So was the door to the room Violet was still in.
I pulled myself together as best I could. I tucked my gun back in my pants before heading across the hall. I stopped in the doorway of the yellow bedroom when I saw Ronan sitting on the bed with Violet in his lap. The toddler was holding a tablet, completely entranced by whatever she was looking at. I could hear music and sounds coming from the tablet—the annoying kind that usually accompanied kids’ games. Remy was standing a few feet from the bed, clearly surprised at the sight of a quiet Violet on Ronan’s lap.
Ronan’s eyes shifted from Remy to me, then he leaned down and said something to Violet that I couldn’t hear. The toddler ignored him. She didn’t make a sound when he set her on the bed and left the tablet with her. His next stop was at Remy’s side and I felt the same rage I’d experienced earlier in the day when he’d put his hand on Remy’s shoulder. He didn’t touch Remy this time, but he might as well have because seeing the big man whispering into Remy’s ear had me seeing only red. It was all I could do not to yell at him to back the fuck off.
I was almost happy when the grim-faced surgeon strode toward me. He stopped directly in front of me and said, “If he tells me anything about you laying a hand on him in there”—his chin jerked in the direction of the room across the hall—“you’re going to wish some of my men were on the grounds because they’d be the only thing to keep me from killing you.”
I believed him. “If you thought me capable of hurting him, you never would have left me alone with him for so long.”
“Who says I did?” Ronan asked. He lifted his phone to show a video feed of the room across the hall.
The fucker had been watching the whole time.
“You’re lucky you gave him that gun when you did, you son of a bitch,” he said softly as he leaned in so only I could hear him. His voice had changed from the cool, calm guy he’d been earlier when we’d been talking on the balcony to deadly and ice cold. “It’s the only thing that kept you breathing.”
“You know what happened in there,” I said, undeterred. “He chose to stay with me.”
“And if that’s what he still wants, he’ll cover for you. But if he’s changed his mind…”
He let the threat hang there. Maybe if I hadn’t already lost the most important thing in my life, I might have been a little frightened. Or maybe I was just itching for someone, anyone to get payback against me on Remy’s behalf.
“What did you say to him?” I asked even as Ronan started to close the door to the room, leaving me outside it. I didn’t like the idea of Remy being by himself with the other man, but it wasn’t because I thought Ronan would hurt him. No, it was pure, old-fashioned jealousy.
“I told him he was family now,” was all Ronan said right before he shut the door in my face.
Despite the fact that I didn’t believe in that high and mighty family shit Ronan had spewed at me earlier, I couldn’t help but also be a tiny bit grateful.
Because like Violet, Remy needed a lot of strong, good people in his corner. And while Ronan still annoyed the fuck out of me, I knew that he and the men and women who worked for him—fine, the men and women in his family—would be able to offer Remy more than I ever could.
But that didn’t mean I was ready to let Remy go… yet.
Chapter Nine
Remy
Once unleashed, the man didn’t do anything in simple measures.
And it wasn’t just the fancy hotel room.
As soon as I’d finished my very long conversation with Ronan, I’d stepped out of the bedroom to find Luca nervously waiting. It would have been almost cute if the whole thing wasn’t so fucked up. But as soon as I’d told him Violet and I were ready to go, he’d launched into action.
Starting with handing me a big plastic bag full of over a dozen new outfits meant for Violet. They’d been in various sizes and had included pants, skirts, dresses, onesies, pajamas, socks, shoes, tights, and underwear. There’d also been a few different sizes of diapers. Since Luca wouldn’t have had the time to go shopping while I’d been in the room with Ronan, I could only assume he’d sent one of his men to pick up some stuff.
If I’d thought the clothes, in terms of just sheer volume alone, were a little over the top, as soon as I’d stepped outside of Ronan’s house with Violet in my arms, I’d realized the man was just getting started.