Seeking Our Forever

by Liberty Parker

  “In the eyes of the law that may be true. But you and I both know that he’s no longer an issue. We just need to bide our time until we can legally take care of that issue.”

  “It is true in the eyes of the law, Jonas. There’s no maybe to it.” I hate to say it; I hate to think it. But I know that there’s a certain way this needs to play out so there’s no blowback on him or his brothers. I’m not a stupid woman like Sinclair used to think I was. I knew he was shady; I just had no clue how far that went. Jonas and his brothers, I have a feeling, and it’s in my deeply seated gut, that they’re mercenaries for hire. And my gut is hardly ever wrong.

  “Make no mistake, you’re gonna be mine, Raven,” he states.

  “Not right now, Jonas,” I reply. Even though I want to throw myself into his arms and let him claim me like only a man like he can.

  “I’ll give you that play, sweetheart.” Now he looks like someone stole his candy.

  “Um, I’m gonna head back to bed now,” I tell him. “I-I’ll see you in the morning.” I hope I can fall back to sleep with the feel of his lips freshly on mine. I have a feeling I’ll be dreaming of that kiss and all of the erotic things I want him to do to my body. Right now, I could damn myself for all the books I’ve read over the years!

  “Night, Raven.” His voice is like a soft caress against my over-heated skin.

  “Night, Jonas.” I turn around and drag my feet as I hit the staircase. Not wanting to leave him but knowing that I have to sends disappointment traveling throughout my bones. I wearily trudge up the stairs, secretly hoping that he’ll come up behind me and stop me dead in my tracks. Just like in my romance novels when the hero stops the heroine as she makes her escape. But this is real life and I know that won’t be happening for me. My life is more like a horror book instead of a romance novel anyways. The sooner I accept I’ll never have unicorns and rainbows in my real life, the easier it’ll be to actually live my life.

  I don't want to fill my son’s head and heart with what should’ve beens instead of what is happening in the here and now. He has enough struggles in life without me influencing him with happily ever afters. Life unfortunately doesn’t work that way. A lesson I first learned at my father’s hands and lastly in Sinclair’s. He needs to learn that life is full of struggles and heartbreaks. We just have to keep our heads held high and out of the clouds.

  Once upstairs, I check on Damien and smile when I see Scooby sleeping with his head on the pillow. I walk in and cover them both up and kiss Damien’s head, marveling at the fact that despite his issues, he’s growing into a kind and gentle young man. “Keep an eye on him, Scooby,” I say to the puppy. He opens one eye and wags his tail before snuggling closer to Damien.

  Once back in my room and in my bed, I realize that I was prancing around Jonas in my baby doll nightie. Fuck. It leaves little to the imagination, something I wasn’t thinking about when I went downstairs. Even though I’m technically married, Sinclair and I didn’t share a room, so I never worried about how sexily I dressed at bedtime. I love beautiful nightclothes and since I was basically alone, I’ve never had to worry about others seeing me in my ‘fancy’ undergarments.

  I drift off to sleep with the memory of Jonas’ lips on mine. Needless to say, my dreams are filled with fantasies that I long to have fulfilled...one day. I long to have that done by the one man who makes my heart pitter-patter. By the man who makes me wet between my legs. By the man who makes me long for the day that I’m officially a single woman.

  Nine

  Jonas

  Left alone with my thoughts, I decide to see what Silas found out. I chuckle at the memory of Atticus working with Damien and wonder how they made out and how many new curse words little guy now knows.

  Once I reach our basement room, I knock, knowing that Silas has it locked. He opens the door and lets me in, and I see two dead men tied down to chairs. The second one must be Sully, who looks worse for wear. “That didn’t take long. Having fun?” I ask Silas. Atticus is over at the table, picking up weapons and putting them back down.

  “How’d it go with the sight words?” I wonder if Atticus has decided that school isn’t worth it after spending the afternoon with Damien.

  “They’re fucking brutal to kids nowadays,” Atticus mutters. “Then, he had to write fucking spelling words five times each! Insanity.” A chuckle escapes me with the seriousness in his expression and the way he says his words.

