Chapter 21
Twenty-One
OMG guys, that’s not what I said.
—Apollo to Doc
APOLLO
“Hello?”
I switched lanes, getting behind a slow person doing at least twenty under the speed limit before the person on the other end deigned to speak.
“I hear you’re getting new identities for a few friends.”
I paused. “What’s it to you, Semyonov?”
Of course, I knew it was him. There were only so many people who had this number.
“Can you pull out one more?” he asked.
I flicked on my blinker and pulled off at the next exit that would lead me to my home.
“Who?” I asked hesitantly.
“Another of The Seven,” Sascha Semyonov, the leader of the bratva, stated. “Campbell Reid.”
“How’d you know I was getting out Romeo?”
“I’ve kept tabs on Romeo since he’s a member of The Seven,” he murmured. “Plus, nothing happens in my town without me knowing it. You used one of my favorite forgers for his papers.”
I sighed. “So much for confidentiality.”
“He’s mine,” he admitted. “Will you get Campbell out?”
“Why should I?” I asked. “You have a computer guru. Why can’t you?”
“Because they watch me too closely as it is,” he said. “They’re going to put a lot of eyes on me the moment that you break Romeo out anyway, since he was a known associate of mine.”
I’d found that out during my research.
I had let Dru know that her brother was into organized crime, and that was likely the reason that the government threw the book at Romeo, and not because he’d nearly killed a man in a crime of passion.
“What’s Campbell in for?” I asked.
“Bullshit charge,” Sascha answered. “Shooting a cop that came into his house without a warrant and without warning. Just barged into his place. Campbell fucked him up before he got two steps inside. Should’ve been an easy case of self-defense, but everything that could go wrong in that trial did go wrong.
They doctored an artificial intelligence video showing that the cop did knock and announce himself.
Everyone in the courtroom believed it. But that fuckin’ thing was fake as fuck. I fuckin’ hate AI.”
“Lovely,” I said. “I was pulling out a few more, anyway. Romeo’s friends with a lot of them. Trustworthy fellows that were fucked over by the system.” I didn’t beat around the bush. “But I’ll do my own research about Campbell before I agree.”
“Don’t blame you,” he said. “Let me know if you need any help elsewhere. I have a buddy that’s done this before, though he went the legal route.”
“Mine’s definitely not legal,” I admitted. “Call me back later tonight since you didn’t deign to share your number with me.”
Not that I couldn’t find it out if I wanted to, which he damn well knew. I just didn’t want to expend the effort right now.
“Talk to you later,” he said as I slowed to the speed limit behind a tractor trailer.
Once I got close to my place, I stopped at the bakery nearest my house that a friend owned and picked up a dozen cookies that were decorated like Christmas had thrown up on them.
Heading home, I pulled into the driveway and smiled when I saw all the decorations outside.
Way more than I’d ever had before.
Then there the woman that had stolen my heart was, balancing precariously on a ladder, as she tried and failed to get an ornament hung the size of my torso on the eaves of my house.
I set the box of cookies on the rather large wooden statue of Rudolph and walked up to her. Once I was close enough, I cupped that incredible ass, causing her to squeak.
The ornament hit the ground and bounced, but the woman that I’d groped threw herself into my arms and said, “You’re home!”
Home.
Home.
A little piece of me that’d broken apart when Tavi had died, knowing that I’d never hear someone say “you’re home!” again, mended itself.
Not all the way.
There were still jagged tears inside of me, but it was better. Slightly mended, with plenty more things that needed fixing to go.
But she was getting me there, one hug at a time.
“I’m home,” I murmured quietly as I smoothed my hand up the length of her back. “What are you doing?”
Seeing as I asked this with my face buried in her neck, not letting up one bit on my hold, she answered me against my ear. “I’m decorating. I thought the stupid boring lights weren’t enough. Do you think you’ll get in trouble?”
I’d hack into the damn HOA and change the fuckin’ rules if I had to.
This would be okay.
“No,” I lied, even though I knew that I’d be asked to take them down. “I think it’ll be fine.”
She wiggled in my arms, and I took the hint and let her down.
“Come see what I did,” she ordered as she took me around to each and every Christmas decoration that she could find. “And before you ask, I paid for this myself.”
