Chapter 27
Abullet hits me in the chest as soon as I walk through the door.
I follow the orange tipped foam bullet as it rolls along the marble tiling of the foyer, where it eventually stops at Tommy’s feet.
“Oh, shit. Did he get you?” Kaz jumps up from behind the couch in the living room and climbs over the back.
He’s wearing a black tactical vest lined with more foam bullets over an all black outfit, cargo pants and boots.
“He did.” I drop my purse onto the console table, then reach for my coat.
Tommy runs up to me and wraps his arms around my waist, squeezing me tightly. When looks up at me, he’s grinning like a loon.
“I see you’ve been having fun with Kaz.” I translate my signs, so Kaz knows what we’re saying.
Tommy nods then signs back.
“He says I’m a natural shot.” I look to Kaz with the translation.
“He is.” Kaz nods and rustles Tommy’s hair.
“He’s six,” I remind him.
“I know. That’s why he gets foam bullets instead of the real thing.” His own weapon of choice, a double barrel shot gun that shoots extra thick bullets, dangles from his left hand.
“Where’s Melody? Maybe I should put her in charge of you as well as Tommy when I’m gone.”
As I ask the question, Melody’s head pops out from beneath the tablecloth covering the center table of the foyer. She’s wearing one of Tommy’s toy football helmets and has her own toy gun as she crawls out.
“Sorry. Tommy had a lot of energy after school, and it’s still raining so he couldn’t go outside.” Melody removes the helmet and smooths down her hair. “It was Kaz’s idea.”
I can feel Kaz’s gaze traveling down my body. It leaves a heated trail in its wake.
Tommy tugs on my arm to get my attention.
“What’s he saying? Is he ratting me out?” Kaz questions with feigned concern.
“No, he’s ratting Mikhail out.” When I look up from Tommy, Kaz’s expression has hardened.
“There was a small issue at the school. Mikhail handled it.” Kaz puts his toy gun on the table and taps Tommy’s shoulder.
When Tommy gives him attention, Kaz finger spells for Tommy to go upstairs. It’s slow, and he confuses the a and the s, but Tommy nods. He hugs me again and takes off running up the stairs.
Melody collects Kaz’s shot gun and the bullet that hit me from the floor and follows Tommy.
“You know how to finger spell?” I ask, staring at his hands.
“Did you think I’d spend the rest of my life waiting for you to translate everything the kid says? There are some things guys like to talk about without a woman getting in the middle.”
I’m shocked into silence. He’s thought about the future with Tommy and me in his life? And not just considered it but has made a plan so Tommy will have two parents that he can go to when and if he needs us.
“So what happened exactly?” I follow Kaz as he walks down the hall to his office.
“It was handled, and Tommy was safe.”
“Tommy saw Mikhail confront Dante?” My insides heat at the imagery blooming in my mind. “Did he try to force his way into the school? Did the school let him inside? What happened, Kaz?”
He shuts the office door as soon as I’m inside with him, and steps in front of me, blocking me from going further into the room. He cups my face with his hands, and his touch has an immediate calming effect.
“He was safe.”
“I heard you.”
His eyes search mine.
“Your heart is still pounding.” He traces his fingers over my jawline, down my throat, tapping on the side of my neck where my pulse is trying to break through the skin.
“Tommy saw Dante.”
“He did.” Kaz nods. “And Mikhail handled it.”
“Why was he there?”
“He wanted to pick up Tommy. The school wasn’t going to let him because he’s not on one of those lists they have, but Mikhail had noticed Dante walking through parking lot through the class window. He met him at the front office.”
“What did Dante say?”
“He said he was supposed to take Tommy to a doctor’s appointment. He had a letter from your uncle, giving him permission to pull him from school.”
“How very civilian of them,” I mutter.
Tommy’s hands fall to his sides. “What better way to get the school to cooperate than to follow their rules.”
“Maybe we should leave. Maybe I can take Tommy to California or Canada. Somewhere Uncle Vicente wouldn’t think to look for us.”
“We’re not moving to Canada,” he says firmly.
Not you’re not moving — we’re not. We. The one syllable hits me harder in the chest than the bullet that greeted me at the door.
“You’re shaking, come sit down. I’ll get you a drink.” He leads me to the leather couch.
“Every day we’re going to have live like this? Wondering if Dante is going to show up to take him? The school isn’t going to put up with Mikhail being there forever. It’s not fair to the other kids.”
He brings me a glass of whiskey and sits on the coffee table in front of me, balancing his own glass on his knee.
“Gerald got back to me today.” His voice falls flat, and I know nothing he’s about to tell me is good news.
I take a sip of the whiskey, immediately coughing as the liquid burns my throat.
“Sorry. I’m not used to straight liquor.” I pat my chest.
He smiles at me, like I’m the most adorable puppy in the store and he absolutely must take me home.
“What’s the bad news?” My shoulders tense. “Uncle Vicente has full custody, and he can put me in jail for kidnapping?”
Kaz’s eyes widen. “You’re not serious.”
“What? That’s what I’ve done, right? You said it yourself.”
“Do you think I’d let you go to jail? That I would even let a fucking cop near you?”
“It would solve your problem wouldn’t it? It’d get you out of this marriage and you’d see a DeAngelo in prison. You’d have the revenge—” I’m cut off by his hand smacking across my mouth.
“I told you, you’re mine now. And I protect what’s mine. There is no you versus me. There’s only us versus your fucked up family.”
He takes my glass and puts it on the table beside him. Then he leans into me, his nose brushing against mine.
“I’m going to move my hand, and you’re going to apologize for being so rude. You’re going to say, ‘I’m sorry, sir for not trusting you to protect me.’”
I swallow hard, unsure if it’s irritation or arousal that’s clogging up my throat. With Kaz it really could be either one.
