Atonement (Master's Protege 2)

Someone at the arcade’s shown up with a fire extinguisher. Sirens wail nearby.

The world spins around me, and my ears begin to ring. I slump to the ground.

Chapter Seventeen

Cain

“Tell me again.”

I’m sitting propped up in my bed, and Violet’s laying with me, her head on my chest. She doesn’t know it yet, but the door’s locked up here. I kept my guards here just in case, and I’ve commanded the deadbolts be drawn downstairs.

Everyone thinks I’m taking extra precautionary measures now because we’ve been attacked by the Castellanos. I’m not. I don’t fucking fear the Castellanos.

I want Violet to stay here, with me.

Right now, she’s lying on me as if she’s exhausted and I’m her pillow, and I’m not ready for this to end. I’m not ready for the inevitable that happens next.

“Armand came around the corner, pulled out his phone, and I swear he was calling the Castellanos when they blew up our car.”

“I heard it, and didn’t know what it was at first. What a terrible sound.”

I nod. “That’s all I remember. Joe doesn’t remember much more than that, but Henri’s footage is pretty clear. A Castellano blew up the car, likely as a distraction. They saw me get in with Joe. When you came to rescue me, that was their chance. They came to get you.”

She nods. “And dude, that was the wrong time to try to kidnap me. He’d have been better off trying when I was asleep or something.”

I growl low, making her laugh. “I love it when you go all alpha on me.”

“I know, baby.”

This time, she doesn’t tell me not to call her baby.

There’s scratching and a whimper at the door. Violet grins.

“Let him in!” she shouts to the security guard. Seconds later, a freshly cleaned little Cudgel vaults himself onto the bed, sporting a bright red ribbon. He laps furiously at Violet’s face until she pulls him up to her and rolls him over so she can rub his belly.

“You little rascal,” she says with affection. “You missed mama, huh?”

She gets him busy with a chew toy on the floor. I marvel at her grace, the simple lines of her body like the expert sweep of an artist’s brush. She tucks her hair off her forehead and behind one ear, and when she catches my eye, she gives me a gentle smile.

She sits on the edge of the bed, bends, and kisses my bandaged arm.

“You’ve kissed my owies like ten times today,” I say, but I’m hardly giving her shit for it. I love that she does this.

“And I’ll keep doing it.”

Suddenly, something outside the window catches her eye, and she leaps to her feet. “Cain!”

“What?”

“Who… how… it’s my truck!”

“Motherfucker.” Again, they screwed up the timing. “I gave specific instructions for them to wait to give this to you until I told them. Until after everything had blown over. I didn’t want you to think…” I stop myself before I say too much.

She tips her head to the side. “Didn’t want me to think what?”

“That I… was trying to buy your affection.”

She smiles sadly. “I wouldn’t ever think that.”

“Why not?”

Her eyes meet mine, and for the thousandth time, I’m struck by the brilliant beauty of the violet hue. “Because that’s not the man you are. You don’t demand affection. You don’t coerce love out of someone. You love them, fiercely, just as they are.” She blows out a breath. “Just as you are.”

My throat feels tight. I nod.

“So, I need to hear everything,” she says, returning to the story. I don’t miss how she skirts away from the discussion of love. “Henri’s footage shows that the man that tried to grab me was a Castellano.”

“Yes. And my sources say that he was the very same man who killed your parents.”

My sources being my men who captured and interrogated Armand until he begged us for mercy, but I’d rather spare her those details. She’s likely figured it out anyway.

She sits on the chair, dressed in nothing but my T-shirt, and it puts me in mind of the first day we met. A storm had been coming in, and she’d ripped her dress as she was trying to convince me to work with her. I gave her my own shirt, right off my back, and being the ballsy, fucking amazing woman she is, she slipped it right on like it was a dress.

I wish I could go back… no. No, I can’t. A part of me wishes I could go back and tell her everything, but I still fear, even now, that she’d have run from me if I had.

She pushes herself off the chair and walks over to me. I hold my breath, uncertain of what she’ll do next, when she sits herself on my lap and drapes her arms around my neck. She rests her head on my shoulder.