Chapter 24
Kortez
Evie is different than the girl I left behind all those years ago.
We both grew up in an orphanage, and I knew she was touched by pain then, but this is different.
This is pain without someone to share it with.
Sure, she had Lurie, the woman at the center and later this Vivianne friend that I need to look into, but those early years she spent fighting her demons alone.
I once swore I would always be there at her back to pick her up when she fell and to protect her when she was wounded – not because I thought she was incapable but because I knew she was so fiercely independent that she would rather bleed out in the dirt than to ever let someone know she’d been hit.
I broke that vow, though. She bled in the dirt and had to crawl to safety on her own. Hell, she created her own sanctuary amongst the brambles.
Where does that leave me, though? Does she need a partner anymore? Has she lost faith in me?
Or am I too broken to be of any use.
I feel the warmth of her body when she joins me by the window, my eyes watching as her son – Atlas’s son – cheers as he makes another goal against an imaginary foe.
“He has your eyes.” It’s the first thing I noticed when I saw photos of him hanging on the fridge this morning.
She laughs, the sound somehow familiar and strange at the same time. She’s my Evie, but different. Grown. She’s got thorns when before she was all soft petals and delicate morning dew. I’m not afraid to bleed, though. Especially not for her.
“He may have my eyes but the rest of him is all Atlas. The Italian blood is thick in that one.”
She sighs, turning around and leaning against my side.
I don’t know if she means to or if it’s her body’s subconscious way of telling me it still needs my touch.
Either way, I don’t question it. My arm wraps around her waist and pulls her close as I drop a soft kiss against her temple.
“I’m sorry I left you.” My arm squeezes her tighter and eyes harden instead of letting the tears fall.
“I thought of you every day. We tried to find you, but Aldo didn’t let us out of his sight for five years…
by then we didn’t even know where to look. ”
The only sound in the house is the shuffling coming from Atlas still digging through her shoebox of memories, nose purple and swollen from where Wylder broke it.
Wylder sits on the couch, his fingers flying over his keyboard as he sends a message to someone. I’m too far away to see the screen but it’s a subtle enough reminder that I need to get a tap on his phone as soon as possible. Roman may trust him but I don’t. I can’t afford to.
Where the hell did Roman sneak off to anyway?
An arm slides around my waist as she squeezes me back. “I didn’t want to be found.”
I can practically see the wheels spinning as she turns her head toward me, the sunlight from the window shining behind her and making her look like an angel come to save my soul – if that’s even possible.
“What happened in those first five years, Kor?”
I see Atlas look up at me, his eyes silently warning me to keep my mouth closed. He doesn’t want to scare Evie, but he doesn’t realize that she doesn’t scare easily. He still wants to protect her when all I’ve ever wanted was to fight by her side.
“Aldo wanted to mold me in his image. He said Atlas was too soft and he thought he could have a do over with me – and it worked to a point. He didn’t realize that if you back a wounded animal into a corner that it will learn to attack anytime it’s confronted.
He didn’t realize he was turning me into a savage rather than a soldier. ”
I feel Evie shaking in my arms and look down to see tears streaming down her face, her teeth biting down on her bottom lip to try and muffle her sobs. “I should have tried to find you.”
Atlas joins us by the window as he crowds in on her other side, a hand going to her back to rub in soothing circles. “Reginetta…”
She breaks away from us, walking back to the center of the living room where Wylder is now standing with a hard look in his eyes. “I was an idiot for thinking Atlas killed you. I owed it to you both to do more than just run away. To…to wish death upon the man I loved.”
My heart constricts in my chest as her words hit me. The man she loved. Man. Loved. Does she still love him? Does she love only him?
She wipes her face, laughing at herself as she shakes her head. “I became a lawyer to get in with the criminal world.”
Wyld grabs her hand and whispers something in her ear. She gives him a subtle nod before continuing. “I knew one day the Valente name would pop back up and I would have my chance to get retribution.” She looks up and I feel Atlas tense at my side as she meets his gaze. “I was going to kill you.”
He crosses the room and grabs her right out of Wylder’s arms; his voice is barely loud enough to hear as his face leans down to get right in front of hers. “What a wonderful way to go.”
He swoops down and kisses her, their bodies going taut as their lips meet in a violent collision of a decade old passion.
My eyes meet Wylder’s as Evie’s low moan meets my ears and I see the mutual understanding shining back at me in his golden orbs.
We’re all in this together. None of us willing to give her up.
And we’re okay with that.
I watch as he steps forward, his arms going around her waist at the same moment he leans down and nips where her neck and collarbone meet.