  “Glad to see you can handle kindergarten,” I tease.

  “Shut it, fucker. We’ve got issues to deal with down here,” he snarls. Guess he’s in a bad mood after his experience with homework. Hate to tell him, but with a baby on the way, he’s got that to look forward to down the road. I would snicker like a schoolgirl at the vision of him pulling his hair out as his child looks up at him begging for help, but he doesn’t look like he’s up for that right now. Atticus has never been one for book learning, he prefers to use the street smarts that come natural to him.

  “What is it you’d like for me to do? I’m the computer man, remember? I don’t do clean up. That’s what the two of you are for,” I jokingly state.

  “Just because you’re a computer nerd doesn’t mean it’ll kill ya to do some physical work ya know?” Atticus snarls.

  “Mighty testy tonight, huh?”

  “He’s been like this since he got down here and I’m kind of sick of it,” Silas states.

  “Jesus Fucking Christ, can we get back to the matter at hand?” Atticus asks. “We’ve got shit to do and I’ve got a warm and willing woman upstairs wasting away due to lack of attention!”

  “So what did you find out?” I direct my attention to Silas, opting to ignore Mr. Attitude.

  “Not a whole lot. Sully wasn’t too receptive when he first arrived, so we had to show him the errors of his ways.”

  “I see how that worked out for him,” I reply, looking over at the man whose face is now unrecognizable. “You guys really wanted to make sure the only way he’ll ever be identified is through his fingerprints.”

  “Wasn’t the initial plan, but he pissed me off!” Atticus exclaims. I hold my hands up as if to wave him off.

  “Didn’t mean anything was wrong with it, brother.” My eyes travel sideways to where Silas is standing. He shakes his head no at me, letting me know that I need to stop antagonizing my brother.

  “What can I do?” I sigh, knowing that I’m not going to have a choice but to assist tonight. I hate doing the grunge work.

  “You can grab some cleaner and start scrubbing while sour puss over there and I wrap the bodies and get them ready for disposal,” Silas informs me. “I’ll fill you in on what we were able to get out of the two nitwits while we work.”

  I walk over to the table and grab a pair of heavy-duty rubber gloves, then set up the bucket with bleach then adding water. Spreading it around where the assholes are sitting, I use the mop and scrub at the floor. Once they get the bodies wrapped and moved, I’ll use the firehose and rinse it all down the drain. Looks like the walls got nailed too, dammit. I see the spray bottle we used on Shawn after we had fun with the blowtorch and experimenting, seeing if we could just use the flame to remove clothing. I get it filled up before I soak the walls. Silas has a contact that gave us the luminol spray and blue light we need to check behind ourselves and ensure we don’t leave a trace. I guess it pays to have friends in high and low places.

  “Keep that up and we’ll let you take over for the maid,” Atticus says.

  “We don’t have a maid, fucker,” I reply.

  “Well, we need one. Piper can’t keep doing it all.” Atticus looks lost in thought while saying this to Silas and myself. Sometimes I wonder what goes on up there. Though I have to admit, his mind is someplace I don’t long to visit.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake. Your woman likes doing that kind of shit. Plus, I’m sure Raven will give her a hand, and Destiny isn’t helpless either!” I’m tired of his shitty attitude.

  “Destiny doesn�
��t need to do anything,” Silas says.

  “Why the fuck not? She’s not some broken doll, Silas. She’s shown a lot of improvement already,” I reply. He keeps treating her like a broken piece of porcelain, he’s likely to send her reeling backwards, foregoing the improvements she’s made since the day he rescued her. And if she’s damaged by him in any way, Piper is likely to wear his nuts as decorative earrings. That thought makes me shiver, because I wouldn’t put it past her to remove our balls if we hurt her sister in any way, shape or form.

  As we make headway in cleaning, nothing has yet been shared with me and it’s beginning to get on my damn nerves. “So, Robenstein wasn’t the highest up in the organization like we presumed. He was actually second to the main guy, and Sully was Robenstein’s second. Shawn was nothing more than a pawn, a man that they sent to do the shit work,” Silas begins and Atticus grunts.

