جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 28

Marcus"But Marcus, you had a vasectomy! You told me you couldn't have children!" My mother’s laughter erupts, a sharp sound that cuts through Elena’s hysterical sobbing like a blade. It’s a harsh, mocking cackle that fills the foyer, bouncing off the marble walls I paid for. I watch Elena’s face—the raw, ugly grief etched into her features—and I feel a strange sense of detached power. She looks so small standing there, clutching at straws that I burned years ago. "Kristen, darling," my mother says, ignoring Elena’s breakdown as she turns to the woman carrying the Vance legacy. "Go upstairs and rest. Choose any room you like. The master guest suite has the best light, but feel free to explore. You need to keep your strength up for my grandson." Kristen hesitates, her eyes flickering toward Elena with a practiced bit of false modesty. "Marcus? Is that... okay?" "Go," my mother insists, her voice brooks no argument. "The help will bring up your bags. Marcus and I need to handle thi

Jaxon For some reason I had agreed with Prez when he said going to the club was a good idea. I got in the car and regretted it all the way to the Red lotus club. There was loud music, those annoying changing lights. And women…. Everywhere. Prez takes us to his usual booth, because I guess he’s a regular here. What an idiot. Immediately we sit down someone brings a bottle and a couple of other things. I’m scouring everywhere when my eye catches a familiar figure. Is that…? No fucking way. “Excuse me,” I mutter to Prez as I make my way downstairs. “Where are you going to man? We just got here?” “Yeah, and you might leave without me. Toss me the car keys.” I ask him. “Fuck no! Call your driver to come get you.” He scowls and looks away. Sometimes I think this man is just a baby in a grown man’s body. I wonder how he’s ever serious. “I don’t have a driver. You do!” I remind him. “We just got here, how much have you had to drink already?” He shrugs before tossing me the keys

JaxonThe sound pulls me out of sleep before my brain catches up with my body.I’m already reaching under my pillow before my eyes open, and my fingers reaching from my gun. I’m about to grab it and stalk into the area where the noise is coming from, when I remember I brought a guest home. And I figure the clattering is coming from my kitchen.I sit up, run a hand over my face, and grab the nearest thing — sweatpants from the floor, no shirt. I move through the hallway on instinct, quiet, and push the kitchen door open.Roman is eating cereal directly from the box. Silas has somehow, at whatever ungodly hour this is, produced a bowl of pasta and is working through it with the focused devotion of a man who hasn’t eaten in three days.The tension leaves my shoulders. I lean against the doorframe.Roman looks up. “Who pissed in your cereal?”“What the fuck are you two doing here?” I push off the doorframe and move to the fridge. “Don’t you have somewhere to be? Jobs? Lives?”“We do have

ElenaMy laptop has been open for two hours and I’ve written approximately four sentences worth keeping. It’s a Saturday, which used to mean something in this house. Breakfast together. Errands. The particular quiet of a weekend morning that felt like ours. Now it just means I’m working from the couch instead of the office and the television is on a channel nobody chose. I’m mid-sentence when Kristen walks in and drops onto the other couch like gravity personally invited her. She tucks her feet under herself and sighs the long, theatrical sigh of someone who wants to be asked what’s wrong. I keep typing. “Must be nice,” she says after a moment, “having so much free time to just sit around.” “Must be,” I reply, eyes on my screen. “You’d think being a homewrecker was a full-time job but here you are, completely available.” She opens her mouth. Closes it. Looks at the television. I keep typing. Marcus appears in the doorway two minutes later, dressed like he’s going somewhere, ph