Axel opened the door that led to the pool room, yelling in excitement. With a glass ceiling and glass paneled walls, the sun came in through the windows but let me keep the pool heated year round. And if I wanted to let in some fresh air in the summer, one of the walls opened up to accommodate that too. “This is insane!” Axel shouted.
Ines didn’t look so sure, her little face pinching in distaste. I’d watched Calla attempt to get her to go into the small pool they had in the backyard last year, and even with floaties, Ines hadn’t been a fan.
She’d screamed bloody murder, in fact.
I hoped the fact that she was nearly a year older would work to our advantage when she trusted me enough. “You don’t come in here without your mom or me, got me?” I asked Axel in all seriousness. “Swimming is supervised. In fact, I’ll make sure that door is locked.”
“I get you,” he said, and I realized it was the first moment he’d really heard me be anything close to serious.
Most people who knew me would have said I didn’t know how to not be serious, that there was no humor to me or emotion aside from the glee I felt when I tormented someone who deserved it. But in reality, I’d spent most of my life grieving the things I’d never had or the things that had been taken from me.
Until Calla.
And finally, having her and the kids here with me felt like it brought me back to life. It reminded me I could laugh, and I could banter with my woman and enjoy every second.
That I could feel again.
As soon as we got to the exterior door and Axel saw the soccer net, he flung it open and ran out. “I heard you like sports.” I smiled at him.
I settled Ines near the house and in the shade so that her fair skin that was so like her mother’s wouldn’t burn, smiling at her when her dainty hand reached up to brush against my scar in the same way her brother had all those years ago.
When I turned back to Axel, he eyed me curiously with his nose scrunched up in concentration. Like he could remember the day we’d first met, but couldn’t quite grasp the faint edges of memory. I turned to grab a few soccer balls out of the bin tucked against the house. Ines sat happily with her dolls, jabbering away in her mostly pretend language without a care in the world as I tossed a ball to Axel.
“Where did you get that scar?” Axel asked as he caught it and dropped it to his feet where he slid the ball back and forth under his foot.
“Not all of us are lucky enough to have a mom who would give anything to protect us,” I told him, making his lips purse into a pout. So like his mother, the curiosity would eat away at him as he tried to navigate my vague statement. But he didn’t ask another question, respecting the tentative boundary I’d set.
My childhood was off limits to him. At least until he was older.
I stepped into the goal, eying him when he laughed at me. “That’s not fair! You take up like the entire goal!” Glancing from side to side, I had to admit there was a decisive lack of space.
“I think we need a bigger goal,” I said.
Ines giggled at the sideline as I stepped out, accepting the ball when Axel kicked it over to me. It had been a long, long time since I’d done something as simple as kick a ball back and forth.
I loved it.
And I loved the fact that it made Axel smile as he chatted and told me all about his friends at school. I already knew about them, but somehow it meant so much more to have the information come from him.
Fourteen
Calla
Waking up happened slowly, the heat under the blankets feeling too comfortable for me to have any interest in getting out of bed. The pillow felt more comfortable than I remembered, tailor made for me in a way that seemed impossible to find.
When my eyes finally opened, I jolted up suddenly as memories of the day before crashed over me. With the chemise tangled up around my ribs, I shoved it down in a panic and looked around the room.
The empty room.
Light fought to shine in the gaps at the edges of the blinds on the massive window, and I threw the blankets off as terror filled me.
The kids.
Ryker was gone, and my kids were in the house. While I slept alone in his bed like an idiot.
Throwing open the bedroom door, I bolted for their rooms, clutching my chest when I found their beds empty.
They’d even made them up, leaving everything as pristine as when we arrived the night before. “Axel!” I yelled, turning and racing down the hallway. I rounded the corners of the loft, struggling with the gate at the top of the stairs in my hurry to get it open. I considered climbing over it, but it finally opened. I bounded down the stairs. I could see from the stairwell that the living room was empty, and the house was silent as I raced down and shoved my way through the gate at the bottom more efficiently.
“Axel!” I repeated, darting around the brick wall to glance into the kitchen and dining room. The kids’ and Ryker’s shoes were missing from the entryway where they’d deposited them last night when we sat down to eat pizza. “Ryker!” I screamed, turning and flying for the door that led to the garage.
My feet slapped against the tile floor, echoing along with the sound of my panicked breaths. I’d kill him. I would kill him slowly and make him suffer if he took my kids.
The garage was empty, but all three cars sat exactly where we left them. The sound of a peal of laughter came from a door further down the hall where someone left it cracked open, and I sprinted for it with my heart in my throat.
They had to be okay. I would never survive it if something happened to them.
As soon as I’d shoved the door open the rest of the way, I saw them outside the glass-enclosed pool. Ines’s little blond head nearly touched the glass as she swung one of her dolls up in the air happily. Ryker picked up Axel, swinging him over his head and using all the rippling muscles in his arms to hold him there like he could fly as he ran around the yard and Axel laughed hysterically.
Fuck.
My terror fled, fury instantly filling the void it left.
