62. Chapter 62
Rosalina
We all spun around to face the door as Claudia shuffled past.
“Claudia?” I said in disbelief.
She screeched to a halt and backed up to the door, peering in. “Rosa? Rosie!”
Then her eyes fell to the carnage at her feet. Her face went pale, and her throat bobbed. “Oh my God.”
She took off back the way she came, and I took off after her, Luca on my heels. “What the fuck?”
“Claudia, wait!” I shouted at her retreating back.
“Aw, Claud. We told you to stay home. What happened to that, babe?” Luca grumbled the complaint as he followed.
She burst out the front door into the fading sunlight, and I was right behind her. She stopped in the courtyard, spinning to face us. “What the fuck, Rosa?”
“What do you mean, what the fuck, Rosa? What the fuck, Claudia?”
As soon as the words were out of my mouth, she threw herself at me, wrapping me in her sweetly scented embrace. “I thought I was never going to see you again,” she wailed into my hair.
I hugged her back, love and comfort overflowing from our reunion. “I’m happy to see you, too,” I sniffled, holding back tears.
She pulled back to look at my face. “You’re a mess.”
Honestly, when was I not a mess these days?
Luca shifted uncomfortably. “Cloudy, we told you to stay at home. In the air conditioning, where there’s no guns.”
“If you wanted me to stay home, why didn’t you check the trunk then?” She gave him the most innocent puppy-dog eyes I’d ever seen.
Luca’s cheeks pinked. “Stay here,” he said, and walked back into the house, leaving us alone in the fast-approaching gloom of twilight.
As soon as he was gone, we both talked at once. I held up my hand and took a step back. “You go first.”
“Okay, okay. So you remember the night we went to the Ruby Room, and I was dancing with those guys? They took me back to their place and we figured out their pack is my scent match. So we’ve sort of been hooking up since then.
” She pulled the neck of her shirt to the side, showing off her impressive array of mate marks.
“When you asked me to go to your wedding, I told them I was helping my friend with something. I was a little surprised when they threw me in the back of their car. But you liked Cruz, so I figured things were fine. I didn’t know they were Morenos, I swear, Rosa.
I didn’t know until they made me pick out a finger from a corpse at the morgue.
That worked, right? You could tell that wasn’t mine from the nail polish, right? ”
I laughed through my sniffles. “Yeah, I could tell. You’re my ride or die, forever.” I grabbed her back into a hug. “I’m so glad to see you.”
After we both cried ourselves dry, I stepped back, rubbed my eyes, and explained everything that had happened.
She was as surprised as I was that Luca was my half brother but excited that now we might get to be real sisters.
If Nico didn’t kill me first. We laughed and cried a few more times, sitting on the bench as the sun vanished behind the horizon.
Nico came out and offered me his hand. I took it, and he pulled me into his arms.
“Don’t ever fucking scare me like that, ever again.” He kissed me senseless until the only thing I could do was agree.
The rest of the guys came out of the house, Cruz supporting Oliver as he limped along. Roman scooped up a squealing Claudia and peppered kisses all over her while growling about how she needed to learn to listen better.
Dom and Nico stood like silent shadows on the porch, watching over the rest of us.
Oliver and Cruz had me sandwiched between them, taking turns kissing me and holding me as if they thought I was going to vanish right in front of their eyes. I laughed and clung to them, finally accepting that I never wanted to be parted from any of them.
The warm night air was alive with the flicker of fireflies as we cuddled under the stars.
A row of headlights marched up the driveway like ants, and I cast a worried look at Nico, who was chatting with Dom by the front door. Seeing the question on my face, he strode down the steps with his brother right behind.
“We called our own men to secure the property and to watch over Francisco until we have time to deal with him. A quick death is a mercy he doesn't deserve, and one that I won't be providing. The anticipation of torture is worse that anything we could physically do to him, anyway,” Nico said.
I knew that all too well, and I nodded.
“It was nice meeting you, Rosa. We’ve gotta get going now that backup is here,” Dom said, heading toward the rest of his pack.
Claudia gave me a big hug and a promise to catch up soon before piling into a black Range Rover with the rest of her alphas. I had a feeling she was going to be paying penance for sneaking into their car since they’d told her to stay home.
As I watched their taillights pass the new arrivals, my smile was obvious, and I made no attempt to hide it. Not now. Everything I’d ever wanted was coming true. It took a road paved with blood and murder to get here, but we were here, and mostly all in one piece, too.
I turned to Nico. “Now what are we going to do?”
“We’re going home, and you’re going to finish what we started.” He scooped me up in a fireman's carry, and I shrieked. His hand came down on my ass with a crack. “You’ve been a very bad girl, bella.”