Chapter 60
Chapter Sixty
Weeks later
QUINN
Iwalk into his open arms, feeling completely overwhelmed. I don’t stop until I’m pressing my face against his throat and inhale his amber scent right from the source. “They’re so loud, Santiago.”
He laughs, and I feel the rumble of his laughter through his chest. He turns us away from the noise.
I don’t need to check where Aleksei is; his presence is as evident and real as Kade’s hand in mine.
I get swept into Santiago’s arms as he walks us through the crowd. He ignores the crush of people trying to stop and congratulate us. Aleksei threatens them with violence, forgetting that is basically the love language of the Cabal family.
“They idolize you, bebe, for saving Isabella and bringing the next generation home. It’s going to be like this for a long time.”
I’m not ungrateful. The Cabal family has been very welcoming, incredibly hospitable, and ridiculously generous. That’s just towards me, Kade, and Aleksei.
How they have been with Deena—Isabella—and Marco takes my breath away. It instills my faith in what family should be and benchmarks how they should act towards each other. The family business is another matter. I won’t let Marco be groomed for that, unless he truly wants that.
The press of people falls away, the noise of the celebration dimming as the crash of the ocean takes over.
I stay snuggled up against Santiago, enjoying being in his arms, breathing in his amber scent until he sets me down on the water’s edge.
The last tendrils of the setting sun taints the sky.
It’s postcard romance, but my pack is pulling out all the stops when it comes to our future.
A champagne cork pops and goes sailing over my head into the ocean.
Within moments, a champagne flute is passed over.
Santiago catches my hand, twisting it, so the light catches on my new, and very beautiful, engagement-and-wedding-ring combo.
The three yellow diamonds are the size diamonds should be, and the smaller baguette diamonds forming the band twinkle just as brightly.
I love it. I love it more that the three of them designed it for me.
“To our beautiful wife and Pack Petrov,” Aleksei says, holding out his glass, waiting for the others to join.
With Kade and Santiago distracted, he grabs my face and licks his way into my mouth, chuckling against my lips. “They are still so slow, my wife for the second time, snoozers.”
“Excuse me?” Kade growls, passing me his champagne flute and the bottle.
Santiago just drops his glass into the ocean.
And all the stress and tension of the day dissolves as I watch Kade and Santiago trying to drown the other member of our pack.
Of course, Roshka leaps straight into the watery fray. I walk backward out of the waves, joining Isabella, Marco, and Nalla on the sand.
Marco is torn; he wants to stay, but he is also as besotted with my pack as I am.
I tap his shoulder. “Go.”
He doesn’t wait for a second invite. And I whistle to the guys, who are still trying to dunk Aleksei, letting them know they have a visitor.
Plonking down, I dig my feet under the soft white sand, the small waves making my wedding dress move as the water flows to and from the shoreline.
Isabella sits next to me, and I scooch over to her, handing her the bottle of champagne. We take turns drinking while we watch Marco chasing down and submerging some of the world's most dangerous men in the white water.
“How's Victor?” she asks after a few moments.
I laugh, shaking my head. Victor has become an international problem. Government and police agencies around the world are looking for him, while the Irish, the Italians, my new family, the Cartel, all want time with him.
“I’m thinking of setting up an auction, actually,” I say, while pumping my arms, cheering Marco on.
“We could raise a lot of money for victims of trafficking. My concern is how distasteful the concept is. Or maybe it’s that I thought of doing that without any help from my pack.
I’m currently trying to figure out if I need professional help for being so sadistic.
“Aleksei and Santiago are welcoming my newfound violent tendencies. Kade’s worried about how I’ll feel down the road but is supportive of whichever decision I make.
So, yeah, I’m currently in limbo about Victor.
And until I decide, I’ll continue with his daily dose of thallium.
Between me and you, I think I want him to hurt more.
He nearly took this”—I use the champagne bottle to point towards the silly fun happening in front of us—“chance of life away from us. I want him to pay for that.”
Isabella’s arm over my shoulder pulls me to her, and I rest my head on her shoulder.
We’re quiet, enjoying watching them going from fighting to teaching Marco to float.
“You haven’t said much about your sister or your mother, Quinn. Them refusing to see you must hurt.”
I fight back the tears that threaten every time I think about them.
I hope, in time, they realize the rhetoric Victor fed them about me was nothing but lies.
But he put a lot of time and energy in poisoning their view.
A callous and cruel move on his part, considering all this started because I wanted to save my sister.
“At least they’re free of him,” I say, swallowing down the lump of emotion that sits heavy in my throat.
The play in the water stops, like someone flipped a switch. My pack feels my pain as if it’s their own.
“Bebe,” Santiago calls, holding his hand out for me to take.
Isabella drops her arm from around my shoulder, the message clear. “He only wins, Quinn, if you don’t enjoy what’s in front of you.”
I twist around, squeezing the absolute shit out of my dearest friend, relative, before climbing up and racing into their arms.