That made me angry, until her next words stopped me.
“And you know what’s super funny?” she asked as she looked at me over her shoulder. “All of my student loans are paid off. All of them. Oh, and that loan that I took out to help pay for my brother’s defense? Also paid off. How weird is that?”
I bit my lip.
She narrowed her eyes, then shook her head before continuing on. “This is my favorite.”
I blinked. “Where did you find this?”
“Tractor Supply,” she answered as she shifted from foot to foot in excitement. “What do you think?”
“I think that you’re going to have to find a place to put a nine-foot highland cow decorated in Christmas lights,” I mused. “But it’s kind of cool.”
“It’s so cool!” she corrected me. “I had some help with this one.”
“From who?”
“That’d be me,” Jasper grumbled from behind me. “Are those cookies?”
“Cookies?” Dru whipped around, looking everywhere for the cookies.
Except from this angle, Rudolph’s head was blocking the box.
“Yeah, I stopped and got some,” I said. “I also ordered a latte machine that should’ve come in. Did y’all see it?”
“I took it inside when I got here,” Jasper continued to grumble. “Am I done, Dru?”
“You are.” She smiled sweetly. “Take a cookie!”
Jasper took the entire box and walked into the house.
Obviously, his “am I done” meant “can I go inside and eat these cookies.”
“I like him a lot,” she whispered. “He’s extra grumpy today. Apparently his new neighbor is a real bitch.”
I scoffed. “He’ll eat all of them. Come on, let’s get in there.”
Then she took my hand and we walked hand in hand into the house.
Or we would have had a golf cart not pulled up before we could close the door.
“Mr. Reins,” a nasally voice called out. “May I speak to you a moment?”
“Go inside and make sure that he doesn’t eat everything,” I ordered. “I want one of the snickerdoodles.”
She took off like she was shot from a cannon yelling, “Don’t you dare eat all those, Jasper ‘Hush’ Madden!”
I snorted and closed the door on them, happy that they were getting along.
Jasper was a good guy.
His life was about to irrevocably change, and he had no clue.
I was thinking he could use a good few days, because shit was about to hit the fan for him.
“What can I help you with, Mr. Worth?” I asked, even though I knew the answer.
I pulled out my phone as the man walked up the length of my walk, stepping in my grass instead of using the concrete.
Asshole.
“Get off the grass,” I mumbled as I used my phone to hack into the HOA’s shit, via Mr. Worth’s personal phone.
Worth’s entire being was this stupid HOA.
He lived, breathed, and dreamed fucking people’s lives up.
I usually ignored it, because I didn’t care.
But my girl did care, and I wouldn’t have them fucking with her happiness.
It took me all of five minutes to get into Worth’s phone and through his phone into the HOA’s bylaws.
I went ahead and changed everything in there that I could to “free to decorate as desired” and deleted everything else off the server that I could find.
Once I was done, I sent the new bylaws on decorating to everyone in the neighborhood, being sure to highlight the new changes and backdate it to three days ago, and shoved the phone into my pocket.
“Now, it’s all very cute, but it’s going to have to go,” Worth continued talking, as if I hadn’t been ignoring him for the last five minutes.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said as I pulled out my phone and toggled to my email. “But this email went out a few days ago about decorations, and it was stated that we could decorate how we want at Christmas.”
He frowned. “It most certainly did not!”
I pulled up my email and showed it to him.
He reached for my phone, but I shook my head. “Sorry, Mr. Worth, but I don’t like people touching my phone. Germs are pretty bad right now, and I’d like to keep the flu away as long as possible.”
Worth dropped his hand, but reached for his own phone once he realized he needed to check out what I was saying.
He frowned so hard that the divots in between his eyes started to tremble with the strain.
“What on earth?” he asked. “That’s…that’s not…I didn’t send that!”
“It says it came from you.” I smiled. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, my family is in there eating all the cookies without me.”
He grumbled and started to hurry toward his golf cart.
I went inside while chuckling to myself.
Maybe I should’ve done this years ago.
Tavi would’ve loved having more decorations than simple, boring lights.
Hell, I’d already bucked tradition and put up colored ones because he loved them.
I came to a stop in the living room when I saw the massive tree that was taking up most of the room.
“Dru,” I called out.
