After a moment, I shift closer and lean my shoulder against his. He lets go of my hand to wrap his arm around me. He hugs me to him fiercely, tucking my head under his chin, and I hug him back as he shudders in the burning night.
Epilogue
Chapter Seventeen
Dylan
It has been three weeks since Dad burned the house with us in it and died in the flames. He fucking meant to die, I know that now. I ignored the signs because I didn’t want to believe it. Ignored how sick he was. Had I known, I’m not sure I could’ve helped him.
He wanted to cleanse this house. Save us all through sacred fire and flames.
Fucking hell.
I grieve for him, for the father he used to be, the person who read us stories at night and took us fishing. That was light years ago.
But mainly I’m furious at him for putting Miles’s and Teo’s lives in danger. Mine, too, but that doesn’t anger me so much. My brothers… They’re too young to fend for themselves, too vulnerable, and they’re mine to protect. Have been mine ever since Mom walked out. I’ll put aside for a moment the fact they are his goddamn children and focus on the fact he tried to hurt my charges. My boys.
Unforgivable.
And then there’s the inevitable guilt. Could I have done more to help him? What if I’d insisted he tell me what he did when he left a year ago, with whom he stayed, what was on his mind? What pushed him to such extreme actions?
Useless speculation, although my conscience doesn’t care and keeps prodding me like a cattle prong. Nothing can help Dad now, and it’s a miracle me and my brothers made it out alive.
Zane has been helping me make sure I have custody of my brothers, now that Dad is gone. They can’t take them from me. Only over my dead body.
And it’s a weary body, still riddled with disease, a bit charred and achy, but I’m still alive, and things are finally, slowly looking up.
For starters, Tessa is by my side. She never left. And she says she’s staying. We’ve rented an apartment together. For now she’s paying the rent, but I’m working again, and the guys babysit my brothers whenever they can, so I can get extra gigs. Soon I’ll be paying my part, and life will get easier.
As for the boys… They have their own room, across the hall from us, and I made sure our bedroom has a lock, because sleeping with Tessa means I get to have her naked in my arms all night, and that leads to all sorts of interesting activities I don’t want the boys witnessing.
They’re fucking ecstatic to have Tessa living with us. They monopolize her so much I’m glad when the guys take them out of the apartment sometimes, so I can spend some quality time with my girl.
Speaking of whom…
Tessa enters the kitchen where I’ve been for the past hour, preparing one of her favorite dishes: vegetarian pasta and honey-glazed ribs in the oven. She leans her hip on the counter and grins at me.
I stop what I’ve been doing just to stare at her. She grows more beautiful by the day, I swear to God. She’s dressed in super-tight jeans and crazy red high heels. She’s trying to find her own style, she says, so she’s trying different ones.
She looks great whatever she wears—especially if she’s wearing nothing at all—and I’m all for it, especially with the blouse she chose today. It’s also red, and it dips low in the front, showing miles of creamy skin and the swell of her breasts. The sight of them makes my mouth go dry.
“The boys left,” she says, watching me with her bright eyes. “Tyler says they’re going to a kid’s party, one of Jax’s friends. He said it’s no problem to let them sleep over at their place tonight.”
“Sounds good.”
She pushes off the counter and comes to slip her arms around me. I check the oven one last time and turn to pull her to me.
“Mom will be here any minute now.”
I wince. I’m trying hard not to remember that we invited Tessa’s mother over for dinner tonight. That woman never liked me, and even more importantly, over the years I had the distinct impression she didn’t pay much attention to Tessa, never took her side.
But Tessa asked this of me. She wants us to get along. Says her mother has changed.
We’ll see about that. I’ll have to see it with my own eyes to be convinced.
Then again, her mom is probably thinking the same about me. A good-for-nothing who was a jerk to her daughter for years, who lost his scholarship, and has no money to even pay the rent.
Yeah… I guess we’ll have to convince each other.