She arches back into him, her eyes opening as Atlas begins to kiss down the other side of her neck.
Steel gray eyes light up with interest and invitation as I walk forward, my steps even and slow as I approach.
My hand is shaking as I reach behind her and wrap my fingers in her curls, wrenching her hair back to bare her neck to my brother and her lover.
I see her shirt move as Wylder’s hands slide over her stomach and Atlas finds his way back to her lips, his breath heavy as if he’d rather kiss her again than breathe.
I know the feeling. I would trade her taste over oxygen any day.
But I’m not the same person I was when I wanted to lay her down and make love to her, whispering sweet nothings in her ear as she drew her art on my skin. I’m scared she won’t want to paint in the blood I spill when my mind gets too heavy or my heart races a little too fast.
Atlas pulls away, moving so slowly it looks like it pains him to quit kissing her for even a moment. “You won’t hurt her, Tez.”
Her eyes flash with an unspoken question as I lean in, one hand clenched around the pocketknife I always keep hidden in my pocket. A tether back to myself should I need it.
My lips whisper across hers at the same moment I hear a door slam open followed by the pounding of boots on her wood floors.
My knife is pulled out and flicked open before Wylder and Atlas can untangle themselves from Evie, and the flash of bright red hair is the only thing that keeps me from launching my knife across the room.
“We have incoming.” Roman’s eyes are wide as he rounds the corner, the back door slamming shut even though he’s nowhere near it.
“Wade?” Atlas’s voice is tight as he begins to reach into his waistband for his gun.
Roman shakes his head, “Worse.”
“Mom?” The word hits me harder than the sight of Evie’s son rounding the corner, eyes shooting me and Atlas death glares as he walks straight towards his mother.
“Bel, hun, what is it?” Evie reaches down to smooth his hair from his face, strands sticking to his forehead with sweat from playing outside.
He doesn’t let her, though, and shoves her hand away. “Who are they? I saw that one,” Abel points to Roman standing behind him with a sheepish look on his face, “in the backyard. He says he’s your friend. I didn’t believe him, so I kicked my soccer ball at him.”
Sure enough, when I look over at Roman, I see the red mark forming on the side of his face. Kid got him good.
Evie chokes out a laugh, “It’s okay, Bel, they are my friends. That’s Roman and this is Atlas and Kortez.”
Abel’s eyes linger on Atlas for a moment before swinging over to me. “I thought you died.”
Evie lets out a gasp as she leans down, “Abel, where did you hear that?”
He shrugs, his eyes looking anywhere but at his mother. “You say his name sometimes in your sleep and one time you said he was dead.” He looks up at Atlas, his eyes curious. “She says yours, too.”
I look over to Atlas to see him crouching down, frozen as his son stands right in front of him. Evie looks flustered as she looks between her son and his father. They’re lost, caught in the crosshairs of a ten-year-old boy as the dots connect in his mind. He sees the resemblance. He knows.
The moment I recognize the realization in Abel’s eyes is the same time he swings. Bone crunches and blood spurts as Abel hits his father in his already broken nose. A desperate, angry look comes across his face as his little fists continue to pummel into Atlas.
Atlas doesn’t even flinch. Blood runs down his face from his nose as Abel begins to kick out with his feet as well, his voice broken as he begins to scream. “I hate you! I don’t care if you’re my dad! I hate you; I hate you; I hate you!”
Wylder shoves past me and grabs the boy from behind as he continues to punch and kick and scream, his breath choked from the small sobs coming from his throat. “You left me! You left my mom!”
Atlas stands and faces his son, stumbling as the kid manages to land another kick even while in Wylder’s arms. “I promise I’m never leaving again. I swear it to you, Abel.”
Wylder whispers soothing words in Abel’s ear as he turns around, Evie following after with an apologetic look in her eyes as they go up the stairs, the sound of small sniffles reaching my ears until I hear a door close from the second floor.
“So…” Roman clears his throat as he leaves his spot from the doorway. “Looked like I walked in on something interesting a few minutes ago.”
Atlas huffs out a laugh as he drags his shirt up to wipe at the drying blood. “Interesting is an understatement.”
“She was okay with that? With all three of you…?” Roman lets the question fade off as he motions his hands around in a circle.
“If you mean sharing, then yes, I’d say she was okay with it. I assume Wylder is, too.”
I nod at Atlas’s words, “He didn’t seem too upset to me.”
Roman face stretches in a smile that promises debauchery in all its finest forms. “Good. He’s too pretty to kill.”