Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
Michel
When I saw Panagiotis’ tiger, I was in awe.
He’s impressive and I can’t wait to see him in person.
When we heard gunshots, my heart dropped.
Not being able to see what was happening was making me crazy.
It felt like they were in the room forever.
Then I got a text asking me to bring a laundry cart.
I was going to ask what it was for, but I decided to just wait and see.
The sight I saw in the bedroom was one I would never have imagined.
And the smell. Holy fuck, the smell. I don’t know how we’re going to get that smell out.
But I hope that it’s not seeping into the other rooms. After I had a second to look around, I went straight for Genevieve.
She didn’t look like they had touched her, but if they had? I would be making them pay for it.
“We’ll call in people to clean up the room for you. They’ll probably have to rip this carpet out and bleach the floors. And we’ll need to get new furniture in here. But don’t worry we’ll take care of all of it,” Zeus says to me.
“Can we get out of here? Please?” Adonis asks, he looks kind of greenish.
“Yes, the cleaning crew is on their way, Eros, you stay here and let them in.”
“Wait. I can’t stay in this room, I’ll die.”
Zeus stops and sighs.
“I’m pretty sure Enea didn’t mean for you to stay in the room, son. You can stand outside.”
Eros grins. “Oh. Okay, I can do that.”
Zeus turns to everyone. “See? Again, I apologize. I wish I had more daughters. My Artemis isn’t as dramatic as my sons.”
“Oh please. Artemis is worse than us. She’s a pain in all of our asses. Remember when she moved in with Kostas? She wouldn’t let us have beds. We had to sleep on the floor!” Eros squints at his dad.
Enea, Giacomo and Panagiotis are laughing while Adonis, Apollo and Eros are looking at their dad like they’re offended. I’m really loving our extended family.
“I love you, mon rêve,” I say softly to her as we watch the brothers pout.
“I love you too,” she says as she hugs me tighter.
I get us the penthouse room again for the week. I feel like this would be better for my Genevieve. If we go back to my parents' house, they’ll hover over her, and I want her all to myself.
“What do you think about finding our own home?”
“Here in Storyville?”
“Oui. I mean if you want, we can live with my family, my parents won’t mind at all. So it’s up to you.”
Genevieve thinks about it for a minute.
“I love your family, but I wouldn’t say no to us finding our own place. But I’m also happy living with your family too. That’s how we did it back home.”
I chuckle. “Why don’t we look around and if we find something, we’ll take it. But it we don’t, we’ll take our time until we do.”
“I love that idea.” She smiles at me. “I need to take a shower. Do you think they’re going to kill Julian and Randall?”
“I don’t know. I suppose it depends on the outcome of those suspicious deaths. If they were responsible, they need to answer for it. If they just disappear, that could raise more questions.”
“That makes sense. I just want them to pay for everything. And I want Abigail to be okay. Can we find out if she’s okay? Randall made it seem like she was dead.”
“We can find out, and after your shower, we need to meet up with the family so that you can tell them what happened. I know they’ll have questions.”
Genevieve nods and heads to the bathroom. I follow her and get in the shower. I gently wash her and hold her for as long as she needs me to. This woman is everything to me and I thank God that she’s okay.
Genevieve
I’ve never had anyone take care of me like Michel does. Julian never made me feel so safe and loved. And after what happened today, he seems to know that all I need is for him to hold me and love me.
After we shower, we head to Sebastiano’s room to meet up with everyone. I go over to Adonis and hug him.
“I’m so glad you’re okay. When I saw Julian hit you, I was so worried.”
“I’m good, polar bears have hard heads.” He smiles as he hugs me back.
“And pudgy bodies. He had some cushion when he fell,” Eros says as he and Apollo high five each other.
“I can’t wait for you to meet my Artemis. I would say Ares too, but he’s just like his brothers. So I’ll apologize now for him.” Zeus sighs.
Seraphina and I start to tell them everything that happened.
“We could see most of what happed to you, up until they got you into the room. That’s where we need to know what happened,” Sebastiano tells us.
“Well, Genevieve is a badass. She kept them occupied so I could slip into the bathroom. It took longer that I would’ve liked.
Because I couldn’t just turn and run, I can’t shift that fast. So I had to inch my way there.
And I tried to check on Abigail on my way.
But I couldn’t tell if she was alive, I thought I saw her breathing.
But I couldn’t really crouch down to see.
I told my snake to attack both men, but not to use our lethal venom. ”
“See that’s where you’ve lost me. I thought all snake venom was lethal.”
Seraphina smiles. “My family and I have two venom sacs. One is lethal and one isn’t. We can use both or one at a time. So my snake used a little of the lethal one and more of the non lethal. That way they’d get really sick and the lethal part would make them think they were dying.”
“That’s so cool.”
“Randall wanted to shoot Seraphina, but Julian told him not to because he was afraid he would shoot him. And he probably would’ve. He was really out of his mind. And I’m pretty sure they did all those murders.”
“What makes you think that?” Francesco asks.
“Julian said that he had finally gotten Randall to agree to keep me. That he promised not to kill me.” I purposely leave out the sharing part.
“Well, that’s not all he said,” Seraphina says as she looks at me.
I take a deep breath. “He said they agreed to share me. But he was okay with that because I wouldn’t die.”
I feel Michel’s arms tighten around me.
“Can I ask something?”
“Sure.” Sebastiano answers.
“Are they going to die?”
“If they did those murders? We’ll have to turn them over to the authorities. If we don’t, they could trace them back to us and that never works out well.”
I nod as I listen. I’ve never been a violent person. But I want them to die, I don’t want to worry that they’ll come after me again.
“I know what you’re thinking. But they’ll never come near you again. They’ll spend the rest of their lives in jail, sadly Colorado doesn’t have the death penalty,” Francesco explains.
I really hope they’re right. When I listened to Randall today, I finally saw the side of him that he was hiding, I also saw a side to Julian that I never thought I’d see. Up until today, I held out hope that Julian didn’t have a part in any of this. But now I know he did.