Chapter Seventy-Six

Ghost

W ashing fucking dishes, wondering what the hell Feralyn had brought Raine, wondering what kind of shit Helios was still feeding Feralyn about me, I choked down the truth.

Raine wasn't technically wrong.

Feralyn was family. As far as I was concerned, she was the only blood relation I had besides Raine because my piece-of-shit sperm donor was dead to me. But that didn't mean I wasn't pissed as hell that Raine had said that shit in front of Safiya.

I knew it'd be a risk bringing Safiya here. Raine was unpredictable at best, and I hadn't wavered on my decision, but I was fucking angry. Predominantly at myself.

I'd been so laser-focused on giving Safiya a piece of my past, showing her what I'd come from, that I hadn't fully considered how it would affect her to see me and Raine together. Now I was fucking kicking myself. The sadness in Safiya's eyes right before Feralyn showed up had already kicked me in the chest, but then Raine had opened her mouth and said Feralyn was all I had.

Fuck , I was pissed.

And I needed to do damage control with my wife STAT, but not before I calmed the fuck down. I also couldn't deny I was pissed about the state Feralyn was still in. Not that I had a right to judge or interfere after what she'd been through because of me, but I owed her the same reassurance I owed Safiya.

They were safe now.

Tossing the last plate on the drainboard, I glanced toward the living room in time to see Safiya take a seat. Her back perfectly straight, she laced her hands, and I instantly knew whatever the hell Raine had said to her was not fucking good.

The family curse.

Not that I'd ever used that word in relation to me and Raine. We were a unit. We operated as such. But family was a bullshit, emotional word I didn't think about. Except as I looked at the dark-eyed girl I'd found in a village halfway around the world, I was fucking thinking about it.

Me and her.

I'd seen her at her worst. I'd caged her in my arms as she'd watched her mother die. I'd cut her loose from zip ties and duct tape. I'd held her unconscious body in a goddamn life raft, and I'd watched her get on a helo after that blue water ditching when she was holding nothing but fear.

She'd watched me kill, black out, and comfort seventeen other women.

I knew what this woman had in her, and I wanted to fucking consume it like my life depended on it. But my brand of consumption was about control. I wanted to dominate the hell out of her. I wanted to own her every tear, sigh, moan, breath, orgasm, and beat of her heart. All of which required her unquestioning trust, but I didn't have that yet. I wouldn't until I gave her enough of me to hold on to.

And that kind of hold wasn't a fucking unit.

It was more.

Every time I looked at her it became more.

Like fucking Pavlov, the thought alone made me glance toward the living room again.

As if she had a tether on my thoughts, my wife looked up and met my gaze.

Open, vulnerable, but not fully trusting. Not that the latter mattered.

Every damn time she looked at me, I felt it.

That stitch, that connection. Like she was both pulling me in and suturing ruptured chest wounds I didn't know had been ripped wide fucking open.

Holding her stare because I was selfish with her, I gave it another beat, then tipped my chin and focused back up on the task at hand.

Two minutes later, the muffins were put away, I'd done a quick inventory of missing groceries and placed an order for a delivery tomorrow. Turning off the lights in the kitchen out of habit even though I'd made damn sure my mother would never have to worry about an electric bill again, I took the two strides into the living room. My gaze cut from a nervous Safiya to a sleeping Raine to brown paper sacks.

Then I saw what was next to them.

Feralyn's purse, forgotten in her rush to escape.

Grabbing the paper bags, I glanced inside.

Safiya nodded toward Feralyn's purse, then whispered. "I think your sister forgot something."

Yeah, she forgot to acknowledge me. "I saw. Give me a minute to put these strawberries away, then we'll take it to her."

I turned toward the kitchen.

"You did not tell me."

I glanced back.

Safiya looked from Raine to me, and the emotion that drew me to her, but also slayed me, showed up in her dark-eyed concern. "You did not say she was ill. Is she…?"

"Chronic, not terminal."

Swallowing down empathy, she nodded. "Has she always been sick?"

In one way or another. "The extreme fatigue's a more recent development, but yes."

The woman who'd watched her mother get beaten then shot looked at mine. "How long will she sleep?"

Most of the day. "A while."

"She did not eat much. Maybe if—"

"Don't," I warned for the second time. I wouldn't allow Safiya to go down that rabbit hole. I'd done what I could for the woman who'd given me life, and I'd trade mine for hers without thought. But I couldn't fix the parts of Raine she was unwilling to fix herself.

"I am sorry." The girl from Turkey who couldn't save her mother looked up at the kid from Florida who couldn't save his. "I did not mean to intrude."

"It's not about intrusion." It was about me protecting her. "Back in a minute." I walked into the kitchen, and my burner vibrated.

Fishing it out of my pocket, I glanced at the blocked caller ID. Considering what was in the living room, it didn't take all my years of training to know who it was.

Swiping to answer, I held the phone to my ear as I opened the old refrigerator. "Helios."

"Feralyn left her purse at Raine's. I'm coming to get it. If you're on your way out, leave the door unlocked or I'm breaking in. And before you try to feed me a line of your mind fuckery, understand that I'm getting Feralyn's shit, I know Raine sleeps all the time, and I know that when she is awake, she doesn't get up to answer the door."

Fucking asshole. Tossing the berries into the fridge, compartmentalizing the anger that he had any intel at all on my mother, I lied. "Already en route to my sister's house to return it." The house I'd bought her.

"Bullshit. You're still there. I'm tracking your fucking phone."

No, he wasn't. He didn't have access to my satellites or the capability on his own to hack my shit, and I only knew two people who could gain that kind of access. November, despite the familial connection between me and Helios, wouldn't give Helios shit. But Cypher, out of loyalty to Helios, would. Except it'd take Cypher a hot minute to get through the newly added security measures I'd put in place.

I called Helios on his bullshit. "Your intel's ten minutes old."

"Then I'll intercept. Where the fuck are you right now?"

"Like I said, en route." I hung up.