Cannon (Carolina Reapers 5)

Anne’s eyes flew wide, but she stepped the fuck away from me, so I counted it as a victory.

“She sure as hell is!” Persephone stood in the doorway, looking furious as hell and all the more beautiful for it. And shit, her mother occupied the other.

“Sephie…” Anne turned with her palms facing outward. “You misheard—”

Persephone marched forward. “I didn’t mishear shit.”

“Girls,” their mother beseeched softly.

“No, Mama,” Persephone shook her head but didn’t look away from Anne. “She’s fucked up her last three marriages, and that’s on her. I’ll be damned if she’s going to try to come between my husband and me.”

Damn, my wife had bite. She wasn’t some docile little kitten, though her looks advertised otherwise. She was a full-grown tigress with the claws to match. She was holding her own in a situation where I would have stepped in front of her and handled a year ago. That emotion welling up through me? It was pride.

“That wasn’t—” Anne started.

“I heard it all!” Persephone snapped. “Now in the interest of our mother, I’m telling you to get in my car so I can take you back to my house, where you will promptly pack your shit.” Even with her sweet, southern drawl, the words packed a punch.

A corner of my mouth lifted at my wife’s use of shit, fucked, and damned in front of her mother.

“Oh…but…” Anne looked at her mother, who shook her head. Then she turned to me.

“What? Like I’m going to help you? What my wife says goes in our home.” I shrugged.

Defeated, Anne raised her chin in the air, plucked her bag off the couch, and walked out of the shop ahead of Persephone.

“I’ll see you at home?” I called out.

She turned and offered me a sad smile. “Don’t stay out too late.”

“I’m right behind you.”

With that promise, Persephone left the shop. The silence was broken by Mrs. VanDoren’s stuttered sigh.

“Don’t worry about them,” I assured her, sitting her down and cracking open a bottle of water for her.

She sipped at the water with a straight back and a shaky grip. “I’m so sorry, Cannon. Andromeda…she’s…” Her eyes squeezed shut.

“You don’t owe me an apology.”

“I do. I just…I love both of my girls. I need you to know that.”

“I do. They know it, too. And they’ll work it out. Don’t worry.” I spotted her driver lurking near the doorway.

“How do you know?”

“Well, first, Persephone agreed to drive her home. She’s not making her walk, and second, they’re sisters. I would do anything for my sister.”

She pressed her lips in a thin line but nodded. “Right. You’re one of the good ones, you know that? Persephone’s own knight in shining armor.” She patted my cheek, and I let her.

I muttered my thanks and made sure she got to the car safely with her driver, keeping my thoughts to myself.

I wasn’t Persephone’s knight. I was her personal devil.

I ditched the tux, then picked up takeout from Persephone’s favorite comfort food restaurant and headed back home. It had to have been about an hour and a half after she’d stormed out with Anne, which meant she’d had an hour to deal with her sister.

Carrying the takeout bag in one hand, I walked into the house through the garage, unsure of what was waiting for me.

The smell of bleach stung my nostrils as I hung my keys by the door. But it wasn’t Monday or Thursday, which meant Margaret, our housekeeper, hadn’t been here.

“Persephone?” I called out as I walked into the kitchen, where the bleach smelled the strongest. “Are you trying to get rid of a body? Because I’ve heard lye is the way to go.”

“Right here.” She was scrubbing the shit out of the counter in the corner of the kitchen.

“Everything okay?” I set the food on the counter and approached my wife carefully. For all the time I’d known Persephone, I’d never seen her so…frenzied.

“Of course, everything is okay!” she snapped, working an area of granite so hard I wondered if we’d have a permanent divot there. “Why wouldn’t it be okay?”

“Princess…”

“Don’t call me that! Not after she called me…what was it? A frigid, fragile little princess?” She moved slightly to her left and started scrubbing even harder.

“You’re not any of those things,” I said softly.

“You should have heard her once we got home.” She shook her head, flipped the sponge over, and started again. “Saying that I’d never keep you. That a man like you needed more than a woman like me. That I should have let her have you, because then at least you’d be satisfied enough to stick around with me, and the worst part is maybe she’s right!”

I reached my arms around her and captured a wrist in each hand. “Drop the sponge. You’re murdering our counter.”

“It’s not our counter!” she cried as the sponge slapped against the granite. “It’s yours because we’re not really married! I don’t care what that license in the safe says!”