Battles of the Broken (Sons of Templar MC 6)

“I know your poker face is better than anyone in the world’s, despite the detail that you never play poker,” I replied, quirking my brow. “And you told me that you were more likely to fight a crocodile in the wilds of Australia than be seen dead—or alive—wearing anything fake. Including your fur. Which isn’t politically correct anymore, in case you were wondering,” I added, though I knew it was a vintage piece belonging to her mother, not something she purchased on a regular basis.

She rolled her eyes. “Not once in my life have I wondered or cared about what’s politically correct, Lo,” she replied, using the nickname one of only two people could call me. The other was dead, so I guessed it was only her who could call me that now.

“Why are you leaving me standing on the doorstep like some common postman?” she added, spitting the word out as if it weren’t the champagne she drank from France and merely a cheap imitation.

Her turquoise-painted eyes flickered over me in suspicion, as if she was only now noting my attire—or lack thereof. She knew me almost better than I knew myself, so she was aware of how out of character it would be to answer the door in a robe, something she did all the time. Though she would be wearing a silk kimono and cradling a glass of wine with a splash of orange juice. Or a martini with no orange juice to be seen.

“You’re about as likely to answer the door in a robe as I would be to be wearing faux fur,” she said, voicing my thoughts. Her pink-painted lips parted to reveal sparkling white teeth as she smiled wide. “Has it happened?” she asked, voice hopeful. “Has Hell finally frozen over?” She scrunched her nose up again. “I hope I’ll get a full refund. I had a prepaid one-way ticket there. It’s a prestigious place, you know, and I wanted to know I got the best real estate.”

I rolled my eyes to hide my growing discomfort at her advancing years. No matter how good her plastic surgeon was, or how hungry her energy for life was, life was finite. The thought of her light going out filled me with so much dread, I could barely breathe around the pain.

Because that’s when I would be truly alone. When the second and last person to truly understand me, to accept me, left this world. I’d have my parents, whom I loved, but it was different. Like life, the number of people in this world who truly saw you for who you were and celebrated that were finite.

“You’re never going to die, Nana,” I said, forcing the bitterness of the words and their untruth from my tongue. “You already said you were going to do the whole Vanilla Sky thing, despite how badly that turned out for Tom Cruise.” I wasn’t lying. She had all sorts of harebrained schemes—this was only her latest.

She waved her hand. “Well obviously I’ll have you for company, I’ve already got plans in place to kidnap you when you’re in your early sixties and freeze you. I won’t tell you the exact date because that would spoil the surprise.” She narrowed her eyes. “Stop stalling,” she demanded, as if I were the one talking about future kidnappings. “Have you got a dead body up there or something?” Her eyes widened like a kid in the proximity of ice cream. “First of all, if you do, I’m so proud. You’re finally breaking free of those shackles constructed by society. And second, shame on you. You always promised you’d call me when you needed help burying a body,” she chastised.

I shook my head. “And I always promised that it was not a matter of when I killed someone, considering burying a body—or creating one—is not on my bucket list,” I replied, gritting my teeth at the fact that my grandmother was saying all this in jest, yet she didn’t know how close to the truth she was. A naked man lay in my bed. One who had created a body. But I doubted he’d need help burying it. Especially from an eighty-year-old woman.

“Whatever.” She waved dismissively, her jewelry glinting in the morning light. She uttered the word with the same attitude of a teenager.

And my eighty-year-old grandmother had the mindset of one. As well as the personal style of a fashionista in their early twenties.

She had on a bright pink beret, somehow not clashing with her expertly styled and curled crimson hair. In addition, she was wearing a matching pink fur gilet. Large diamonds decorated her ears and neck. She never left the house without diamonds. She sometimes left the house in a silk kimono, but never without diamonds.

My grandmother had never grown up and was always of the opinion that normalcy was death. How my father had turned into the ordered and sensible man he did was beyond me—maybe from the grandfather who died before Dad finished high school. But maybe his orderly life was the ultimate act of rebellion that he’d found some kind of solace in. I knew he resented his mother for not giving him the upbringing he gave me. The nuclear family. The white picket fence.