seems happy, but most likely because we’re all safe.
“More blueberries!” Larissa demands.
“You’ve already had half the container,” Silas says.
“But it tastes better with more!” Alexis quickly backs up her new friend.
Larissa holds a pointed finger up. “When Auntie Leo and I make pancakes, she says you can’t be stingy with the blueberries.”
“Does she now?” he asks with an arched eyebrow.
“She does. She said a hundred blueberries. That’s the rule.”
Silas glances at Nessa, who shrugs and grins. “The girl knows what she wants.”
I catch the smile on his lips as he reaches for the blueberries and drops a handful more into the batter. Larissa and Alexis cheer from their perch, clapping their small hands together.
If it wasn’t for the men I can see through the kitchen window patrolling the perimeter in their dark jackets and guns, this could be another life. A normal life. One where Saturday morning pancakes in this house were the norm.
But this is not that life. It’s the one with the guards and gates and guns.
Even so, I want it.
Because I want him.
Nessa notices me first, and her face lights up. She sets down her coffee, walks over to me, and pulls me into a fierce hug.
“You didn’t wake me,” I say.
“I figured you needed some sleep. Come on; Silas made coffee, and it’s actually really fucking good.”
“You said the magic word. Coffee.”
“And it’s the best damn coffee I’ve tasted.” She stops me and says in a low voice, “Seriously, does this man have any faults?”
“Hmm, let me think.” I tap my chin. “He’s a crime lord, so there’s that.”
She tilts her head. “That’s not the deterrent you think it is.”
“He kills people.”
“Bad people. And only when he has to.”
“I wish he were that selective,” his sister interrupts. “But it also depends on his mood.”
Nessa and I smile as I quietly say so the girls don’t hear, “Well, his gift giving could do with a bit of improvement. Severed fingers aren’t for everyone.”
Nessa needs a moment to absorb that before saying, “But you’ve got to give him ten points for creativity.”
“That’s true.” I shrug. “I guess he doesn’t have any faults then.”
Nessa laughs. “Lucky you. Does he have a brother?”
“Only me, though I think he would’ve much preferred a brother sometimes,” Gia says, looking over her shoulder with a devilish smile.
“You know I can hear you, right?” Silas says.
Gia’s phone begins to buzz, and her eyebrows dip.
“Excuse me; I need to take this,” she says, though there’s a flicker of distraction in her voice, almost confusion, like the call has caught her off guard.
She leaves quickly and our eyes follow her, but I clock it without being able to place why it bothers me.
Larissa shrieks from her perch on Silas’s shoulders when she sees me. “Auntie Leo.”
“Good morning, Monkey,” I say, walking up to them so I can give her a kiss.
“Silas is making blueberry pancakes. With a hundred blueberries. I counted.”
“You did not count,” Silas says.
“I counted in my head.”
“Yeah, and so did I!” Alexis quickly says, and she looks so much like a smaller version of her mother that I can’t help but smile.
“That’s good enough for me.” He grins.
And when I look up at him, I can’t help but smile too.
Nope, this man doesn’t have any faults at all.