Chapter 21
This is dark
Declan
The three of us remained secured in the family quarters until the dust of Dina’s “release” settled and the cops replaced the detectives who worked on Dina’s case.
The new detectives are outsiders, meaning not Selnoan natives, which could work out either way for us, good or bad. I’m not sure yet. They’re arriving for a meeting tomorrow, and I’ll feel them out. I got good advice from my uncle Endo, namely a reminder that everyone has a price.
Even Ivan, who hasn’t responded to my dinner invitations. I invited him and his wife, thinking he’d accept if he knew he was safe with the women in attendance. But he’s ignored the invites (I sent three).
The new asset we placed in his ranks indicates that Ivan thinks his refusal will offend me. It would if I allowed my ego to run my life the way my father had. My killer instincts suppress my ego. I’m not offended. If anything, I’m amused.
But we can’t live within these walls forever.
If the safety measures I’m imposing on us stretch for too long, meaning we stay within our walls for another week, we risk appearing as if we’re afraid.
The person who controls the city should also roam the city unafraid. You control nothing if you aren’t free.
Some nights, Con and I sit around the unlit firepit, wondering why we don’t just kill Ivan and everyone next door. He asks me why I don’t order a crane, sit on top of it, and start picking off Ivan’s people one by one.
I tell him I don’t want bodies all over the nice lawn.
Connor laughs at that.
I don’t think he knows how easy it would be for me to turn off my emotions and become my father. I do that when I’m on the job. I don’t need to be living that way. If I can conquer Selnoa without any more bloodshed, I will. But if I can’t…
I sip my beer. It’s another beautiful night after a dinner Dina made. She’s a fine cook, much better than Connor or me.
She has a ritual at night. She bathes in the big tub and then falls asleep watching TV in the bedroom while I sleep in the panic room.
Just as well, since Connor set up our surveillance hub inside the panic room.
It overlooks the entire property, including the mansion.
The bedroom feed is on my phone, exclusive to me, the camera hidden inside the TV.
Sometimes I watch her put on her pajamas while my hand is in my pants. Despite what she says about her weight, Dina has a gorgeous body with a full ass. I fantasize about spanking her. Softly. Maybe she’s into cute daddy stuff. I like calling her baby. Secretly, I think she likes it too.
“Hey.” Dina pokes her head outside. “Connor left?”
I nod.
She showered and dressed for bed, wearing her gray-and-pink giraffe pajama dress. “Is there something wrong?”
“No.” I hope not, since my brother is in the storage space under Ivan’s private spaces, installing bugs that will hopefully penetrate the floors and deliver the conversations Ivan is having in private.
“Hey.” I tap the cushion next to me. “Want to hang out?” I offer her Connor’s cold beer. He’s late, the beer is getting warm, and I need a distraction from thinking Ivan caught my brother or, worse, killed him.
I can tell Dina’s uncomfortable, or maybe she’s still holding a grudge from the other day when I brought Chi-chi here. Or maybe Dina is mad that her dad called my private line to thank me for the cruise ticket.
I don’t think he’d be thanking me if he knew my last name was Crossbow, but I appreciate a man with manners. Nowadays, most people take gifts and never bother to say thank you.
The cold beer wins her over, and she sits near me and tucks her bare feet under her bottom.
When she reaches for the beer, her dark, wet hair frames her face, and I fist the bottle, holding it firmly.
She tugs. I don’t let go but use the opportunity to lean in and get a whiff of her gentle, flowery scent.
“You smell good,” I tell her. “Come sit closer. I don’t bite.”
“Oh, I doubt that’s true.”
I smile. “Got me there.”
I can tell she’s reluctant to sit beside me. I curl her hair around my finger and tug. “Get over here, Dina.”
She scoots over.
“Tuck your feet under your bottom.” She does, and her shoulder leans against me. I pull down the pajama’s collar and kiss the skin on her shoulder.
Dina holds her breath.
I wonder what she’ll do. Move? Leave? Turn around and slap me?
After a moment, she takes a nice swig of her beer and says, “For a city you hate so much, you sure love sitting on the terrace in the morning, watching it wake up.”
I stretch my arm over the back of her seat. My fingers touch her other shoulder. I know she can feel that, and when she doesn’t slap my hand or protest, I slip my middle finger under the top of her pajama. Her skin is butter soft. I trace her shoulder, my dick hardening in my pants.
I look down to make sure it’s obvious. It’s not, so I spread my legs some more. That draws her gaze between my legs, and she catches sight of my erection.
Dina’s breathing becomes erratic.
I don’t make another move.
