4.
C ONSTANCE
Ciro was coming down the driveway as Sho turned in, and when she waved, he stopped his car and waited for her to pull up alongside him.
“What’s up, old man?” Sho asked.
“I’ve got the next few days off. I’m going to make the best of them and leave town for a little while.”
“Are you going home to visit?” I asked.
“Now would be the best time,” Ciro said before he laughed. “Sho, you and Avi have a good week. I won’t be back until . . . Actually, I’m not sure when I’ll be back. I’ll call you.”
When Ciro hit the gas and took off down the driveway, Sho turned to look at me in confusion and asked, “What was that about?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t realize he’d asked Dad for a vacation. I just thought today was his day off.”
“He didn’t mention it to me or Avi,” Sho said as she waited for the garage door to roll up so she could pull inside. “It’s not a big deal. I don’t have any plans for the next week that don’t already include you, and I don’t think Avi does either.”
“If something comes up, we’ll figure it out,” I assured her.
Sho and I walked into the mudroom and removed our shoes, something I’d made a rule when we moved in. She slipped on the shoes she used around the house while I walked into the kitchen to find Avi sitting at the bar with a frantic look in her eyes.
“What’s going on around here?” I asked. “Ciro was acting weird, and you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Everything’s fine,” Avi snapped.
“Okay. Whatever,” I said as I walked toward the stairs to go up to my room. “I’ll be back shortly to start dinner.”
When I glanced over my shoulder, I saw Avi whispering furiously to Sho, who looked shocked to hear whatever she was saying.
I had no idea what was going on, but I was used to my guards keeping secrets from me.
However, because I had so much experience in that area, I knew I’d get the details from them in time.
When I got to the top of the stairs, I walked along the landing until I got to the arch that led to my wing of the house.
I chuckled to myself when I remembered how Sho and Avi reacted the first time I brought them here, although it didn’t seem to faze Ciro at all.
Of course, he’d been with the family forever, so he was used to our excess, but Sho and Avi were new employees who still hadn’t gotten used to living at The Castello before we moved to Colorado.
Now that we were living in a house that was formerly a luxury apartment building for extended stay guests, they were enjoying their new lifestyles and swore that they’d work with me until we were old and gray.
The main floor had so many rooms that we had closed the doors until I could decorate them, but each of our large suites were fully furnished as well as two of the smaller suites. Aunt Frankie had taken care of that when she arrived with her friends to check on me.
My suite had a large bedroom, a smaller room that I used as an office, a walk-in closet, a bathroom, a sitting room, a small kitchen, and a dining area.
Avi, Sho, and Ciro all had the same floor plan but had chosen rooms in different wings of the house.
The house was large enough that if we wanted, we could go for days without seeing each other, even if we never left the house.
That was what I had been looking for in a home because I knew that there would probably always be at least two guards with me. And then, when I had children, they would likely have guards of their own.
It was something I had never questioned but helped organize when I got older because I couldn’t stand to be surrounded by surly men who were terrified of my father.
If I had to be with someone day and night, I wanted a person I could talk to and laugh with - like a significant other or even two. People like Park and Sully.
It still made my heart ache to think of them going their own way without me, although that wouldn’t be far considering that neither could take care of themselves and most likely wouldn’t be able to anytime soon.
But the night that the three of us first came together, I promised myself that I would be theirs as long as I lived - and I’d fulfill that promise even if I had to do it as their friend rather than their lover.
For a few weeks, while I was sorting through my grief over the guys, I went out way too often and thought I could ease my sorrows with the company of another man.
Thank God I never went through with that, although I probably would have if my companions, Sho and Avi, weren’t quite so diligent .
. . or terrifying. But I luckily saw the error of my ways before my behavior got too out of hand and stopped going out so much and drinking myself into a stupor regularly.
Fortunately, I reined myself in before I ruined the budding friendships I’d made through Bella.
Cecily, Tana, Natty, Dilly, and Charlotte were a lot of fun to hang out with, but they weren’t all that thrilled with the path I was going down and started to distance themselves.
When I finally got my mind right and decided to calm down, I asked them to go out to dinner at the same restaurant where Bella had introduced us and explained what I’d been thinking, or trying not to think about.
They were all very understanding and supportive, just like Bella had assured me they would be.
All in all, it felt like Colorado was already my home, and I was glad to have a comfortable house and friends to get to know better.
As a matter of fact . . .
Something hit me in the temple and jerked me out of my musings, and before I had a chance to figure out what was going on, I was hit two more times in the back and once in the neck.
“Oh. Hell. No,” I muttered as I looked around.
The problem with having such a large house was the abundance of hiding places - something Ciro, Sho, and Avi had expressed concern about many times.
But when they were thinking about infiltrators, they didn’t even consider ones that carried Nerf guns or pockets full of slime and other disgusting substances. I suddenly noticed something that I hadn’t seen before.
On the table to my right was a multi-shot weapon with two bandoliers full of ammunition. I wasn’t sure if it had been left there by accident or on purpose to make the fight last longer, but I had never been one to pass up a golden opportunity.
I took a second to make a plan of attack, glad that I knew my place like the back of my hand already, and then snatched the gun and ammo from the table and sprinted toward the guest room at the far end of the hall.
My attackers probably had no clue there was a hidden door there or that it would take me downstairs so I could flank them and then go on the offensive before I annihilated them with their own damn gun.
Amateurs.
