DECEIT (B723)

by Hazel Grace

  But I don’t bother to even move an inch.

  This was his silent way of telling me to stay put. My eyes stay solely glued on my dubbed hero and all his ragey and godly glory.

  It’s addicting to watch. To regard how focused and calculated he is while he takes out all his anger on strangers we’ll never see again.

  I have no clue where Kai is.

  I don’t care at the moment, another asshole comment to make but there it is. All I’m fully in cahoots with is making sure my husband gets out of this and my debt is now paid in full.

  Bishop probably helped fuck that up but at least Kai won’t ask me for another solid again.

  The music never stops the whole time that I have a front-row seat to watching Bishop beat up on random guys.

  When no one else approaches him, he pivots and lifts me off the bar without a word. He holds my hand tightly on the way home and I dare not start a conversation.

  I thought I was beginning to understand my husband.

  I was fully aware of how standoffish he was and how emotions weren’t easy.

  But the Kace Bishop that tackled me in Mills’s condo complex, I’m not quite sure I know this individual at all.

  I think I broke him.

  I’ve impatiently stalked Emmy all night.

  And when that friend of hers brought her to a dive bar that looks like it was about to collapse on itself at any moment, I sure as hell wasn’t going to wait in the car.

  I gave the asshole who kept his greedy arm wrapped around her waist thirty seconds to remove it. Then another thirty when Emmy was grabbed by the bald guy.

  I wanted to give her space to handle her own shit.

  To repay this debt that she owed him because of my rage episode with Mills. I wasn’t going to coddle, bitch, or step in…until two men touched what was mine.

  I let Kai slide because of his mission, but when he couldn’t bring the dickhead in front of him to get his damn hands off my wife, it was game over.

  Plus, I’m pissed.

  Everything that’s going on is hard to handle. Typically when we have a problem, we obliterate it and move on our way, but there are babies involved and they’re not just any kids.

  They’re the love of my life’s children.

  Ones I’ve held and quickly bonded with. Atlas and Alaric are Emmy, tiny remnants of her DNA and heart.

  And I’m a fucking wreck for everything Emmy has dealt with because I don’t want her to turn cold like me.

  If she pushed me away, I’d follow her.

  If she demanded that she want to do this—raise her children independently without any involvement from me or B723, I wouldn’t listen.

  I respect Emmy but not her independence to shut me out when a darkness is beginning to form that I know all too well.

  I’m not strong enough to not fall down in the deep end with her if she drowns because she only needs to say the word, and I’ll eliminate him and everyone he knows.

  I don’t want to push but I’m worried about how she’s handling it.

  At the coffee shop, she appeared distant. No longer did she smile or have that glimmer of happiness in her brown eyes after speaking with her douchebag ex.

  They were dead and dark.

  And while she runs around and plays Robin to someone else’s Batman, I sat back and watch her blow off steam to manage whatever is going on in her head.

  Except for when I couldn’t take it anymore.

  I can’t do a fucking thing without thinking of her. And I can’t stand when she’s not talking to me.

  It irks me to no fucking end.

  In the hotel room that Emmy booked for us, she doesn’t say a word the whole twenty minutes back from the bar. She didn’t bitch at me for carrying her out like a caveman and she didn’t complain when I buckled her in like she couldn’t do it her damn self.

  Tossing her purse on one of the white sectional couches, she begins going through her cell and brings it to her ear.

  I allow my eyes to soak in the emerald green dress that hugs her perfect ass and how she stretches on her tiptoes to stretch. She rubs at one of her temples, looking clearly distressed until someone answers the phone on the other line.

  “Hey,” she greets with a beaming smile and tone. “Sorry, I’m late.”

  She’s forgotten or doesn’t care that I’m in the room, which doesn’t bother me as she paces the front of the couch.

  It gives me a minute to evaluate her behavior and body language.

  “It got messy, but I’m fine,” she recites, raking her hand through her short hair. “I know, I’m…figuring it out.”