I keep my single middle finger on her shoulder. A subtle gesture that we are not friends. Or roommates. That I’m interested in fucking her. She needs a reminder of that. Along with a good spanking, but that’s optional. Beggars can’t be choosers now, can they?
My age doesn’t help me win her over. If anything, it’s making her more uncomfortable.
I wish the world wasn’t judging us, but it is, and there’s no sense in telling Dina the opinion of others about our age gap doesn’t matter when she thinks it does.
It’s far better to acknowledge the gap and fuck me despite it. No?
I think yes.
“Why do you think Ivan pretends you don’t live here?”
We heard Ivan yelling obscenities over the soccer match we lost tonight. Our team lost to the neighboring city, our rival. Fans are rioting. The cops are making their arrest quota for the month. I’m drowning my sorrows in beer.
“Ivan is vying to be king of Selnoa now. He needs to appear as if he’s letting us stay here. As if he’s in control.”
“Is he in control or are you?”
“Right now, it’s neither of us. The chief of police holds a lot of power right now. Especially over me. They have my rifle, which, even without the prints, links one of us to Massio’s assassination.”
“I wish I knew.”
I squeeze her shoulder. “That’s not on you. We are not going to blame each other for the rifle. It’s a done deal. Ivan is a problem I need to fix. We can’t go to him, and he can’t come to us.”
“The stalemate can’t go on forever.”
“Why not? I have forever.”
Dina turns toward me. “Nobody has forever.”
“Do you have a solution?” I ask.
“Well, your father—”
“Guys!” Connor says from inside.
Dina drops her feet and scoots a little away from me. I yank the cushion she’s sitting on toward me. There.
Connor stands at the glass door, holding a pile of clothing.
Dina moves, but I open the door for Connor. He dumps the clothing into the firepit and goes back inside.
“When did he get back?” I mumble.
Dina picks up a red dress. “This is from the closet upstairs. I think these are your mother’s clothes.”
“They are.”
“You are going to burn her clothes?”
“I’m not. Connor is.”
“Are you going to let him?”
I shrug. “Yeah.”
Dina’s eyebrows draw down. “I’m confused.”
Connor returns with a canister of gasoline and sprinkles it on the picture of our mother and her clothes that he piled in the firepit. A match in his hand flicks to life.
Dina blows it out. “Wait a minute. Just… just give me a minute.” She starts digging through the clothing and fetches out a wedding gown. She dusts it off and lays it aside.
Connor stares at her, then at me, as if I have an explanation.
I shrug. “Let her keep it. We don’t care.”
“We do not.” Connor lights the match and throws it on the gasoline. Fire explodes, high and mighty, reaching the terrace floor above it. Thankfully, it’s not a deck but a concrete terrace, or it would have caught fire.
Dina sits while Connor pulls out three cigars and lights them using the fire created by our mother’s last earthly remains.
Dina accepts the cigar and takes a puff. She does not cough like a dainty little lamb. She puffs another one. “Why are you burning her clothes?” she asks.
“Because I don’t want anything of hers in this house.” A pause. “She didn’t want us.”
Dina finishes her beer. “I didn’t want a baby when I found out I was pregnant.
” She inhales sharply as if it pains her to say it.
“Not at first. When accidents happen and women get pregnant, we go through a range of emotions, mostly shame. It’s worse because the doctrine tells us to be grateful.
We’re supposed to love the baby instantly.
Anyway, I didn’t feel that way. I was terrified.
Young. He wasn’t around. But the baby came and when I held her, it was the best feeling in the world.
” She pauses. “Of course, that’s how it was for me.
I just want to say I struggled. I really did. ”
“We are rape babies,” I tell her.
Dina sucks in a breath. “I had no idea.”
“Nobody did,” Connor says. “Until now.” He looks at me pointedly, telling me without saying anything that he can’t believe I shared our dirty family secret with this woman. I did. If I didn’t want her with us, I would have sent her on a cruise. He’s the one burning our mother’s shit in a pit.
I roll my eyes at Connor. “If you don’t want people to ask about your dead mother, why all the drama, prince? Hm?”
Connor flips me off. “When Massio forced her into marriage, everyone felt bad for poor Anabela Crossbow. Imagine how me and Dec felt when the whole city sanctified the mother who called us her little rape babies. Didn’t she, Dec?
She called us her little rape babies. You know why Massio killed her? ”
Dina shakes her head.
“Because she refused to take care of us and stopped giving a fuck about him. She would wake up, give us cereal, and call us her cute rape babies. In front of him. He would go into fits of rage and beat her, sometimes her and us. That’s why she’s dead. That’s why he’s dead.”
Dina wipes her tears. She approaches my brother and hugs him. I get up and walk away.