Chapter 26 #3
“You have…years of abuse videos? And you forgot about them?” I almost drop my coffee cup again.
I’m dramatic as fuck. Extra as hell. I know, I know.
Feeling things strongly and deeply is a gift though.
No complaints from me. “How bad must it have been for those videos to be little more than an aside? Ash Force, my God.”
“The only person that’s ever heard me screaming is you,” Ash says, smiling beautifully at me. He means metaphorically, screaming for help. His eyes, his beautiful screaming eyes.
“Do you want the world to hear you scream?” I ask him, studying the way Alexei and Ash look at each other. Like Ash is asking a silent question or maybe even a favor of Alexei.
“The family would prefer we distanced ourselves from Jonas, but since you’re to live like the dead anyway, what does it matter?
Everyone is going to believe that Ash and Aspen Kelly are both deceased.
” Alexei shrugs one easy shoulder, the king of the castle without even trying.
“If you want to absolutely demolish his reputation before he’s arrested, is there any better way? ”
“I’ll give them to Emma Jean, let her decide how to use them.” Ash exhales, like a weight’s been taken off. “She’s got a knack for capturing people’s attention.”
“I know how to pick my girls,” I remind him, and then we’re heading back upstairs and I can barely breathe.
Widow and Bohnes.
I walk like it’s no big deal, just a bitch chillin’ in her mansion.
I’m anxious though as I start to near the top of the stairs, like I can just feel that something’s wrong. I’ve just gotten to the landing when our bedroom door flies open and there’s Bohnes, dragging his IV stand and baring his teeth like some sort of creature.
Widow is trying to chill him out.
“Don’t be so fucking dramatic,” Adrian gripes, gesturing at me down the hallway. “She’s right there. The drugs are messing with your brain.”
Bohnes is standing there panting, bandaged up, pale and sweaty. He’s got on a black robe similar to the one Alexei is wearing. His isn’t staying up though, dropping off his shoulders and pooling on his taut forearms. He’s got huge purple circles under his eyes that definitely aren’t drawn on today.
“Get your ass back in that bed!” I yell at him, resisting the urge to throw my coffee cup at the wall.
That’s my mother in me, the urge to ruin physical items in pursuit of emotional stress release.
I’m going to fuck mine out instead. Any time I’m angry at one of these men, I’ll fuck him until I calm down a little.
“Where the hell have you been?” Bohnes snaps, pupils dilated, obviously messed up from his latest dose of pain medication.
Then again, he buried three bodies for me before we ever had our first date and then stalked me for years without getting caught.
That’s dedication. Bohnes would absolutely be a threat to me if he didn’t have a sweet heart underneath all those layers of ghoul.
“I’ve been awake for half an hour, Scarlett Bohnes. ”
I laugh at that as he sags against the doorway, deflating. Lying still is not something that Kellin Bohnes is very good at. In fact, he’s the worst at it. He rules his empire through text messages from those sheets, fighting sleep. Wakes up and immediately wants to have sex with me.
“Mr. Force, I’m done with the jokes. The four of you like to beat a dead horse—”
“A dead what?” Bohnes hisses back at me, throwing the robe back up to cover his shoulders. “I’d never beat a dead horse. A dead real estate developer sounds a little better.”
“Get in bed.” I’m not playing this time, moving down the hallway with Ash and Alexei behind me.
Widow is shaking his head and sweeping his palm over his hair, gold eyes landing on the coffee in my hand.
I pass over his mug. Bohnes isn’t getting any until his sexy corpse is in bed.
I turn sideways to find him still standing there, blue-eyed and wild and clutching that IV pole.
The other three boys participate in this forced relaxation without complaining. Bohnes is the only one who’s having a hard time—mostly with lying still. He hates that he can’t follow me everywhere. It’s making him even crazier than he usually is, and that’s really saying something.
Kellin retreats, crawling onto the bed in such a way that his robe falls to the side and shows off his ass. Totally not on purpose, I’m sure. I roll my eyes back to Widow.
“Did you two have a fun time together?” I ask, batting my lashes as Ash and Alexei move past me into the room.
Widow takes me by the shoulders and shifts me a little to one side, leaving enough space for him to close the bedroom door and bolt it.
“Talking fuckboy stuff and husband things and all that man crap?”
“Discussing how many kiddos we’re going to have.” Widow is dry and deadpan in his delivery. I truly can’t tell if he’s messing with me or not. I take another drink of my coffee for fortification purposes.
