“Like bein’ a fuckin’ good mother,” Cade spat.
I nodded. “Yeah, that. But if there’s anything I got from her apart from great hair is that ability. That rebellion, I guess. Against that little part of every human that strives to be like everyone else for some illusion of safety that comes with unity. That’s bullshit. She taught me, without even trying.”
Cade regarded the fire. “No, kid. You did not get that shit from her. Or even Dad.” His eyes met mine. “You got that shit from you. You were born with somethin’ that no other human being has business having inside them before bein’ able to speak. Born with chaos. Swear to God, I saw it the moment I looked into your eyes, a day old. Fuck, even as a kid, I looked at you and knew it.”
I blinked away my blurry vision at the beautiful and heartfelt words coming from my brother.
“You’re an exceptionally good man, Cade Fletcher,” I whispered.
“Exceptional runs in the blood, just like trouble. Only thing we inherited from that bitch.”
I screwed up my nose, trying to match the bitterness and hate in Cade’s tone with the memories of my mother.
I couldn’t.
In my fuzzy memories, she was the one smiling, dancing, laughing. Turning the music up so loud my teeth chattered. Letting me wear leopard-print cowboy boots with my ballet uniform. As I grew older and she visited less, those memories were all I had to cling to.
Today was my first real glimpse of the truth.
The ugly one.
“Was she really that bad?” I asked.
Cade’s face softened. “Roe, no. She loved you. In her way. She just didn’t know how to love herself, so she couldn’t do it right. She did you a favor by leaving. I don’t like to think how fucked up you’d be if she’d stayed.”
I grinned. “You mean even more fucked up?” I faked a shiver. “Me neither.”
There was a long silence—well, immediate silence. The low hum of heavy metal and grumbled conversation carried from the wake that had now turned into a party.
“You okay, Roe?” Cade asked softly.
“No,” I admitted. “Not at all.”
“Yeah, me neither.”
I looked over the shadows, past Death who was staring right at me, grinning that toothless grin, to my man. To Luke, holding his beer, chatting easily with the men who, up until a year or so before, he would’ve loved to have put in a prison. Now he partied with them.
He was doing that, and would be doing that forever.
For me.
And then Death wasn’t in front of me anymore. He was still there, but behind Luke. Behind Luke’s shield.
“But we will be okay,” I whispered.
Cade’s gaze was glued on Gwen. “Yeah,” he agreed.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“She’s turning into a little human being,” I whispered, playing with Belle’s long curls.
Cade had forbidden Gwen to cut them, so they were tumbling all the way down to her little booty.
“They do that,” Gwen whispered back, smiling at her daughter.
She was beautiful, even as a toddler. Her green eyes, when they were open, were always sparkling, radiant against her tanned skin and dark hair. She had all of Gwen’s beauty and softness with Cade’s edge. All tumbled into a little girl.
“Cade’s going to shoot so many teenage boys when she grows up,” I said, giving her curls one last stroke before I stepped out of her bedroom.
Gwen followed me, shutting the door quietly. “Oh, I don’t know, I think she’s going to have him wrapped around her little finger when she’s a teenager, considering she does already,” she said, grinning.
I grinned back, happy that Cade had this to come home to, life and love and happiness to shake off that feeling of death. He had his family, the girls who he adored and his son who already worshipped him.
“You doing okay?” Gwen asked as she walked us to the living room littered in family photos. “You and Luke finally getting together, you getting shot, and your mom turning up in that way….” She handed me a much-needed glass of wine. “It’s a lot for one person, even you, babe.”
“Yeah,” I said, sipping my wine. I thought for a second. “No, I guess I’m not, actually.”
She sipped her own. “It’s okay to not be,” she said.
“Yeah, I know.”
“Is it bad to say I’m happy for you?” she asked. “Despite being hunted by a human trafficking ring and all that jazz.” She waved her hand. “But that’s just another Tuesday for you,” she teased. “But you and Luke, you’re finally what you were both meant to be. You’ve got it.”
I smiled. “Yeah, I’ve got it.”
“Kind of feels like the ugliness of the world can’t really get there, right into you, not when you’ve got him, right?”
I smiled. “I don’t even want to punch you for saying something that corny because it’s true.”
She sipped her wine. “I know, and I don’t even care about what an idiot I sound like. I’m a happy idiot with two beautiful children—who did not ruin my vagina, thank Lagerfeld—a husband who’s hotter than Hades, and girlfriends Carrie Bradshaw would kill for.”