◆◆◆
RIN
As soon as I pulled through the gate, I saw some of my younger cousins running across the grass and wondered what brainiac thought it was a good idea to let them run free like that.
It was probably my sister. She had no sense of self-preservation when it came to the kids in our family, especially the ones from Texas.
They were a different kind of animal - a rabid animal.
As usual, I was unprepared for the amount of sound such small people could make when in a large group when the pack descended. I knew that if even one of them managed to sneak into my house, my ears would be ringing for days .
As I pulled grocery bags out of the back seat, I took a head count of the kids and came up with a number I wasn’t sure about.
There were some younger kids from Rojo staying with my cousin for a few weeks before the summer ended. I recognized Griffin, Koda, and Lyric Forrester, and there was also Simon and Tristan, two boys whose parents had married into the family in one way or another.
And, of course, there was my cousin Charlotte’s little girl, Pepper, who was the same age as the Forrester girl and just as crazy. Then there was Landon, my cousin Dilly’s kid, who I saw most often since his mom worked at the bakery next door to our tattoo shop.
As I made my way into the house, I tried to track the thirteen conversations that were happening at the same time and noticed there were a few kids in the group that I didn’t recognize.
Once I set the first round of bags on the counter and grabbed the rest of the bags that the kids had dragged in, I asked, “Did you recruit someone else’s children, or was it a kidnapping situation?”
“I have never kidnapped anyone, and I don’t know what recruit means,” Koda, the wildest child of them all, replied.
Griffin, the brainiac, explained, “Recruit means you sign someone up to be in your group.” He looked at me in question and asked, “Right?”
“That’s a good way to explain it.” I looked over at one of the boys I didn’t recognize, who happened to look alarmingly like the other, before I said, “Go ahead. Have a banana. I bought plenty.”
“Yay!” Lyric, another Forrester who was as unhinged as her fashion choices, squealed before she snatched a banana off the bunch and then ripped off another to hand to Pepper.
“Where did the new kids come from?” When no one answered, I touched one of the boys’ shoulders and asked, “Who are you?”
“I’m Gianno.”
“Gotcha. Where did you come from?”
“We were playing outside.”
I touched my forehead before I looked over at Tristan, my friend Lark’s son, and asked, “Are the other kids related to us?”
Tristan shook his head before he shrugged and said, “I don’t think so.”
“Okay! Everybody out! Take the bananas and go.”
“Will you come outside and play with us?” Pepper asked. “Lyric wants a tattoo!”
“Please! Please! Please!” Lyric squealed as she bounced up and down, her tiny tutu bouncing just as hard as she was.
She was so cute that I couldn’t help but agree, but I knew better than to give in quite so easily. Instead, I bartered with, “If you’ll all go outside and leave me alone so I can put my groceries away, I’ll bring my supplies out and give everybody a tattoo.”
The kids started shrieking, and I felt my right eye start to twitch. I went to the front door and threw it open before I yelled, “Out, demons!”
The kids ran out onto my porch, carrying the rest of my bananas and the bag of clementine oranges I’d just bought.
I considered that a small price to pay for the peace and quiet.
However, I had made a promise, and I fully intended to keep it, so while I put the groceries away, I called my cousin and put the phone on speaker before I set it on the bar.
While I waited for her to answer, I put away my produce.
I had almost given up on her answering my call when she said, “Before you say anything, I want you to ask yourself if this could have been a text.”
I ignored her and asked, “Do you know where the heathens acquired two clone children?”
“Two clone . . . Oh! They’re my friend Constance’s cousins or brothers or something.”
“Okay, well, depending on where she’s from, it could be both, but that’s neither here nor there. I promised to draw the kids some tattoos, but I can’t very well ink some stranger’s child, so I need you to get permission for me.”
“Constance!” Dilly yelled. Her voice was so loud it made my phone vibrate on the counter. There was some mumbling before she said, “Permission granted.”
“Thanks. Any chance I can send them away when I finish their tattoos so I can enjoy the rest of my day off in peace?”
“Not likely.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“We’re cooking out later - just burgers, brats, and hotdogs.”
“Need me to bring anything?”
“Isn’t today grocery day?” Dilly asked, knowing my routine all too well. “Bring dessert.”
“No.”
“Then I won’t let you eat anything off the grill.”
“Fine,” I grumbled. “I’ll bring cake.”
“You act like you can’t go get another one tomorrow or something,” Dilly teased. “Is it going to kill you to share your sweets with a family in need this one time?”
“Probably.”
“See you later, alligator.”
“Bye, dumbass.”
I could hear laughter in the background before Dilly hung up, and I sighed when I looked over at the cake I’d bought this week. I tried very hard to eat healthy but wasn’t willing to give up my favorite indulgence - sheet cake with mounds of icing from the grocery store bakery.
It wasn’t the best quality, but it was cheap and available, kind of like some of the women I dated in my early twenties.
I hadn’t been keen on sharing back then either, but that was a different problem for past me.
Present and future me saved my cheap and easy selections for the bakery and tried very hard to avoid women like that now.
Once I was finished putting everything away, I decided to take a few minutes to steel myself for the onslaught of screaming children by enjoying a portion of said cake in the relative peace and quiet of my home.
Just to make sure that wouldn’t be disturbed just yet, I turned the deadbolt on the front door and made sure the garage door was down before I popped the clear top off to decide which part of the cake looked the best. Once that decision was made, I dove in for my portion because God knew that I wouldn’t get a crumb once I took it out to share with my family.
Heathens.