EPILOGUE
TRUCE FOR THE WOMAN IN WHITE
GRIMM
Every day, I looked at her as if it was the first time, and every day, I kissed her as if it was the last.
After we left Colombia together and came back to Chicago, a plethora of meetings followed, with her father and members of the cartel for the renewal of the truce between them and Cosa Nostra, plus a new one between them and the Bratva.
Not that I cared much about what happened to the Voltas, and Arella didn’t even want to meet Damiano, which was also the reason she never attended a meeting where she knew he would be present, even though she knew he was the one who gave us the address to find her.
They bored me to death, mostly because the only thing I wanted to do was be next to her, at all times, glued to her, if possible, preferably buried deep inside her.
Alejandro
Snchez still hated me, but I didn’t care much about that either.
Honestly, I slept like a baby most nights.
I knew he didn’t approve of my heritage, or the fact that the Bratva had an upstanding deal with the people responsible for his wife’s death, but he gave up his grudge against the Italians in order for his daughter to be happy, and the fact that he now had a granddaughter via the fucking Russian gangster’ certainly sweetened the pot.
He… tolerated me, because I knew he would never fully accept me, even though Arella kept telling me he would come around at some point, begging me to put myself in his shoes. Not to mention the motherfucker refused to admit that our daughter looked like me more than her.
Athena Grace Abaddon
was born twenty-three days ago, named after the goddess of wisdom and war, because Arella had developed a passion for Greek Mythology during her pregnancy, and said it suited a child born out of us perfectly.
She was
wisdom
, and I was
war
, and I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
When I first held her in my arms, I was afraid I would hurt her and I was trembling like fucking gelatin, because my hands had no business touching something so clean, so pure, so fucking beautiful it melted the remaining ice surrounding my heart, and I knew then that I was going to be much worse than Arella’s father.
~ Are you sure? You’re so fucking docile lately.
~ I thought you hated that word.
~ It isn’t directed at me, genius.
I still dropped in on my sister once a month to see how she was doing, and while Arella kept insisting that I should just go and talk to her, I couldn’t bring myself to disrupt her life only because I was curious to know her beyond the things I already knew about her. Protecting Willow from the distance worked for me, and nothing ever happened that would require me to physically step in.
~ Look at you, caring about other people’s feelings. It makes me want to vomit.
I rolled my eyes and got out of bed, walking to the balcony.
She was wearing a black, tight tank top and some flimsy, easily breakable pair of black lace panties, which molded over her ass as though she had been poured into them. Arella was leaning over the railing, her eyes fixed on where the sun was slowly sinking behind the tall buildings. The wind pushed her hair to the side, revealing the scar left behind by the bullet she took for me, which she covered with my name.
~ My name, you mean.
Ripper
was written in cursive on her shoulder blade, tangled in bullets, and I grew hard every time my eyes fell over the tattoo.
We didn’t know what would become of us in the future, but for the moment, we were at peace, determined to fight tooth and nail to keep that peace, or die trying.
I grabbed the railing on either side of her, pressing myself against her back as if I couldn’t breathe in her absence.
“You’ve left me alone for too long,” I whispered over her neck, and she laughed.
“I think you need to get some rest,” she spun around, her breasts pressing to my chest.
“Bullshit.”
I picked her up and didn’t stop walking until we fell on the bed.
“You’re going to kill me one day,” she moaned when I pulled her tank top down to reveal her breasts, wrapping my lips around one nipple.
“We’re going to die together,
Snezhinka
.”
I barely had time to enjoy one of her moans before the monitor on the bedside table started to scream.
Arella burst into laughter, and I crashed my head against her chest as she tried to push me off.
“Hey, you’re the one who refused to use protection. Face the music, daddy,” she giggled as she finally managed to slip from under me, then stood up and adjusted her top.
“I have no regrets,” I grinned as I crossed my arms over my chest.
She rolled her eyes and flipped me off, then she stumbled out of the bedroom, and I was left to stare at the ceiling.
My whole life, I’d considered myself a psychopath, then she came into my life, with her golden cross necklace, that wide smile, every feminine dress, and her fear of flying, turning my beliefs to dust, showing me that I had nothing to do with what I thought about myself.
One by one, she’d unshackled every emotion and taught me to be everything for her.
The one thing I still hadn’t conquered was the voice in my head, who still asked for blood every time I wasn’t around them, but I lived with the voice because I had her to silence it.
Once upon a time, there was an angel who was lost amongst mortals, whose main purpose was to share her light with all those who crossed her path, a messenger of God who selflessly shared her kindness, an untainted soul. That same angel fell for the demon of absolute destruction.
Fate played her cards at random when we met.
We loved each other against all odds.
We crumbled each other to dust.
Then we rebuilt one another from the ruins.
THE END.