Chapter 42
Matt
I wake up early Saturday morning. The baby monitor on Deejay’s nightstand lets me know the twins have woken up earlier than usual. I turn the sound off on the monitor so they don’t wake Deejay, and roll out of bed, pulling on my boxers from last night since I have no other clothes in this room. I quietly pad out to the nursery, stopping in my tracks as fear freezes me when I see Tio sitting in the rocking chair, one twin in each arm. He doesn’t notice me right away, intent as he is on the two boys. I open my mouth to ask what the fuck he’s doing but cut myself off when I see his chaos arms lazily sweeping over them, grabbing at their cast-off energy. They’re so close to my boys. Impotent fear paralyzes me as his voice finally reaches me.
“Got to be quiet, little ones. Daddy and Papa had a late night. Let them sleep awhile, hmm?”
he whispers, rocking and patting them. Then he starts gently humming to them, and they’re happy as little larks in his arms, too innocent to realize the danger they’re in. They both get sleepy again after just a few minutes. Then, after they’re asleep, he puts them back in their cribs, using his chaos arms to hold them before kissing them each in turn. He sighs, staring down at Eren, then rubs his eyes before straightening his back and turning away.
He sees me standing in the doorway and for a single second panic flashes across his face, then it melts into a smile as he slinks toward me, smiling like I didn’t just catch him in my babies’ room. “Just making sure you stay home,”
he murmurs.
I can feel my face twitch, paralyzing fear evolving into blinding anger as I grab him by the throat and haul him out of the nursery, pressing him into the wall as quietly as possible. “You—”
I choke on the consuming rage and terror incited by finding this man in the nursery, holding my babies.
The shadowy tentacles of his chaos arms wrap with physical presence around the arm choking him, squeezing like a vice until it feels like my arm is going to pop like a bloody balloon. The moment my fingers loosen, they rip my arm off his neck, hard enough to pull it out of socket. “I would never harm your children. I was trying to give you a few extra hours of sleep,”
he whispers as his chaos arms wrap around me, cutting off my air and holding my limbs pinned to my body. He’s stronger than me. So much stronger. I knew it intellectually, but it’s different now that I’m experiencing it. “I was being nice, and you just had to take it all the wrong way. I’ve never harmed you nor your kids, nor anyone that belongs to the Demesne D’Aquino. I don’t think I deserve the amount of animosity you’ve thrown at me. I’m just here to keep you out of the Cage. It’s a side-quest of the bigger picture. You’re a minor piece in this game, a Knight in this game of chess, and I’m only here to keep you away from the King.”
Black spots cloud my vision as I desperately try to move, breathe, anything. Panic makes my heart race, but there’s no getting oxygen into my lungs and now he’s cut off the circulation into my brain. A few moments of agony are all I have before my vision goes dark.
I don’t want to die today.