Daddy's Adorable Assassin (Daddy's Little Deviants)

EPILOGUE

HUNTER

4 YEARS LATER

“Cosmo?”

I closed the front door behind me and hung up my coat. The house was silent. Too silent. I frowned as I entered the hall and scanned the kitchen and living room. He didn’t seem to be downstairs at all. I took the stairs two at a time. The trials had been more difficult on him than we’d expected, but today had been his last court appearance. I’d left my PI firm early today just to have the evening alone with him.

In our bedroom, I found a note on the bedside table that he’d gone out for a run. I hated the idea of him jogging on his own, but other than one incident at the courthouse three years ago, no one had made any more attempts on his life. When the FBI withdrew their agents and declared the threats passed, I’d outfitted the house with the best security money could buy. It had also given me the idea of what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.

I crumpled the note and dropped it on the bed. After a quick shower, I dressed and hurried downstairs to prepare dinner. I turned on the television and left it running in the background while I took out the ingredients I needed to make a scrumptious meal.

Cosmo would still eat anything that was placed in front of him, a consequence of his eating habits from childhood, but I made sure he had the meals he really enjoyed.

In four years, he’d put on exactly eight pounds, which had briefly led to eating issues again. Convinced he was no longer attractive to me because he didn’t weigh a hundred pounds anymore, he’d started counting calories, running, and dieting. With the help of a nutritionist and a therapist, he had slowly broken away from the beauty standards his mother had drilled into his head since he was a little boy.

He still loved to be my doll. He enjoyed dresses, showing off skin, wearing makeup, heels, and tiaras, but he now knew those weren’t the reason I loved him.

I got lost in my cooking, forgetting the time. I washed up and wiped down the counters, then checked my watch. How far had Cosmo gone for a run? He should have been back home already. I called his phone, but it went straight to voice mail.

“Babe, please call me so I can stop worrying about you, okay?” I hung up and grabbed a beer from the fridge, thentexted Nate to turn down yet another sleepover invitation. Since quitting my job, we’d become closer. Cosmo got along well with his two littles, and they’d even become friends. His two littles had had sleepovers with us twice already, and Nate wanted Cosmo to come to their place for the next one, but I was holding out.

I didn’t feel comfortable with Cosmo sleeping somewhere without me. I loved and knew him enough to know the boy couldn’t be trusted. For the past four years, I’d kept him out of trouble, but I wasn’t about to give him the opportunity to act out, in other words, kill someone again. It was bad enough the guilt I had to go through that Nate had no idea Cosmo had killed his mother. He never needed to know.

Nate sent me back a message agreeing to his two littles sleeping over with us again. At least here, I could monitor Cosmo.

“Just in, Governor Joseph Roffe assassinated outside of his residence.”

What?

I hurried to the coffee table, grabbed the remote, and turned up the volume.

“While we have little information, we can say that Governor Roffe was on his way to a charity event at the Garden Hall when a bullet penetrated the rear windshield of the car he was in, hitting Governor Roffe. He was accompanied by his wife, who was confirmed as unhurt. We’ll have more for you in subsequent reports.”

My chest tightened, and sweat beaded my forehead. I tapped Redial and listened to Cosmo’s voice mail but ended the call without saying anything, afraid I would blurt out the wrong thing and implicate him for something he might not have done. Given the scrutiny we’d been under for the trial, Cosmo had been on his best behavior. He hadn’t taken anyone’s life as far as I knew, and he promised me he hadn’t.

Was Governor Roffe’s assassination a coincidence?

I sat heavily on the sofa and skipped the channel to find one where a news reporter was live on the scene reporting on the incident.

“The city of Cross Keys is left in shock after popular and well-liked philanthropist Governor Roffe was murdered while on his way to a charity event. The police are calling the act cowardly and unprovoked. A manhunt is currently underway to find the shooter, and the police have made it clear they will find whoever is responsible.”

My stomach churned. I took deep breaths and watched for the latest updates on the case. They had no idea who the killer was, but they were good enough to shoot through the glass of a moving vehicle, killing the governor on the spot. They were certain the governor had been the target. No one else had been harmed in the vehicle, and only one shot had been fired.

I soaked up the information, specifically listening to any comments on the killer. I lost track of how long I sat in front of the television. The front door opened and closed. I froze, then sprang to my feet. Cosmo stood in the hall, dressed in a pair of dark green leggings and a black T-shirt, his hair pushed back from his face with a thin headband.

“Hey, Daddy.” He walked right up to me, wound his arms around my neck, and kissed me. I had questions I needed to ask, but I cupped his head and kissed him back instead. His lightly sweaty body odor must mean he had gone for a run. Or maybe a run from the police.

“Where have you been?” I asked.

“Didn’t you see my note?”

“I know what your note says, but I want to hear it from you. Where have you been?”

His gaze traveled from me to the television screen. “Is that what this is about?” he asked with a grin. “You think I assassinated the governor?”

“It was your plan, wasn’t it?”