CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
LUCA
“Is this the new hangout spot?” Rafe asks as he plops onto one of the giant beanbag chairs throughout the room. The chairs aren’t really full of beans, or else the cats would have a field day, but their shape and malleability are reminiscent of the childhood seats—just modernized for adults.
Beanie chases a toy mouse across the floor before pouncing on Rafe’s shoe to chew on the laces instead. Allie’s cat, Pretty Kitty, lounges on a hammock attached to the window, napping under the sunlight.
The two cats get along as well as expected after weeks sharing the customized cat jungle the room has been turned into.
They mostly keep to themselves—Beanie, energetic and playful, while the older Pretty Kitty sleeps a lot—but sometimes they choose to curl up next to each other, which Allie and Eden ooh and ahh over while snapping pictures.
I was searching for Eden when I found her with Allie in the cat room, Mathias joined at her hip. Then Jonah wandered in with Hugo, and now Rafe has joined the party.
“It was…” Jonah pretends to get up and leave, while Rafe flips him off with a roll of his eyes.
“We just need Dmitri to show up, then we can call an official manor meeting.” Ever the peacekeeper, Eden ignores their playful insults, distracting Beanie from Rafe’s shoelaces with a beribboned string at the end of a long wand.
“Don’t hold your breath. Dmitri prefers training with Blackthorn soldiers when he has free time.” As if we haven’t spent years of our lives training already under Conrad’s iron thumb.
Allie rests her head on Mathias’s shoulder, watching Eden and Beanie. “Better training than kidnapping. I think we’ve reached our quota in this house for kidnapped women,” she jokes.
“I second that opinion.” Eden pins me with an exasperated glance. “No more kidnapping.”
All of us guys raise our hands in surrender.
“Unlike my criminally minded brothers,” Rafe drawls, a roguish twinkle in his eyes, “I don’t need to hold a woman captive to keep her in my bed. My unique… skills are enough to keep her satisfied.”
The women make mock gagging expressions as Hugo leans over to wallop Rafe on the side of the head. Mathias and I nod in gratitude for the quick reprisal.
Rafe laughs and jumps into defending his ridiculous claims, but I tune out his ramblings, happy to relax in a rare moment of peace. Between Eden’s beating, finding and rescuing those trafficked women, and dealing with my troublesome family, my life has been a nonstop series of unfortunate events.
The only bright spot has been marrying Eden and finally getting to call her mine .
So, an afternoon hanging out with my brothers and my girl, along with a few cats, is a nice change. Even if it means listening to Rafe brag about his sexual prowess.
Eden scoots closer to me and bumps my shoulder with hers. “Are they always like this? All I’ve witnessed are the stoic mercenaries. Reverting to teenage boys is… different. Funny. Not what I’d expect from a group known as the Blackchapel Bastards.”
“Stick with me, baby, and you’ll never lack for entertainment.” I grin, shaking my head at my brothers’ antics. “This is what we’re like when we don’t have death and destruction breathing down our necks.”
Her eyes widen to round amber orbs. “Geez, Luca. You make it sound like a pack of bloodthirsty vampires are about to descend upon us at any given moment.”
“Sometimes it feels that way.”
Sympathy softens her expression. “You realize you don’t have to follow through on your plans, right? People change, and what you craved at fifteen doesn’t have to be the same at thirty-five. You don’t have to live with targets on your backs.”
Her quiet words sink into my bones as I study each of my brothers. Oblivious to the serious turn of our conversation.
I don’t think any of us have considered veering from our chosen path.
It’s always been known that our fathers would pay for their part in our shitty childhoods, and their criminal ties—The Syndicate—would crumble to nothing. There was never a question of walking away. Of letting things stand.
“We’ve come too far to stop now, carissima ,” I whisper, though for the first time in decades, she has me wondering how true that really is.