“Are you ready to be a good girl and do as I say?” He levels me with one of his dominating dark looks, and I nod. Because what else is there to do?
Slowly, he peels his hand from my mouth.
I lick at my dry lips.
His eyebrow arches. He’s losing patience.
“I’m sorry, sir for not trusting that you’ll protect me.” I say, keeping my gaze on his chin.
Because if I see the arrogance in his eyes, I might say something else that would ruin the moment.
“Good girl,” he kisses me. A soft, brush of his lips across mine that whets my appetite for more.
But he gets up and walks to his desk, undoing the tactical vest on the way.
“Gerald hasn’t been able to find a will or guardian papers or even a birth certificate for Tommy. He went looking for a will for Michael and Marco, too, and found nothing.”
“That can’t be. The family attorney came to the house and explained it to us.”
“And none of them left you anything or saw to it that you were properly taken care of financially.” He drops his vest onto the desk. “You didn’t think that was odd?”
I scoff. “No. They never gave me anything but trouble when they were alive, so why would they leave me anything in death? Not getting custody of Tommy was the only thing that hurt. I’m the only one that’s even acknowledged him his whole life.”
The tightness of his jaw gives him away. There’s more.
“What else is there, Kaz? You’re not telling me something.”
“After Dante wasn’t successful in getting Tommy out of the school, your uncle reached out.” His fingertips press against the top of his desk as he leans forward.
“What did he want?” I push up from the couch, readying myself for worse news.
“He made an offer.” He pauses, like he’s not sure how to say the next part. “If we back off the pressure to keep the pleasure houses out of the city, he’ll let Tommy stay with us.”
“So, if we let him build torture houses for women to be beaten, raped, and sold for even more of that to happen to them, he won’t pursue Tommy. But if we say no?”
He doesn’t have to say anything for me to know what would happen. He’ll come after Tommy. He’ll take him and put him somewhere I’ll never find him.
He’d be all alone with no family, no one to love him, to be with him as he grows up.
“What about Tony’s house? Can we get in there and search for the will or the birth certificate? I think I still have the key code.”
“This isn’t going to be settled by lawyers.” He rounds his desk.
“My brothers were monsters.” I realize then he didn’t finish telling me about his conversation with my uncle. “What did you tell him?”
“I didn’t answer him, but there’s no fucking way we’re letting those houses open here. And there’s no way we’re letting Tommy go with him. That means this war is probably going to start again. And it’s possible your uncle or your cousin is going to—”
“I don’t care about that.” I take a steady breath. “Kaz, if you haven’t learned by now that I want nothing to do with them, I don’t know how I can show you.”
His expression is unreadable.
“All I wanted to do was work, get a place of my own, and find someone to spend my life with. I wanted none of this. My only goal now is to keep Tommy safe. That’s all.”
“That’s all?” He raises a brow. “What about us? Don’t you have any goals for us?”
I don’t know how to answer him. If I tell him I want a real life with him, one full of love and trust and family he might shut down. He’s finally warming to me, to Tommy, to the idea of us being an us.
But it’s too fragile. Too easily broken.
“I just want us to get along. Hatred won’t make either of us happy,” I end up saying.
His jaw tenses. “You still think I hate you?”
“I think you hate my family, and with good reason. I mean—Elana still won’t come home, right?”
“Elana does what Elana wants. Her being here or not being here— that’s not on you.”
“But when you look at me, you see the mess they made.”
“No. I see you,” he answers quickly.
The door to the office flies open and Tommy barrels inside, pointing his gun at Kaz. He shoots and a blue bullet flies through the air, striking Kaz in the chest.
“Sorry, I tried to catch him.” Melody runs in next.
Kaz tears his gaze from mine and looks down at Tommy. Instantly his fierceness softens.
“Unprovoked attack, huh?” He looks to me so I can translate for him, and when I do Tommy nods with a huge grin on his face.
“I’ll take him back upstairs,” I offer, but Kaz shakes his head.
“Nah. Dinner’s probably ready by now, anyway. Let’s eat.” He spells out the last of his statement and Tommy nods excitedly.
“Mrs. Popova made spaghetti and meatballs at his request,” Melody explains, gripping Tommy’s shoulders. “I’ll get him cleaned up and we’ll meet you in the kitchen.”
“I’m sorry if he’s getting in the way at all.”
Kaz frowns. “He’s not in the way. Neither of you are.”
It hits me in the chest, the words he doesn’t say but I can almost feel.
As messed up as we are, as this situation is, this is the closest to a real family I’ve ever had.
But if I can’t keep Tommy safe from my uncle and cousin, none of this matters.
“What are you thinking about? You have this look in your eye like you’re plotting someone’s death.” Kaz grabs my hand, threading our fingers together.
“No. Not death.” I let him lead me out of the office.
“Sienna.” He stops, yanks me to face him. “Promise me you aren’t going to try to do anything without talking to me first. You are not going to go rogue on me.”
I laugh. “Go rogue?”
“Remember you’re still my wife. And I’m telling you to let me handle what comes next. Understand?”
Full boss mode re-activated.
When I don’t respond right away, he heaves a sigh and grabs me by the back of my neck and pulls me into him. Pressing his forehead against mine, he inhales deeply, like he’s trying to keep control of himself.
Which is good, because he smells so good, I’m not sure I can keep myself under control.
“I said, do you understand me?” His voice dips.
And along with it, my ovaries.
Holy hell, the man knows how to make my body respond to him. It’s not at all fair, this psychological warfare, but the pleasant hum of my body makes it hard to be too upset about it.
“Yes, sir,” I whisper.
He groans, and it’s filled with longing and need, and it makes me smile.
“Dinner. Then upstairs for dessert.” He plants a kiss on my mouth that makes me forget about any hunger I had for dinner.