by Lannah Smith
“Can’t believe you’re getting married,” he told John.
He could feel the happiness radiating off his best friend without even looking when John said, “I can’t believe you morons bet on me getting married when I’m forty.”
“I bet on 38.”
“Doesn’t change the fact you guys are assholes.”
Laughing again, his gaze shifted to Rohan and Skull sitting by the window, Rohan holding baby Maria in his arms. He sighed again.
“I’m told you found Dan’s father,” John muttered to him.
“I did,” he muttered back, taking another sip of his coke. “Then he disappeared after telling me to mind my goddamn business.”
John’s brows drew together. “Has he shared his plans?”
“He’s hellbent on killing Edward Locke.”
“I say let the man be.”
Leon rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “Even if Edward Locke dies, a certain Lucas Russo will take his place. I’m sure you remember him.”
“Oh, I remember the fucker,” John muttered darkly. “He seemed to have found an ally in Locke after Haru had destroyed his whole family. I guess cockroaches are hard to kill.”
“He has also expressed his desire to have April.”
John gave him a sharp look.
“Not fucking likely!” he snapped. “If Skull doesn’t do something about that fucker, I’ll deal with him myself.”
Leon put a palm over his face. John’s outrage had made all their friends look at them. April was staring at them, her face expressionless. She knew that they were talking about her.
“I’m getting more coke,” Leon mumbled before leaving for the kitchen, but not before hearing Terry scold John for disturbing their work process and John stammering out apologies.
Hearing soft footsteps behind him, he thought it was Sophia.
Opening the fridge, he said, “Do you want something to drink, sweetheart?”
“Not really, no.”
It wasn’t Sophia’s voice.
His head whipped around.
April was standing behind the kitchen island, manicured fingers drumming on the surface. She was looking at him with eyes filled with unsettling curiosity. He felt his chest tighten seeing it. He woodenly closed the fridge and turned to her.
“It’s been a while since we were alone together, huh?” she asked, tilting her head to the side.
He took a deep breath. “Yes,” he said on the exhale.
“Because you’re avoiding this to happen.”
“Yes,” he admitted.
His truthful answer gave her pause. Then he watched her smile a smile that didn’t quite reach her ears.
“You’re helping Christopher deal with my… situation, are you?”
He felt relief she didn’t push it and nodded his head.
“Thank you,” she murmured, her eyes falling to the island.
“You don’t need to thank me, April. I wanted to help. Not because Skull is my friend,” he hurriedly said, “I wanted to help you.”
“You really haven’t changed.” Her gaze caught his again and her smile turned reminiscent. “Protective beyond reason. Always trying to save poor damsels-in-distress even if you don’t give a damn about them.”
He flinched. “April—.”
“And I liked that about you,” she continued softly. “The world might hate me but I knew, I just knew that you’d avenge me if you knew I got hurt and make that painful and messy beyond anything they could imagine. Because broken as you may be, you still want to fix the broken parts of everyone else and protect them.”
She might as well strangle him.
Leon hasn’t had an asthma attack in years but he felt one building right then and there.
His emotions were choking him. Outward, he knew he looked calm and composed but inside, she had just obliterated him.
He saw the images.
Of her beaten to a fucking pulp.
He heard the story.
Of her fucking miserable life, a misery he had a hand in playing.
Since his mother’s death, he had sworn to protect people but he couldn’t protect her when he thought he did when he saved her from those bastards in that alley. And this destroyed him. So fucking much he had nightmares in his fucking sleep, a fact he tried to keep from Sophia but his perceptive wife still found out.
The kids at school had thought she had seduced him.
She didn’t have to.
He got pulled into that kind of relationship with her because he had felt it. Her darkness. It was something he understood because it was something that had him enveloped whole, eating him alive, cursing him. That was something they both shared. Something that connected them. It was something they were both trying to forget
Now he knew what that darkness meant.
"April..." Leon started but she shook her head at him.
"Don't," she looked up at him, her eyes going soft. "Don't say it."
"You don't even know what I'm going to say."
"I know it's going to be something stupid like telling me how sorry you are for treating me like crap."
His eyes narrowed down at her. "Because I did treat you like crap."
Her lips curled. "I wasn't a nice person back then, Leon. I was a bitch. All those names were warranted."
He exhaled sharply. "Still, I—."
"And you never treated me like I was a whore," she chuckled. "Well, except that one time I came over to your house to try and break you up with Sophia."