  Emmy blows out a breath, hollowing out her cheeks as she rights herself and straightens her spine against whatever or whoever she’s arguing with.

  I want to pluck her cell out of her hands and crush it under my heel, but I’m trying to give her that said space she needs.

  It’s what I’d want.

  Studying her and recalling everything that’s happened in the last two months, I know that I’m hers in every sense of the word.

  Everything that is me—dark, deep, and fucked up—is Emmy’s.

  “Yeah, absolutely,” Emmy conveys, then pulls her phone from her face and glances down at it. She suddenly glows, lips curled in the most enthusiastic smile as she waves her fingers at the screen. And I know she’s video chatting with her kids. “Oh, my sweetheart, hello!”

  A cooing sounds in the room and then Mill’s voice. “All she does is eat, Ems. The woman acts like she doesn’t every two minutes.”

  I envy how my so-called buddy knows more about those kids than I do. That he gets to spend all his time bonding with them, and I’ve only had moments. How he and Emmy work so perfectly together that, if Mills was the father, she’d never have to worry about a thing.

  “You might have to up her ounces,” she tells him, plopping carelessly down on the couch. “Is Alaric the same?”

  “Nah, dude is mellowed out as shit. Unlike the man he was named after.”

  That gets me to smirk as I lean over the white granite island and cover my mouth with my hand.

  “Where is that asshole?”

  “Eavesdropping on our conversation,” my wife tells him without glancing over at me. No, she knows my eyes are always glued on her because she’s the only damn thing I see. “You hear that, Atlas? You’re gonna need to watch what you say.”

  “Don’t teach her that shit,” Mills chides. “You’re gonna make us all gray-haired and on anxiety medication.”

  Emmy scoffs. “Like you’re not above hair dye.”

  “I dunno…I might rock the silver fox look.”

  “Don’t teach my son to be a tool. Lemme see him.”

  “Hold on.” There is some rustling on the phone and Emmy rises from the couch and walks over to me.

  “Do you want to see how big they are?” Her voice is excited for the first time since I’ve been around her, and she holds out her phone for me to look. The excitement she’s wearing is one of many that broke me down and got me to fall in love with her.

  I nod as she stands beside me. With my forearm wrapping around her waist, I pull her over to sandwich her between the counter and my body.

  Standing over her short frame, I can see perfectly, and Mills catches me on the screen a moment later.

  “Oh, hey man. Enjoying the heat?”

  “No.” The screen pans over to Atlas who has a yellow headband on and a pink flower on the side.

  “You look so pretty,” Emmy croons. “Mama will be home soon…I promise.”

  “Here he is,” Mills says behind the call and then another identical baby shows up in a blue shirt, staring at us while sucking on those plastic things.

  “Aw, my little man.” Emmy brings the phone to her face and kisses the screen. “Hey, baby.”

  I feel a shift in Emmy’s body as if she’s just tampered down a sob or a shiver.

  “They’re doing good, Lou Boo,” Mills professes and he must visibly recogn
ize how much this is destroying her. That each day she’s away from her babies is pure torture for her. “Atlas is in love with me.”

  Emmy chuckles, and that’s when I feel the break in her torso. The uneven intake and exhale of air. She’s barely holding on by a thread.

  “If you cry, I’m teaching Alaric my cocky smirk.” Mills, for the loyal bastard that he is, tries to lighten the mood, and it must work because Emmy wipes away at her face.

  “Teach him, and I’ll choke your ass out.”

  “Hey, is that my girl?!” shouts a voice in the background and before Mills can even confirm or deny the fact, the phone is snatched and Marty’s face shows up. “Hey, Emmy Lou, how did it go?”

  “Let’s just say Kai isn’t B723,” she comments. “Bishop had to go at half the bar.”

  “A-fucking-again?” Kyson’s voice chimes in before his redheaded-ass appears. “Dude, you should’ve been a bouncer.”

  “Not enough action,” I convey.

  “How much of it did you break?” Marty asks off with a proud lift of his lips.