  “So, Raven is possibly still in danger,” I ponder, lost in thought for a minute before Silas clears his throat.

  “That’s not all,” he continues.

  “Of course, it isn’t,” I mutter under my breath.

  “Would you like me to keep going, or do you want to pout like a three-year old?” Silas asks me.

  “Please, your majesty, continue.” I wave my hand dramatically in the air in his direction.

  “Stop with the attitude, both of you,” he demands of us.

  “I wish you’d stop stalling and spit it out already,” Atticus huffs in irritation.

  “Raven didn’t only have Robenstein’s secret accounts in her name. She also had the entire organization’s finances procured in her name. We are in a shitload of trouble, Jonas.”

  “The fuck!” I say, throwing the bottle that was in my hand.

  “We need to figure out the best way to keep your woman and her boy safe,” Silas informs me of something I’ve already figured out for myself.

  “Working on a plan,” I say as I tap my finger to the side of my forehead.

  “Better think soon, brother. I have a deep gutted feeling that things are going to start blowing up soon,” Atticus states, patting me on my shoulder.

  “Fuck.” Yeah, I know I already said that, but it bears repeating. How can I get her out of this shit with no blowback on her or Damien? I need to make this head guy the fall guy. “What’s his name?”

  “Who?” Silas asks, looking up from his task.

  “The head honcho. Who do you think?” I smart-assedly respond.

  “Keep it up, Jonas, and I’ll take you back to that octagon and fix you good. Didn’t think we knew about that did ya?” Silas growls out a warning and question in one breath.

  “That’s mine. I don’t have to share every detail of my life with the two of you.” And cue, that was the wrong thing to say when it seems like suddenly Atticus has grown three feet taller. His shoulders square and his eyes are blazing in anger, and all of that anger appears to be directed at me. “What?” I ask, not backing down or cowering from him like the little brother in me wants to do. That part of me that has seen the other side of his meaty fist several times is all but begging me to turn and hall ass up those stairs.

  “You’ve gotta be out of your fucking mind! Do you know what could have happened to you if we hadn’t found out about your fights and been able to be there? We’ve got enemies everywhere, people who would just love to take one of us down.”

  “What are you talking about? I’ve never seen you two there!” And I haven’t, I watch the crowds carefully. I’ve never had any issues.

  “Stupid asshole, if we don’t wanna be seen, we aren’t. You know how we’ve been trained.”

  “Still not computing for me. Never had any problems.” I think back to all of my fights the last year and nothing is coming to mind. I believe my brothers may have actually inhaled too many chemicals today.

  “Do you remember that huge-as-fuck, steroid-induced Russian you fought two months ago?” Silas questions.

  “Boris?” I think that’s what his name was but don’t remember. He was a big fucker, though, that much I recall.

  “Yeah, that’s his name. Well, you winning cost him and his people a lot of money. If we hadn’t been there and caught wind that they were gonna jump you, there’d be two Nelson brothers, not three.” I heard his family had some money problems, but I never figured they’d stoop as low as to attack someone who won fair and square the way I did.

  “Huh. Never knew they were so sore over him losing to me,” I murmur. But then, I think that the entire family had a screw loose.

  “A thanks would be nice,” Silas drawls out.

  “Thanks. And no, I’m not being an asshole. I appreciate y’all having my back like that.” But I also secretly hate it at the same time. I hate that I still wear the stigma of the little brother who can’t take care of himself.

  “So what do you do with your winnings?” Atticus asks. He’s got Shawn down on the tarp and is rolling him up.

  “I use it when needed to pay my informants,” I reply. Most of it is tucked away, but when I need to find out something quick, I’ve got the means to take care of it without having to go through my brothers and their million questions.

  Now that he’s moved Shawn, I see more blood, so I work on that area, while Silas takes care of Sully. Time to take out the trash so we can get back upstairs to our women.