"I terrified you," he remembered grimly.
"You needed to. I'd never leave you alone if you didn't. And I saw the look in your eyes," her smile became sad and even more reminiscent. "You loved her. And it was destroying you because you thought it wasn't right. Just like it was for me."
She walked around the kitchen island and came close to him. Her hand lifted to cup his cheek. His sigh was ragged when he gazed into her gray eyes filled with apology.
"I used you. I should be the one apologizing because I used you, Leon. I slept with you to make Christopher hate me, knowing he wouldn't hate you. He would never hate you. And you know that."
"But I didn't know you and him were—."
"There was nothing between us," she interrupted gently, and he could tell by the look in her eyes that this fact had wounded her greatly before. "And I made sure there will be nothing when I used you. So I'm sorry. That guilt that's eating you, that's on me, Leon. I'm sorry I made you feel that way."
Something settled in his gut that wasn’t bad but wasn’t good either.
Because his guilt mirrored hers. But hers were heavier because she was still blaming herself for causing everyone trouble.
His chest tightened further.
Leon always found it difficult to move past horrible things. Still she was willing to move past the horrors of her life. Remarkably, she had already started.
“If we want to make it to Nick’s birthday party, we better leave now, honey.”
Leon’s eyes jerked up to see Skull frowning at the two of them. He froze. April, however, merely turned her head. But she didn’t remove her hand on Leon’s face.
She lifted her eyebrows.
Skull lifted his eyebrows back at her and tapped his wristwatch.
Leon watched a huge smile came up her face. Then she let him go and he watched her move towards Skull.
Then he watched her wrap her arms around Skull’s waist, whispering to him.
Then he watched Skull lift a hand to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, his gaze filled with so much love for her. Pure. And absolute. As was hers.
Leon watched all this, feeling all sorts of emotions that was ravaging his head and his chest.
She smiled at Christopher and it wasn’t sad nor reminiscent. It was happy. She was no longer in the darkness. She was finally out. And into the light.
“We’ll be going ahead, Leon,” Skull told him with a grin on his face.
Leon nodded. “I’ll see you tomor
row.”
April turned her head to him. “Goodbye, Leon. I wish you have a good night’s sleep tonight.”
He felt his lips curve. She and Sophia had been talking.
“I wish you all the best, April,” Leon told her. “We all do.”
“Thank you, Leon,” she murmured softly.
And Leon could finally breathe properly again.
My fingers slid into his hair and my back arched when Christopher took my nipple in his mouth.
"Christopher..." I breathed then gasped when he pulled my nipple sharply into his mouth.
His fingers found me then and I strained my hips against his hand as his fingers started to move. I moaned at the sweetness of it and his lips came to mine, kissing me deeply.
"Open your legs, honey," he whispered against my mouth and I did as I was told, quivering from the feel of his fingers that had not ceased their movement.
"Wider."
I spread my legs apart, feeling it coming, feeling it building and I knew I didn't want to be alone in this.
He didn't let me be alone.
He thrusted deep and I screamed.
My neck arched, my arms spasmed around him and my knees went up to press my thighs tight to his sides. His mouth still on mine, he rode me deep. It built again, fast, hot and it was going to be incredibly good.
I tore my mouth from his, my head dropped back to the pillows and I moaned, "Christopher."
"I love you, honey," he whispered. "God, I love you so much."
I could no longer give him words when he shoved his face into my neck, moving faster, thrusting harder. My arms grew tighter around him. My legs gripped his sides harder.
"Oh my God," I breathed as I came, every inch of me tightening in bliss.
"fuck," he growled against the heated skin of my neck then I heard him groan and he came.
He gave me his weight for a few seconds before he pulled out and rolled off me, falling to his back. When I recovered from the immense pleasure that took over my body just moments ago, my head using his arm as a pillow, I wrapped an arm around his waist, letting out a sigh.
We were silent for a long moment, trying to catch our breaths.
Then he spoke.
"Did you have a good day?" he asked me, kissing the side of my head.
I thought about Nick. I thought about his party that gathered only his closest friends. I thought about how exasperated Rohan was when Finn Goodall and Ashe Maxwell wouldn't stop teasing him about their high school days and how Emilia couldn't stop gushing about Finn and Nick's relationship.
"I did," I muttered, snuggling closer to his solid warmth. "It was the best."