She appeared with a powdered sugar cookie in her hand and said, “Do you not like it?”
“I love it.” I shook my head. “But you better not have paid for this.”
She smiled. “I got a screamin’ good deal.”
“She really did.” Jasper came out with a cookie decorated like a tree, with so much icing that it was as thick as the cookie itself. “They knocked over a thousand dollars off of it because they price match. And Costco had the same thing on sale.”
“That doesn’t mean that you didn’t still spend too much,” I muttered.
“It wasn’t too bad,” she lied.
I’d be checking that later.
“What’s for dinner?” Jasper asked.
I sighed.
I guess I wouldn’t be getting Dru all to myself tonight.
But that was okay.
I’d get my time with her later.
In the meantime, “How’s Chinese sound? They deliver.”
After getting everyone’s replies, I walked into the living room to order.
When I did, I noticed the hearth, and my whole entire being went still.
There, on the hearth, were three stockings.
One for me.
One for Dru.
And one for Tavi.
“A Christmas tree in the bedroom, too?” I teased as I picked her up and dropped her on the bed.
She giggled as she came to a stop then started to pull her jeans off.
I watched as she stripped, taking it all in before saying, “What are you doing to me, Silla?”
“Whatever I want.” She lifted up, coming to her knees on the bed. “Take your pants off.”
I took my pants off, then my shirt, followed by my underwear.
I left them all at the end of the bed, then crawled up the length of it until I got to where she was kneeling.
“Now what?”
She placed her palm flat against my chest, right over my heart, and said, “Now you let me love you.”
I let her.
Oh, fuckin’ hell, did I let her.
She pushed me backward on the bed, and I fell to my back before widening my thighs, knowing where this was going.
She crawled between them, her hands smoothing up the length of my shins to my thighs, before she squeezed.
“You know,” she said as she wrapped her hand around my stiffening cock. “I really, really missed you.”
“Missed me? Or missed my cock?” I teased.
She sobered for a minute, dropping my cock, and crawling up the length of my body.
She sat with her pussy on my belly, and leaned forward so that her mouth was hovering over mine, looked straight into my eyes, and said, “I missed you. I missed your laugh. I missed seeing your handsome face. I missed listening to you talk. I missed talking to you about whatever is on my mind. I missed your hugs. I missed your touch. I missed everything. Not just a certain part of you.”
I cupped her face, my fingers dancing in the hair at her ears, and said, “Do you love me?”
She took a deep breath, held it for a few seconds, then released it before saying, “Like so, so much.”
I pulled her face down the rest of the way to mine and danced my lips over hers. “You know that I feel the same way, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” she breathed, her bottom lip caressing my top one. “I also know that it’s really soon. But I’m not really known for my restraint. Maybe the crazy gene runs through me, too.”
“Well, if you’re crazy, I’m crazy.” I chuckled. “Being crazy about you seems like it’s a pretty good way to live.” I pressed another kiss to her lips, so soft and sweet. “I love you, Drusilla.”
“I love you, too, Finnian.”
“Want to know something else crazy?”
She hesitated. “Does it have anything to do with my apartment?”
“Yeah.”
“I noticed today that I got an email that said ‘thanks for being a great tenant.’ And I got my deposit back.” She shook her head, causing a few of her long auburn locks to trail along my hands.
“Oh, also, the movers called and said that they’d be here tomorrow with all of my stuff.
Asked me when would be a good time. Since I’m working, I had to tell them you would be here whenever they got here. And then I gave them your number.”
I grinned wickedly. “Excellent.”
“Seriously, crazy.” She shook her head.
“That’s not the craziest part,” I said. “You moving in was pretty inevitable.”
She blinked.
“The crazy part is that I was going to ask you to marry me,” I said. “But see, the ring went missing. I had it delivered to the house today.”
I dropped one hand from her face and picked up her left hand. “Seems to be already on your finger.”
She snickered. “I figured I’d save you the trouble and go ahead and put it on. I’ll give it back for now. You can ask me when you’re ready.”
I twisted so that she was underneath me. “Known each other for less than a month. Moved you in. Marrying you when you’re ready. See? Two crazy people, so in love that we are practically fast-forwarding through all of the boring stuff.”
“Let’s do it.”
We did.
But only after I did her.