  “A few chairs.”

  Kyson rolls his eyes because he knows how much of that is bullshit. “My ass. Did you blow Em’s cover?”

  “I did, but if I tell you why you all would’ve all done the same thing.” Both sets of eyes fall on my wife, and she leans back slightly into my chest.

  “I was working on it,” she claims lightly.

  “Dudes, this was a baby hanging out video,” Mills censures, getting a hold of the phone again and showing us himself and Atlas. “Hey, look who it is.” He wiggles his brows. “She loves me.”

  “I’m here to teach Kyson how to change a shitty diaper,” Marty says behind him.

  “We’ll keep those for Mills,” Kyson counters somewhere. “Since that’s all he’s full of.”

  The guys chuckle and Mills shakes his head with a ghost of a smile playing off his mouth. “I’ll call you in the morning.”

  She nods. “Sounds good, thank you.”

  “Anything for you, Ems.” He winks and salutes with his two fingers over his forehead. “See ya later, Bish. Take care of our girl.”

  Emmy hangs up and drops it on the counter, hanging her head into her chest.

  I manually turn her around to face me, but I don’t find tears in her eyes. I see the same darkness in her that I saw earlier.

  “Talk to me,” I hedge softly. “I know you miss them, but we’re almost done.”

  “Are we?”

  I lift her chin with the crook of my finger, hearing the defeat in her tone. “He’d be dead already if you didn’t want to do it yourself.” I bring my thumb up to brush her bottom lip. “But it’s not fully my fight, is it?”

  She shakes her head and I slowly crack at the way she looks as if she wants to just disappear right now.

  Being a brand new mother should never be like this. Killing her baby daddy shouldn’t be an option for her right now. But turning him into the cops won’t have the same effect when he’s still alive and always a threat in her mind. The possible fear of him getting out, the chances of an earlier parole, or sending someone else to hurt her. Emmy knows what her only option is to keep the twins safe.

  “How did you find me?” she asks, changing the subject which is a common Emmy trick when she wants to pivot off a conversation.

  My lips curl into an asshole-ish smile. “I found a few ways.” Emmy bristles but doesn’t push the subject. “Emmy.”

  “Mhm?”

  “I want you to marry me again.”

  Emmy blinks at me then just blatantly stares. “Huh?”

  “I want you—“ I press my body firmer into hers just to get closer and for her to feel how serious I am. “—to marry me again. The boys already know anyway.”

  “They what?” Her eyes widen before her palms slam into my chest. “What did you do?”

  I shrug. “You give me territorial issues.”

  “This is my fault?” I perk a knowing brow and her face falls. “This is my fault.”

  My wife couldn’t sound more overthrown by the situation if she tried. And my shitty ass can’t find it in me to feel sorry for it.

  Leaning in, I lift Emmy and place her on the kitchen counter and she laces her fingers with mine, taking a strong interest in them.

  “You should’ve always been here.”

  I know.

  I should be the father of those twins.

  She should’ve never been stabbed.

  There should have been no reason for her to fake her own death.

  “Yeah, well, I’m an asshole with issues.” I bump her legs wider with our clenched hands and the green fabric of her dress rises up her thighs.

  “That you’re never going to talk about?”

  I slowly shake my head. “I want to…it’s just hard to go back there.”

  “I’ll go with you,” she says softly. “And we’ll fight it together.”

  “How?” I search her face for her magical answer. “I can’t change me, Ems. It’s difficult to get close and express shit.”

  “I’m sure we can think of something.” She brushes my lips with hers, sending an immediate wave of need crashing through my frame. “You seem to speak very fluently when your dick is deep inside me.”

  My fingers skim up her naked thighs on instinct. “Might not be the best thing to do, baby.”

  “Then we’ll work on it. There’s no rush.”

  “Maybe a little rush,” I disclose as I make contact with her lace panties. “I’ve been staring at you all night in this dress.”

  Emmy gives me a small smile. “I mean…I wouldn’t want to make you uncomfortable.” She arches her hips slightly to give me more of what I have now. “That’s peer pressure.”