  * * *

  Raven

  * * *

  I tossed and turned all night long. That forbidden kiss kept my lips tingling all night long and my middle aching in desire. Walking into the bathroom connected to the room I’m occupying, I notice that I have bags underneath my eyes. “God! I look like I’ve missed several months’ worth of sleep instead of one solitary night!” Jeez, my bags have bags. I begin washing my face and applying my makeup. I can’t let him see how much he affects me.

  “Momma!” I hear screamed from the other side of the bedroom door makes me make a mad dash to find out what’s wrong.

  “What? What is it, Damien?” I look down at my child only to see him giving Scooby a scolding look.

  “He-he. Mom!” He hollers with tears in his eyes.

  “He what?” Now I’m panicking, thinking Scooby has eaten an expensive rug or made his mark on the baseboard by gnawing away at it. If it’s the worst possible scenario, I’m thinking about it.

  “He, he’s a bad boy! He ate my site word cards!” He all but falls into my arms as tears stream down his face. “Mr. Atticus was going to do them with me before school and now he can’t!” It takes everything within me to hold back the laughter that I know will throw my son over that proverbial edge.

  “I’ll write a note so your teacher sends more, okay?” I’m trying hard to soothe him but it’s challenging because last night, Atticus was ready to pull his hair out. Somehow, I feel like he put Scooby up to it!

  “She’ll be mad at me!” he cries. “I had a gold star this week, now it’ll be green, and I won’t get my treasure chest toy!” Great, it’s gonna be one of those mornings.

  “How about this? When I take you to school, I’ll go in with you and take what’s left of the cards so your teacher can see it wasn’t your fault.”

  “Do you think that’ll work?” His tears have slowed, and I utter a silent prayer of thanks.

  “What’s with all the drama happening down here?” Atticus walks up the hallway towards us. I then proceed to tell him what I’ve just learned. His face lights up at the news until he looks down at my son. Then, I swear his face falls.

  “Little man, it’s all aces. We’ll just make you some more.” My eyes widen because I don’t know all of the words.

  “Atticus, I don’t have his list of words.” My teeth begin to grind in trepidation. This may cause Damien to have a breakdown.

  “Don’t worry, Raven. I remember every one of them,” he proudly states.

  “Um...don’t take this the wrong way, but how?” I hesitantly inquire.

  “I went over them with him for like an hour. My mind is like a va
ult,” he brightly smiles at me. “But first, you need to get ready for school. Why don’t you go and do that, and I’ll take Scooby outside for you?” When Damien happily skips down toward his room, I raise my eyebrows in question in Atticus’ direction.

  “What? I think he deserves a Scooby snack.” He shrugs his shoulders at me and pats his leg calling Scooby’s name. Rolling my eyes, I head back into my room to finish getting myself ready to face the day. I sure hope things look up from here.

  Fuck this damn day! First, Jonas was sideswiped in the drop off line. Damien’s teacher was PMSing and refused to help me get more site cards. Atticus had to leave on an unexpected job so now I can’t count on his vault of a memory to make more and Damien got sent to the principal's office for calling his teacher a nitwit. Wonder where he got that word from? I’ve never used it.

  “He’s a nitwit,” Jonas says, coming into the kitchen where I’ve been helping Piper with dinner.

  “You!” I holler pointing the spatula in his direction.

  “Me what?” he innocently asks pointing at himself. I do notice however, that he’s stealthily placed the kitchen island between himself and me. I lay out for him about his preferred use of words and how they affected Damien and his life. “Nitwit isn’t a curse word, I’ve curbed them.” He says this as if he deserves a reward of some sort.

  “Well, it apparently is to Mrs. Greene, Damien’s teacher,” I hiss. I’m so beyond pissed off right now I could scream! Stupid alpha men. Atticus giving the dog treats for eating the fucking cards, Jonas thinking he’s hot shit for ‘curbing’ his curse words, and that bitch of a teacher for taking my boy’s gold star away from him. I stomp my foot in frustration and Jonas raises an eyebrow at me. This has been the day from H.E. double hockey sticks!