Epilogue
Cairo
I watched her in the lounge chair—the picture of contentment as the sun soaked her skin.
“Stop staring at her like a lovesick puppy.”
Rolling my eyes, I glanced at my sister. She was in the middle of loading up her tray with prawn balls and spiced tortilla chips.
“Paris, you should pack your stuff. This is your stop.”
“We’re in the middle of the ocean.”
“Did I stutter?”
She laughed, ignoring me completely. Paris carried her tray out to my dad, where they picked up their conversation.
It was hard to believe four years ago, we were at Bedlam University—the kings of a small school, but the pawns of a small town. Now...
I passed a smirk over our five-story yacht, Rainey Seas. We liked to sail most of the year. Why spend your time in one place when there was so much world to see? Thanks to Jacques, we could afford it.
The guy told Ivy he was working on a way to get her inheritance back—legally or illegally. Turned out he was tracking down each of our mothers’ secret bank accounts... and draining them dry.
Between the five of them, their mothers, and their grandmothers, they saved up about sixty million dollars combined. Jacques took it all and gave it to Ivy.
Don’t worry, we didn’t leave them destitute. They did give us life after all.
Jacques left them the equivalent of their actual salaries in their savings. More than enough to make their pretend lives as simple judges, deans, mayors, and charity organizers—their real ones.
None of them have spoken to us since.
“What about Italy?” Arsenio leaned over and dropped a kiss on Ivy’s lips. “Haven’t been there in months.”
“There’s a reason for that,” Jacques said. He found himself at Ivy’s feet. Lifting them onto his lap, he rubbed her arches, eliciting a soft purr. “It’s too soon.”
“Korea?” Roan offered from the hot tub. He and Legend bubbled in the steamy water. Both of their hands had been under for a suspiciously long time. “We’ll hit Jeju-do this time. I could do with a little island living, and it’ll be good for our girl.”
“Guys, I’m fine,” she protested. Ivy lovingly rubbed the swollen mound her two-piece bathing suit did nothing to cover. “We’re fine.”
Our daughter was in there. No matter how many times I told myself that, it didn’t seem real.
Ivy used to joke that a baby would soften us. The joke was fucking on us because we ripened like mangoes in the sun two seconds after we saw the pregnancy test. Roan once said you don’t ride an injured horse. Turns out we can’t punish a pregnant Ivy either.
Roan put away his crops. Legend locked up his paddles. Jacques only used his belt to hold his pants up now. Arsenio was still a prick who dominated her in bed, but afterward, he spent the night cooing at her belly, so he was having a hard time maintaining his rep as the most dangerous of us. And our rough consensual rape sex was very light on the rough lately.
Sometimes Ivy complained about it, and tried pushing our buttons to get us to break. But she loved us pampering her too much to really fight it.
“Why don’t we go Stateside?” Paris spoke up. “When’s the last time you and I bought out every shop in New York, Ivy? I gotta start showering my niece with gifts now.”
“Oooh, that does sound fun.”
“What do you think, Dad?” Paris asked Jack, brightening his face as it always did.
She still called her own father Dad of course, but Nora didn’t take it well when Paris refused to take her side, or pressure Ivy into giving her the money back. She kicked Paris out of the house, and my sister took it as the chance she’d been waiting for—to finally get out of Bedlam. Ivy invited her to spend a week on the boat with us, and that was it.
She and Jack got close again. Closer than Dad and I ever did. I suspected it was her influence that helped him hit four years sober.
“I think New York sounds great. Don’t know if I told you I’ve got cousins there,” Jack said. “We can make a whole vacation of it. You ladies relax and have some fun while I catch up.”
“Three votes for New York,” said Legend. His and Roan’s shoulders were jerking in their sockets. That confirmed I’d be staying out of the hot tub for the next few weeks. “Arsenio?”
My phone went off, pulling me away from the conversation.
“What?”
“Ah, that lovely greeting and dulcet tone could only be Cairo Sharpe.”
I frowned. “Who is this? How did you get this number?”
“I was given this number, so I could collect when the day came.”
Something about the voice tickled my memory.
“Come on. Don’t you remember me? I busted you out of jail four years ago.”
Adriel Burton.
“Again, what do you want?”
“What do you think?” he snapped. “I’m cashing in that favor. I got into some trouble down here in Miami. My boys can’t make the charges disappear, and I’m not going down for this. I broke you out of jail, now you’re going to do the same for me.”
“A Miami prison isn’t on the same level as a small-town sheriff station guarded by two and a half inept cops. Neither is the trumped-up charge we were brought in on the same as whatever your boys can’t get you out of. Am I right?”
“Doesn’t matter,” he gritted. “That favor was a blank check. Legend and I agreed. And don’t pretend you can’t do it. Your reputation is international, Bedlam Boy— Oh wait, you call your gang the Fates now.
“Cairo—the enforcer. Arsenio—the hit man. Roan—the interrogator. Jacques—the brain and lawyer. Legend—the trap. Pretty Boy St. James charms your targets into being in the wrong place at the right time. I need some of that for the bastard who framed me!
“Make it happen, Sharpe. It’s not a good idea to break a deal with me.”
“Hmm. Looks like in the last four years, you’ve dropped the innocent act too.”
“There’s a lot of that going around. So, what’s it going to be?”
I shrugged. “Why are you asking me? All requests go through the boss.”
“What? Who—?”
Crossing the deck, I handed over the phone. Ivy cycled through a few expressions as she listened. Confusion, surprise, mild disgust, annoyance, then—
“An open favor? I see. I’ll be in touch.” Ivy hung up. By the cut-off shout, it was in the middle of the conversation.
She smiled at us—the radiant goddess, more brutal and deadly than we could ever be. “Sorry, guys. We’ll have to put New York on hold. It looks like we’re heading to Miami.”
“Hmm, I’ll like you in Miami.” I threaded my fingers through hers, lining up our wedding rings. She had two more on this hand and two on the other. “Beaches, Cuban sandwiches, palm trees, ocean sex.”
“Mmm,” she purred. “It’s a date. Oh, but first, we have to kill a guy.”
“Then, it’s our kind of date. Even better.”
“I love you guys,” she said, “and I love our life together.”
“We love you too,” Legend replied, “but let’s be honest, we didn’t give you the choice to do anything else.”