Not only should my son be in school, but Ryker had scared the fucking shit out of me needlessly. I couldn’t believe anyone could be so obtuse not to consider what it would do to me if I woke up to an empty house and my children gone with a self-professed criminal who made people disappear when they got in his way.
I stormed through the pool area, my feet stomping along the floor. As soon as I flung the door open, all three eyes came to me and Ines chirped happily at me. “Mommy princess,” she said, pointing at me, and I realized the chemise was still the only thing I wore.
It had been the least of my concerns when I thought my children were in danger, but the way Ryker’s eyes narrowed on mine as they bled to blue flames nearly made me rethink that urgency. He let Axel slide down his back until his feet touched the ground.
When my glare didn’t let up, Ryker seemed to realize something was very wrong. He patted Axel on the head briefly, nodding me into the pool room with his head, and I followed. Axel eyed me like I looked as if I might explode, and the only thing that prevented it was my inability to say much in front of the kids.
What could I say that wouldn’t scare them?
When Ryker pulled the door shut, he whispered with a hesitant tone. “Calla—”
“Do not ever do that to me again,” I growled. “Do you have any idea what that was like? Having to wonder if you’d taken my kids? You scared the shit out of me!” My eyes burned as my throat threatened to close on itself.
“I put a note on the nightstand,” he explained.
“Do you think my first inclination when I realized it was late was to look at the fucking nightstand, Ryker? All I cared about was getting to my kids and making sure you hadn’t hurt them.” My voice cracked, and I swallowed to clear away the emotion that clogged my throat so thoroughly.
“I would never hurt them, Tesoro,” he murmured, but his voice hardened. Gradually, irritation and frustration consumed his face.
“Ri
ght. I can totally trust the man who won’t let me go home,” I scoffed, turning away from him and his intense stare to go to my kids. Axel had taken to drawing Ines away from the glass, entertaining her by teaching her to kick the ball into the net. Both of them pointedly ignored our argument.
I took a step toward the door, stopping with a flinch when Ryker growled behind me. His hand grabbed the back of my neck, using all the strength of his forearm to turn me back to him. I whimpered, staring up at him when my body pressed flush against his and his lips crashed down on mine.
Protesting, I shoved at his chest, but that hand stayed planted on the back of my neck and held me right where he wanted me. But he didn’t push the kiss, just took a simple, chaste press of his lips on mine before he pulled away enough to stare at me while I seethed. The possessive display, and the tight hold on my neck, shouldn’t have made heat pool in my center. But it did, and I hated him even more for it. “Don’t you dare walk away from me, Sunshine,” he whispered. “I have had far too many years of watching you walk away. That time is done. You understand me?”
I glared up at him, my breath caught in my lungs in the face of all his ferocity. “Let go of me,” I said. “You’ll scare the kids.”
“They don’t look scared to me,” he chuckled, glancing over my shoulder.
With the way he controlled my neck, I could barely turn to see them for myself. I settled for glaring at him, resisting the urge to knee him in the balls. “I just want to keep them safe and happy. Can’t you give me that?” I asked, glancing back for the small view I could manage.
I felt Ryker’s head turn as he followed my gaze. His nostrils flared as he drew in a deep breath to steady himself. “Tell me they don’t look safe or happy right now. I’ll tolerate many things from you, but what I won’t take is dishonesty. We will always be honest with each other, Sunshine.”
I swallowed, nodding my assent. I couldn’t bring myself to lie anyway, not faced with the sight of my kids playing soccer and loving every second despite the man who sought to control me.
“I will never hurt those kids. You need to understand that.” I started to speak, stopping when he touched a finger to my lips. “But I’m sorry that I scared you. It wasn’t my intention.” The words died inside me, the look of genuine regret in his eyes taking my breath away.
“What?” I whispered, remembering how much I’d had to work to get an apology from Chad for anything, even if he had been completely in the wrong. I’d thought all men were incapable of owning their mistakes.
“I’m sorry. I won’t scare you like that again. I’ll wake you up and tell you next time. You just looked so peaceful, and I knew you needed the sleep.”
“He should be in school,” I said instead of answering the apology. I wanted to say thank you, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to find the words just yet.
“Missing one day won’t kill him, Sunshine. I called the school, and the Principal understood that with the move he needed a day to adjust. It’s all taken care of, so you go say good morning to the kids, and I’ll make you some breakfast.” He leaned in, touching my lips with his once more, and I vaguely remembered him kissing me when I’d been half asleep in bed earlier. He could have easily taken advantage of me in the night.
But he hadn’t, and I supposed there had to be something said for that.
I groaned inside my head. I sounded like I had Stockholm Syndrome. Grateful to my captor because he hadn’t raped me yet. “I’m not hungry,” I whispered when he pulled away.
He ignored me as he plowed on. “On second thought,” he muttered with a glance at the clock hanging on the wall. “I’ll make lunch.”
“Ryker! I’m not hungry,” I said.
“You need to eat. You’ll need your strength,” he said as he stalked off and left me floundering in the pool room. I didn’t want to think about what I might need my strength for.
As I shoved open the door and gave the kids a bright smile, I tried not to think about what they’d seen and what they might think of me kissing a man who was not their father.
