“Okay, let’s do this,” I said, loosening my shoulders. He was entitled to land the first punch. I’d betrayed him after all.
Swiss didn’t hesitate, his fist connecting with face.
He did not hold back.
VIOLET
Elden came to pick me up from my shift, as always. I was not alone in the café for even a second, and despite my shift ending before it got dark and my ability to park right across the street, Elden would not hear of me driving to and from. No one had caught the serial killer Sariah still believed we needed to start a podcast about.
I’d tried to dissuade her, but she was not a woman to be dissuaded.
I had a bad feeling about it. But maybe that was because finally, for the first time in a while, there were no secrets, conflicts or tragedies in my life, and I was uncomfortable, so I was trying to create them.
Not that a serial killer wasn’t a definite source of conflict and terror, it totally was. And someone really should’ve been investigating to make sure those women weren’t forgotten, but I just didn’t think we should be dragging ourselves into that. Not when we’d achieved a somewhat tentative peace.
I should’ve known better than to think my life was free of conflict when I was involved with the Sons of Templar.
Elden sauntered into the café like usual.
All eyes turned to him, as usual.
Including mine.
My heart did that little flutter like it always did when I saw him.
Except he looked a bit different than he did when he’d dropped me off this morning. I hung up my apron and rounded the counter, arriving in front of it at the same time as him.
He didn’t hesitate to greet me the same way he did every day, yanking our bodies flush together and kissing me in a way that wasn’t fit for public consumption.
As he always did, Julian called out. “Get a room before all my customers think they can do that in here!”
He was always smiling when he said it, and he had not seemed at all surprised about Elden and I being together or me being pregnant.
Nothing much surprised Julian.
Because I was not yet immune to Elden and his badass powers, I kissed him back without commenting on the change in his appearance.
But I managed to pull back enough to inspect his face up close.
“You have a black eye,” I glared at the bruise.
“It’s not black yet, a little red maybe,” he shrugged.
“You have a cut on your cheek,” I sucked my teeth.
“A scratch,” Elden corrected.
“What happened?” I demanded, putting my hands on my hips.
“We’re not gonna talk about it here.”
I rooted myself to my spot. “We are going to talk right here, right now.”
He considered me, as if he were assessing how serious I was. “This needed to happen.”
“You and my stepfather?” I deduced.
He nodded.