“The more babies you try to get out of me, the more stabby I’ll get.” I use my only-two-not-ruined nails to make claws at Widow with a pair of curled fingers, like a very attractive T-Rex.
“So? I can handle stabby. I like stabby.” Widow turns and takes his shirtless ass and his coffee over to the arm chair.
His guitar is lying there. His guitar. I want to hear him play a song.
I want him to get all sappy and write a song for me.
Sing it. Does he sing? His screaming voice during sex sounds pretty melodic.
“Nine kids sounds like a nice solid number. I’ll be generous here: two each for Alexei, Ash, and Bohnes, and three for me.
” He sits down and sets his coffee aside, smiling like a jackass as he picks up his guitar.
“Yeah, nine kids. I like the sound of that.”
“If you and Widow are as similar as you say,” Ash begins, getting cozy on the bed with only a single person’s width between him and Bohnes.
Preparing for me to sit there. I elect to stand for a few minutes, taking in the dynamics of the room.
Alexei chooses the chair on the other side of the coffee table, eying the metal shutters with annoyance.
Morning sunlight would be nice, but it’s also more dangerous.
“Then Widow is likely to push past your boundaries the way you threatened to push past mine.” He laughs, like he’s delighted by the very idea.
“Nine children would be interesting.” Alexei is smiling, too, as he leans back in the chair, relaxed. “But Scarlett would likely struggle to uphold an employment contract with Burt’s agency, if she’s always pregnant.”
My eyebrow twitches and I resist the urge to pull my knife. Widow is trying his best to get a rise out of me, but I’m better than all that.
“I’ll chloroform you all, strap you to a table, and perform your vasectomies without anesthesia. Don’t try me, Adrian.”
Widow strums the guitar with his thumb and sings, “if you’d just say ‘parking space’…”
Yep. I’m neutering him.
Bohnes sighs wearily, arm thrown over his face, peeking at me from underneath it. I can’t resist him. I find my way over to sit between him and Ash, crawling over Bohnes without managing to hurt him or spill coffee. That’s a win.
I relax into the pillows, a hot muscular body on either side of me. Competing scents. Antiseptic. Burnt sugar (Bohnes). Breezy florals (Ash). Coffee. Laundry detergent because Ash changes the bedding every single morning and evening without fail. Alexei helps him with it, but mostly it’s Ash.
“We’ll see, won’t we?” Widow teases, playing the beginning notes of a song like he used to do in the halls of Prescott High. “The future is open and available for rewrites.”
“It was only Bohnes I missed when I was downstairs,” I lie as Adrian lifts those beautiful eyes to me. His horrible uncle left him afraid of the good man inside of him. I can see that good man now, hiding there behind a playboy smirk. I took his virginity, so I know he’s full of shit.
“That was the most interesting, most beautiful wedding I have ever seen.” Widow’s comment throws me off-guard.
“I feel like I’ve just joined some tight-knit gang or something.
Blood in, blood out. Vicious.” He laughs at that.
“But I like the idea of this domestic shit better.” He continues with the song, spilling musical notes in the still air.
“Coffee. Guitar. Sports cars.” A pause. A look. “Children.”
Buttons, pressed. Nice work, Adrian.
“Yeah?” I challenge as Bohnes drags himself into a sitting position with a groan, sweating profusely.
Reaching for his coffee. There’s a set of empty bowls there, too, from the cereal I brought up earlier.
Adrian and Kellin are Prescott brats. They love cold cereal, too.
“Good. Being a gentle, kept cuckold suits you, Adrian. You’ll be a beautiful stay-at-home daddy. ”
“I would love to be a stay-at-home dad,” he shoots back, stopping the music and setting the guitar aside in favor of his own coffee. “Don’t threaten me with a good time, Force.”
“We’re either all at home together or we’re all at work together,” Bohnes says, and I can’t decide if that’s helpful or unhelpful for my argument. “Stay-at-home-family or go-to-work-family.”
Widow doesn’t seem displeased, smirking and shaking his head. I would give anything to be a fly on the wall for his private conversations with Bohnes.
“Even when we go to work”—notice my use of the word when—“we’ll carve time out for ourselves.
Just like this. I’ve made the final decision: we’re not going anywhere until the dance starts tomorrow.
Not one foot outside of this house.” I smile at them, and it’s a tad perverse. “Also, I’m driving the killdozer.”
Silence follows.
I decide to fill it myself.