“Mommy, is ‘yker my daddy?” Ines asked as I stepped outside. I blanched, and even Axel laughed at what must have been the horrified look on my face. I wouldn’t have expected him to be so casual about the Dad word ever, let alone so soon, but Ryker had done more to show Axel he mattered than Chad had done in the last year of his life.
I rolled my eyes to the sky. Heaven help me.
✽✽✽
Ryker whipped together a quick lunch of stove top macaroni and cheese. It might not have been gourmet, but it didn’t come from a box and was meatless, and took more effort than Chad had ever gone to help feed the kids. I didn’t like that I seemed to compare the two men so effortlessly, and that it didn’t reflect positively for my husband.
Aside from the kidnapping, anyway.
After lunch, Ines quickly got cranky for her nap, so I brought her up to put her down. It only took a few minutes before she fell asleep halfway through her story, comfortably nestled into her princess castle bed like she didn’t have a care in the world.
I closed the door quietly behind me, peeking into Axel’s room where he’d settled in to do the reading he knew he would need to catch up on so he wouldn’t be behind at school tomorrow. My responsible boy who acted far too old to be just six years old. “You good, Cookie Monster?” I asked him.
“Yeah, Mommy,” he whispered, lounging in his bed and looking sleepy for a boy who hadn’t napped in years. I attributed it to the excitement of the last two days, and that Ryker had been up with them and playing outside for hours before I’d woken up. I didn’t remember the last time I’d slept that long or that hard. “Ryker said he was going to take a shower.”
“Okay, baby,” I said back, swinging his door closed in case he fell asleep. I didn’t want either of them to get off-schedule, but I also didn’t want Axel going back to school the next day looking like a zombie.
I debated going down the stairs. I debated grabbing both the kids and trying to get out while Ryker was distracted, but when I opened the door to the would-be nursery and snuck a peek at the front gate through the window, it was closed. A guard sat in the booth, as expected, and I sighed in frustration.
There would be no escaping so long as someone was there, at the very least, and that was assuming I could get the gate open, anyway. I drew in a ragged breath as I steadied myself. We just needed to wait for the right moment.
Instead of going downstairs, I went to the master bedroom and hoped to sneak into the closet for a sweater. I’d changed clothes when we came in for lunch right after Ines shocked me into a stupor, but the warehouse seemed to always have just the slightest chill.
“I can turn the heat on if you’re cold,” Ryker grunted when I tried to sneak through, scaring me so bad I jumped. A man as big as he was shouldn’t have been capable of hiding, shouldn’t have been so silent when he moved, but it was like he was a predator, a panther that hid in the shadows.
He stripped his T-shirt over his head when I turned to look at him, again seeming far too comfortable with his own nudity. I couldn’t blame him, really. What was the point of a body like that if you didn’t show it off?
“That’s alright,” I whispered. “I like sweaters and blankets.”
“I know. There are blankets in the storage built into the couch. The cushions lift and there’s a panel underneath where they tucked your throws.”
I nodded, murmuring a soft “thank you.”
He raised a brow at me as his hands went to his sweatpants. “Did you need something else, Sunshine?”
I shrugged, scuffing my feet nervously. I didn’t know why this conversation seemed so hard to start, why it felt like it was an unreasonable request, but it wasn’t. No matter what he claimed in his insanely possessive, pigheaded brain, they were my kids. Not his.
“I need you to make sure that what happened this morning never happens again. You can’t leave with them. You can’t take them places without me. I
f anything happened to them—”
“I already told you I was sorry for worrying you, Tesoro. I won’t take them off the property without your permission, but you need to work on loosening the reins. I will be alone with them, eventually. I will drive Axe to school and bring Ines to your father if I have to work. There’s no reason for you to do it all alone anymore.”
“I’m not anywhere near ready for that,” I protested.
“I know, but you need to work on getting there. I’ll be patient for a bit, but I waited a long time to have the three of you here with me. I won’t wait much longer to settle into our new routine.”
He spun, heading for the bathroom like he seemed so prone to doing once he’d said his piece and knew I wouldn’t like it. “Why an angel?” I asked, staring at the tattoo on his back. It suddenly seemed so important, like it held bits of the puzzle, and I needed it to figure out what drove the man who drove me up a wall.
He was insane. He was broken. He was funny. He was great with my kids.
But I had no idea who he really was, not when it came down to it. I had a feeling I only saw a carefully controlled piece of him, like the rest of the puzzle was even more horrific than what he showed me.
“You aren’t the only one who has lost someone, Calla,” he murmured, turning back to me briefly, and that agony filled his eyes again. So strong, so broken that I took a step toward him before I realized what I was doing.
“Who was she?” I asked, and I hated the way my heart clenched painfully. I didn’t want to be jealous. Jealousy meant I cared, that somewhere underneath my hatred for the man, there was compassion.
He smiled at me sadly. “They were the only other people who ever mattered to me as much as you and those kids, which is why I never want you to worry that I would hurt them. I’d never let anything touch them.”
Grieved Loss: A Dark Mafia Romance (Bellandi Crime Syndicate Book 3) Page 10
