Blake pushed himself up to sit at last, rubbing his neck as he glared at me like he was considering another fight which I wasn’t wholly opposed to, but I had questions right now and I was more interested in those. Saint placed a hand on his shoulder in warning and he didn’t move again, which was handy because I was still waiting.
“Yes,” Tatum said firmly, surprising me with the vehemence of her words. “I love them equally. And I know you were trying to protect Kyan, but fuck you, Niall.”
“So it’s like a pick and mix for you?” I asked curiously, ignoring the suggestion for me to get fucked because I hadn’t done that in a long damn time, so it wasn’t likely now. “If one of your boys is pissing you off, you can just go find another?” I asked, needing more information, all the information. I was like that beast in his library with the annoying little French woman who crept into his house and kept stealing all his books. I needed the books. I needed to know.
“It’s not like that, I lov-” she started, but I was getting it now, so I cut her off because fuck me, I think I was having an epiphany.
“That actually makes a lot of sense,” I said. “I always did feel sorry for my wife having to weather my brand of insanity alone. If she’d had a boyfriend too, maybe he could have given her some reprieve from my company. Of course, I’m not certain I could stand another man sticking his cock in my woman…” I rubbed my chin in contemplation, considering the idea while forcing my thoughts firmly away from my little Spider because this wasn’t about her, it was about a theoretical reality in which I might not have had to live through the brutality of my wife’s murder. Then again, wasn’t a lot of my objections to having a woman because of my fear of what might happen to one who got close to me again?
I bit my own tongue, needing the pain to force out the thoughts which I wasn’t going to be having about any kind of future which didn’t involve me dying alone.
“My Ava wasn’t likely to have wanted that though. And my bed has been emptier than a nun’s vagina since she was taken from me, so I’m not likely to ever find out if I’d be able to allow it without castrating the other fella-”
“It’s a family,” Kyan snapped, interrupting me. “I wouldn’t just let any man fuck my woman. But I love the three of them too. It’s the only way that it ever could have worked for us.”
“So you fuck them as well?” I asked him, pointing between Saint and Blake and tilting my head as I pictured that. It made sense actually. A woman only had so many holes and the two of them looked like they could suck a dick as well as anyone. I hadn’t had much experience of men sucking my cock but then again, I’d married my high school sweetheart and been celibate for the ten years following on from her death, so I hadn’t done a whole lot of experimenting.
“No,” Kyan grunted, his lips lifting with a hint of amusement. “They couldn’t handle me.”
I barked a laugh, believing that well enough. Kyan was his own kind of monster, and it took a strong woman like his to wrangle one of those. Or four. Fuck me, what a turn out. Two’s company, three’s a crowd, but four? That was a number right there. That was the makings of an army.
“Well, I can’t say my horizons are broadened every day, but you’ve definitely given me food for thought,” I said, chuckling as I looked to Blake, who still seemed a little salty about his near-death experience. Whoops. “Sorry about that then, lad. Look at it this way though, now you can say you survived the wrath of the best hitman in the state – which I don’t think anyone else has ever done. Ever. Not once. I don’t leave bodies kicking. Or twitching. So everybody wins.” Blake didn’t seem inclined to agree but I’d said sorry, and that made everything okay. It was the law. Everyone knew that.
I stepped closer to Kyan, lowering his voice as the questions in me just kept coming, an idea I wasn’t allowed to indulge in spinning around inside my skull.
“So tell me more about this arrangement? Do you have a schedule? Or do you all just whip your dicks out and-” I waved my hand between the group of them. “Act like animals whenever the feelin’ takes ya?”
“I’ll tell you about it another time,” Kyan muttered, stepping away from me like there were more important matters at hand and helping Tatum to her feet.
He checked her over closely then kissed the corner of her mouth when he was satisfied she was okay.
It was…well, fuck me, they were all looking at her like that and I had to say I could see the appeal. She was there in the middle of a wolf pack, kept safe from the monsters of the world with enough love surrounding her that even if one of her men died in the name of protecting her, she’d still have more to keep her heart beating on.
“Well,” I said, moving to pick up Herbert then heading over to the tools hanging on the wall as I got back to my original reason for coming here, my brain officially full. “I just came here to grab a few new friends.” I grabbed a couple of saws and a hammer by the name of James plus a pair of pliers called Tilly.
I did need to get on with some other shit today, but I was all ears for whatever my nephew had to say on this matter when he had the chance to talk through it with me further.
“I have places to be, skulls to batter, eyeballs to pluck out. I’ll be wanting that chat though, Kyan. And I’ll keep my mouth shut too – Pa won’t like you letting yer friends touch your girl, no matter what way you wanna paint it to him. See ya around.” I headed out the door, leaving them there to chat or have a gang bang or whatever, whistling a tune which wouldn’t quite come to me and trying to keep that pep in my step while I headed back to the house and the boring arse afternoon ahead of me.
***
A day in the company of my father and brothers was not the most relaxing of days. In fact, by the time I’d been forced to attend countless meetings and offer up opinions on so many things I gave no fucks about that my head was spinning with it, I was damn inclined to go on a killing spree.
There was rumour I’d heard about a cult up in the mountains who lured young men and women into it to serve under the rule of the old bastards who had tricked them into believing in some greater power or mystical fountain of knowledge or transitional veil of fire or some shit. I wasn’t entirely sure which, but I’d heard a bit about sacrifices of the flesh and bodies being burned in the dead of night, so I was pretty certain there was a whole organisation up there just ripe for the killin’.
I’d bet my little psycho would enjoy that particular road trip with me. We could take one of those great big RVs which were practically a house on wheels. There would be a bed in the back and plenty of room to pick up hitchhikers who we could assess for psychotic tendencies before dropping them off or taking them out. It would be grand. An adventure of death and carnage fit for a queen of chaos and the broken fool who travelled at her back.
I pursed my lips as I considered that though. If I was at her back, then who was covering her front? Or the sides? I wanted her to run free in all of her beautifully lethal glory, but I needed her protected too. She was innocent at least as much as she was guilty, and I wanted to shield that part of her from this brutal world with all I had.
“Cat got your tongue, Niall?” Ronan asked loudly, stacking his hands over his stomach as he gave me a taunting smirk across the table in our pa’s office where we’d been summoned for this final meeting.
Or at least I hoped it was the last one. I honestly couldn’t remember if I’d been told that or had just decided it for myself.