Chapter 3 #2
I blinked. The question hit harder than it should have. Because, truthfully? I didn’t have a real answer. Not one that sounded good. I hesitated, suddenly uncomfortably aware of how hollow our usual holiday traditions were in comparison to whatever magical, imaginative idea she had of Christmas.
“Truthfully? We normally hit the club for a Christmas party,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck. “Then head to our parents’ place on the morning of. That’s…that’s pretty much it.”
She stared at me for a long ass time, and something in her softened a little—right before it crumpled.
“Oh,” she breathed, her disappointment clear as it slid into place behind her eyes. “That’s kind of…sad.”
I opened my mouth, but she kept going. “Do you not like Christmas?” she asked, her voice quieter now. Her eyes searched mine, not with frustration this time, but with something gentler.
Then, soft as a prayer, like she wasn’t sure she had the right to say it, “Is it because of…Vanya?”
She breathed our late sister’s name as if it were holy. The air left my lungs. For a second, I didn’t move. Didn’t blink. My jaw tightened as her face blurred, my brain scrambling to reroute the conversation.
“No,” I said quickly, too quickly. I stepped forward and caught her hands in mine, needing her to see it, to feel that this wasn’t coming from pain. “No, kitten, I promise you. It’s not that. It has nothing to do with her.”
I expected relief. What I got instead was her face falling, the last of her hope slipping right through the cracks.
“Oh,” she whispered, brows pulling in as her lips parted in something like disbelief. “Well, that…would’ve made more sense.”
My stomach dropped.
“I just…” She blinked, took a shaky breath. “That, I could’ve understood. That would’ve explained why you guys avoid it. Why you don’t make a big deal out of it. Why you don’t see it the way I do. But if it’s not about her, then what is it?”
She pulled her hands back, wiggling free from my grip. That stung. “I’m trying so hard,” she said, quieter now. “So I guess you really don’t like Christmas.”
“It’s not that we don’t like it,” I said, sounding far too defensive.
“Then we’ll upgrade my assessment from sad to tragic,” she snapped back. “It’s the most wonderful time of the year. We have so much to be thankful for. And I have the best gifts for all of you.”
She didn’t say it, but I heard what came next in the silence.
But I guess that doesn’t matter. I don’t matter.
She stepped back, enough to make the absence of her touch feel like a slap, the warmth from earlier disappeared. The kiss, the laughter, the light in her eyes…all of it shattered in an instant. I opened my mouth to speak, to explain something—anything—but she beat me to it again.
“Never mind, and actually,” she looked down at her watch. “You aren’t ever home this early,” she said, voice flat, her eyes suddenly locked on a random spot behind me. “Did something come up?”
The shift was so fast it disoriented me. She retreated into guard mode. Distant yet still polite. Her question pulled me back to reality, snapping the thread of whatever I thought we were doing a moments ago.
Right. I hadn’t come down here to kiss her breathless or to argue about mistletoe. I was the one who drew the short straw—tasked with delivering the news she was going to hate. I ran a hand down my face and exhaled.
“Yeah, about that. Something actually did come up.”
I hated how the words landed. Like it was a scheduling hiccup. It wasn’t. She’d understand, this much I knew. It didn’t make delivering the news any easier. In fact, with how much I’d apparently fucked things up in the span of five minutes, this made it harder.
A high-profile case had hit our desks that morning—one we couldn’t ignore, no matter what time of year it was. Some jackass judge released a convicted paedophile, and now three survivors were in danger while we chased down leads on accomplices.
This wasn’t simply another job. It wasn’t going to be a quick trip to the warehouse.
It wasn’t an in-and-out kind of thing. We were looking at a minimum of a week away.
Maybe more. And I was about to tell the woman who’d spent three months preparing to give us a picture-perfect Christmas… that we’d be gone for most of it.
“It’s business,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady, hoping it would make it sound more acceptable.
“But it’s Christmas.” She blinked, slow and stunned. She acted as if I had said the holiday had been cancelled altogether.
“It’s just a few days,” I said quickly, reaching for her. “We won’t miss it. I promise.”
But the moment I touched her, she recoiled—jerked back like I’d burned her. Her eyes went wide, glistening with unshed tears that she blinked away so fast I almost missed them. Almost.
Her shoulders slumped under the weight of something I hadn’t seen coming, hadn’t even thought to look for. The spark that had lit her up moments ago had vanished as if it had never existed.
In its place was something smaller. Quieter. And too fucking fragile for my damned ego. I stood there like an idiot, mouth parted, debating whether to tell her the whole truth—that it was Death Squad work.
She knew the kind of men we were, the things we couldn’t walk away from. But the other part of me, the part that had already seen the way her joy had dimmed, knew she’d worry herself sick the entire time we were gone. So I said nothing.
She didn’t push for more, didn’t demand an explanation. She looked down, nudging a scrap of glittery wrapping paper away with her pointed socked toes.
My gaze followed the motion, dropping to the chaos on the floor. Markers. Ribbon. Scissors. Tiny hand-lettered tags and matching scraps of colored cardstock. Crafts. Decorations. Pieces of my sweet little kitten’s heart.
All of it spread out in a world we hadn’t really noticed. I crossed my arms tightly across my chest, a slow prickle crawling over my skin. And for the first time, it occurred to me that maybe we’d missed something. Scratch the maybe. We’d absolutely missed something very important.
“Kitten. Don’t be mad. You won’t even miss us. You and Isabella can do a week-long slumber party, and it will give you time to finish your projects.”
Her lips pressed together. “Right,” she murmured.
Without another word, she knelt down, her fingers trembling as she gathered the scattered supplies. Each movement was slow, deliberate, as if she was trying to hold it together. A pang of guilt twisted in my chest. We hadn’t done enough for her. She deserved more than this.
Before I left, I crouched beside her, needing to touch her one more time. I reached out and tugged on a loose strand of her hair, curling it around my finger like it was delicate silk.
“Hey,” I said. “Could you do me a favor?”
She didn’t lift her head. Didn’t meet my eyes. But she gave the faintest nod, the movement so small it hurt to witness.
“Make a list,” I said. “Of what you want most for Christmas, okay?”
“Sure,” she whispered, her voice catching as if it got tangled on something sharp on the way out.
Fucking bloody hell.
My chest tightened. I stood before I could say anything stupid—anything that would make it worse. I didn’t trust myself to touch her again, not when she looked so breakable and silent and more like the sad little girl I’d hold when she was feeling broken.
I pulled out my phone as I walked away, fingers flying across the screen.
REAPER:
She took it way worse than we could have ever thought. We are going to need to regroup.
CROW:
What do you mean?
BLADE:
Shit. That bad?
REAPER:
The lot of us fucked up royally unless one of you has something up your sleeve for Christmas. Because I sure as hell don’t.
CROW:
Fuck. I didn’t even think about it.
BLADE:
Well, damn.