  Her small fingers lace through my hair and I relax against her when her cell buzzes behind her. She lets out a little growl and reaches for it then frowns when she swipes over the screen to answer it.

  “Hello?”

  “Emmy, I was hoping we could talk.” She freezes and I notice the voice on the other end.

  Alexander.

  Emmy’s brown eyes meet mine and I see the fear laced in them. “What do you want?” she snaps, her knuckles turning white around the device.

  “I got the will drawn up as you asked and I preferred to meet up with you to go over it.”

  “When?” Her voice is steel and cold, breaking away from our playful bantering and sinking into the reality of what is her life.

  “Whatever works for you. I also wanted to speak about our arrangement with the kids.”

  “One step at a time,” Emmy practically growls and I lean in to press a soft kiss to her cheek.

  “Calm down, baby,” I whisper into her ear. “He’s not going to get his hands on them or see our kids.” Emmy’s body slouches as if something heavy just fell off her shoulder as she leans into me.

  “Does tomorrow work for you?” Alexander presses. “I can meet you wherever you want. We can go to that Italian place you like and have lunch.”

  “Go ahead and meet him.” I lick her earlobe and draw it in between my lips. “We’ll lure him in.”

  “That sounds fine,” Emmy tells him. “One, work for you?”

  “One is great. I’ll reserve our table.” I roll my eyes and trail my attention down her jawline. “I’ll see you then.”

  “Emmy.” Alexander’s voice suddenly sounds desperate, almost deprived at not having her in his life. That she held something special for him but he clearly fucked it up.

  I thought I was deranged in the head.

  “I miss you. I’ve been reflecting over the last few days and there are a lot of things we never spoke about that I think are important.”

  “And here I thought this was going to be a carryout lunch for me,” she retorts flatly.

  I smile against her skin and slide my hand underneath her dress. “Take it down a notch. You’ll make him cry and act petty. We need him to play nice.”

  He needs to believe th
at she’s basic and might forgive him because if he doesn’t, he might make a move on the kids. I think Alexander will be patient if Emmy shows a hint that there is hope for him.

  “Emmy, I know you’re still pissed but I’m hoping that you’ll see in the will that I’m serious about this. About us. That I want to take care of our kids. I want to take care of you. I love you.”

  I can’t see Emmy’s face but I can only imagine the scowl on it.

  Reluctantly, I pull away but allow my hand to inch up between her legs to find my wife is currently fuming.

  Her face is pink, her jaw is locked tight. She glowers at me but not at me but because I’m the only thing in front of her.

  I love you, I mouth as I delve forward to flatten a kiss to her lips.

  He won’t stress her out when she’s with me.

  She and I will get through this together.

  “One tomorrow,” Emmy states, staring at me with an unreadable expression on her face. “We’ll talk.”

  “Should I send a car for you?” My wife narrows her eyes, completely exasperated over his extra ass.

  “No, thank you,” she conveys. “See you then.”

  Emmy quickly ends the call before the dumbass can make more of an idiot out of himself and places the phone on the countertop. Her brown eyes still wander around my face as though she’s confused and I chuckle.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Did you hear what you said?” Her brows knit and I move her panties to the side.

  “About what?”

  I know what the hell I said. I just want her to repeat it so there’s no confusion between us. Alexander may have spermed those two kids but Atlas and Alaric are mine now. I held them—that was it.

  “You said our kids.”

  “That’s another thing,” I breathe, brushing the pad of my thumb over her clit. Her next exhale quivers as she loosens her posture. “I’m gonna want you to take my last name.”

  “But—“

  “Yeah, twenty-first century and all that shit but you’re gonna need to match the babies because when I adopt them, they’ll be Bishop’s.”

  “Bishops? But you—“

  “Which one is older?”

  Emmy still gapes at me. “Atlas.” I hold her gaze and watch her swallow, suddenly becoming nervous. “Are you upset that I...named my son after you when…”