I thought about Leon who I had finally gotten to talk to. It was painful. But it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I had also avoided being alone with him because of our shared history. But every time I catch him looking at me, there was always regret in his eyes, so much regret and blame and I knew that I had to do something to make those eyes light back up again.
Christopher turned into me, sliding his hand up my naked hip before it stayed on my back.
And as his hand positioned, he whispered, "I'm glad that you feel that way."
"Thank you."
His brows drew together. "For what?"
"For giving me the best days and being a part of them," I muttered with a smile.
His eyes got soft. Then he repeated his whispered, "I'm glad that you feel that way."
I looked into his eyes. He looked back and held mine, knowing this wasn't unusual. Not me studying his beautiful face after he made me come. I did this often. Stare at his face. Knowing how lucky I was. And I liked to see what was working behind his eyes as they moved over my features. He didn't hide what was working behind them. Not to me anymore.
"Does he blame me?"
Christopher’s brows furrowed at the despondent tone in my voice.
"Who, honey?" his tone was worried.
"Dan's father."
I felt him tense.
"I know you talked to him," I gently told him.
He didn't speak.
A familiar knot formed in the pit of my stomach.
"I don't know how but you did. And I know you're searching for him."
"Who told you?"
"No one."
"Honey."
I tucked my chin and admitted, "I may have happened to glance on Chet's computers when I went to visit him."
He became visibly relaxed when he saw I wasn't angry. His gaze became contemplative. "Was that when you went to visit me in the company?"
I nodded.
He let out a sigh and his body relaxed. "You're too close with my men."
"They're nice to me," I paused. "When they're not being irritating. Val even gave me some recipes that his wife wants me to try. I've met her recently. She's a wonderful woman."
"She used to be my housekeeper."
"She told me."
"Did she tell you she's currently unemployed since you insisted we don't need a housekeeper?"
I sighed. "She did. I've already reinstated her."
My bleak tone of voice made Christopher almost burst laughter. He didn't dare, of course, because I would only slap the hell out of him. But he did cock a smile.
I gave him a hard glare. The smile disappeared.
"She owns a small cleaning business, honey. She's not really unemployed."
I blinked. "Oh."
Laughing, he rolled me to my back and gave me a kiss.
"So what did Uncle David say?" I said when he lifted his head.
Christopher gave me a grimace. "You call him Uncle David?"
"I do. What about it?"
"You call all assassins uncle, honey?"
I slapped his shoulder and he grinned. "He was my protector since I was a baby so I called him uncle. What did he say?"
Losing the smile, he muttered, "He's bent on vengeance.”
My stomach coiled and tightened so intensely now I almost moaned in pain.
"He's going to kill my father," I whispered.
"And I'm trying to convince him otherwise," Christopher gave me a reassuring look. "I know you don't want your father's blood on his hands."
"I don't want his on yours either," I mumbled.
"And he doesn't blame you, April. He told me to protect you and treat you well or else I'll be next on his list."
"I wish he'd come talk to me."
"I know honey," he kissed me softly, "This will all be over soon."
I stared at him, wanting to believe he was right.
"We got this, honey," he whispered, the hand on my back sliding up to cup my face, his thumb moving to trace my lower lip. He kissed me. "We got this."
His words made warm gushiness invade my insides. We were a team. Him and I.
"We got this," I agreed, smiling against his thumb.
Then I melted into him when he kissed me again.
Then he rolled me over him and let me take the lead this time.
Chapter 71
Christopher's grandfather, Edmund Lawrence, was not a man you could get close to.
He was cold, unfeeling and superior. Almost just like my father. If it weren't for the fact that I knew he loved his wife dearly even if he rarely showed it in public, he would be just like my father.
But Edmund Lawrence was covetous, sly, prideful and could be cruel when he wanted to be.
Just like me father.
I wasn't welcome to this old patriarch’s parties. I wasn't even welcomed in his presence. As a child, I didn't understand it. But when I know of the truth, I stayed clear of him.
I knew he held no regard for me. I also heard that he hated Christopher's relationship with me and had not kept this a secret from Christopher.
I hated him for what he had done to Christopher, corrupting his mind when he was child and letting him succumb to the bullies. For placing Christopher into this terrible position where anytime, anywhere, Christopher could just drop dead at the slightest mistake. Aft
er learning of the Lawrence family’s not-so-little organization, I had dug deep for any information I could find about it. It had been a well-guarded secret, the family behind the strings. Christopher had patiently answered all my questions and the magnitude of what he was tasked to do made me hate his grandfather even more.
