“I know,” he said, his eyes outside. “Leo has always been hungry for power and wanted to step out of my father’s shadow. I’ll take care of him.”
She didn’t doubt that.
Morana looked at Tristan, to see him watching Dante with a slight frown.
“So, what’s the plan?” Morana asked with extra enthusiasm, trying to lift the energy in the room a bit.
“Do you want to run a mafia family?”
Morana blinked at the question. “Um, no. Not particularly.”
Dante finally smirked, turning to look at her, leaning against the window. “Are you two getting married?”
Wait what?
Morana looked at Tristan with wide-eyes, not knowing how to answer that question. Tristan shook his head. “Not until we find Luna.”
Dante nodded, his gaze pensive. “You know, there’s a reason why the Alliance flourished so long under those three. My father and Gabriel handled the business, and your father handled the information.”
“I can handle the business in Shadow Port,” Tristan’s voice came from where he was seated. Dante chimed in. “And I can handle the business in Tenebrae.”
Morana nodded, catching on. “And I can handle the information.”
Dante walked to his father’s, now his, desk and brought out a crystal-cut bottle of vintage scotch, pouring it into three glasses, handing them both one.
“To the Alliance,” he raised the toast.
“To finding the missing girls,” Tristan matched.
“To the future,” Morana clinked glasses, looking both men in the eyes.
They were her family now.
And they had a long road ahead of them.
Fuck.
Tristan watched the strand of dark hair flutter as the woman beside him exhaled, making it float before coming to rest against her soft skin. Sleeping like this, she was subdued. Fragile. Reminding him of the little girl who had once smiled at him.
Any moment now, she would awaken and he would see the fire that lived inside her in those burnished eyes. Those eyes had always done so much to his insides. As a boy, he hadn’t understood what the heaviness in his chest had been. As a man, he was learning. She had looked up at him with her claws bared to the world, her hate, her heat, and now her heart, all his for the taking.
She unmanned him, this little woman with the soul of a warrior. He was a smart guy but her brain was unlike any he had ever known, and it occasionally made him feel like an idiot. He didn’t mind that one bit.
He traced a finger gently over her shoulder, marveling at the softness of her unmarred skin, down to her stomach, his lips curving. He knew she sucked her stomach in sometimes, trying to flatten out the little belly she had. She didn’t know, didn’t understand that she could gain inches and she’d still be the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
And for such a smart woman, it still left him floundering that she’d chosen him over and over again. Him.
She’d kissed his hands bathed in blood, touched his scars earned in pain, and looked at him to see only the man. She’d always been that way, his Morana. And though he’d never been able to give her anything, he tried every day. If she ever regretted her choice, he didn’t want to examine what he would do closely.
His phone beeped on the side.
She stirred, making a cute little noise of irritation before settling comfortably in the crook of his neck, her breaths warming his skin. He smiled, checking the message.
It’s here.
Contentment like he’d never thought he would find settled over him like a comfortable blanket, warming him from the inside. Pressing a kiss to her forehead, he untangled himself from her and got up to go.
“Whereyougoing?” the words smushed into his pillow.