“I’ll fucking handle it!” I snap, getting to my feet. “Get the fuck out!”
Her face hardens and she steps into me. “Listen here, boy.” She points a finger in my face. “Everything you have is because of me. I can take it away just like that …” Her fingers snap and I fist my hands to keep from snapping her goddamn neck.
“Now, now, now. It’s been a long day.” Phil grabs her shoulders and pulls her back from me. “We’re leaving.” He nods and then takes her hand, pulling her over to the stairs.
“Blake?” I bark with a little more bite than I meant to. It doesn’t faze her.
She sits on her knees, her clothes now soaked in blood and sniffing. “Come on.” I lean over, grabbing her under her arms and yanking her to her feet.
“I … killed her … I …”
I spin her around to face me, grabbing her face in both of my hands. “Look at me.”
Tears run down her cheeks, smearing her once pretty makeup. “She was going to take our babies …” She rushes out.
“Hey,” I say softly.
“I couldn’t … wouldn’t let her do that.” She licks her wet lips.
“You don’t have to explain yourself, Blake. It’s okay.”
“And Matt,” Her watery eyes go to his bloody body. “He was going to let her.”
“They can’t touch you, Blake. Never again.” I reassure her when I see something out of the corner of my eye. Taking a quick look, I expect it to be LeAnne but it’s Ty joining us.
“I promise,” she begins to cry. “I promise to protect them …” Dropping the knife at our feet, her arms cover her stomach.
My heart breaks for her. How unsure she must feel right now. All the lies she’s been told throughout her life. Hell, even I didn’t expect LeAnne to be alive. That for sure threw a curve ball. “I know.” I decide to say. Knowing that anything else won’t get through to her right now. “You did good, Blake.” I say running my hand over her long dark hair. “You’re my good girl.”
Her bloody hands grip my shirt, and she buries her face into it. Wrapping my arms around her shaking body, I hold her to me. I look over at Tyson who stands next to Matt, and I nod to him.
Tonight, did not go how I had planned, but at this point I just want it to end. I want to take my pregnant wife home, give her a bath, and move on with our life together.
Ty picks up a rope from the table and walks behind Matt. He wraps it around his neck multiple times and then throws it up to hang over the rafters. Pulling a knife out of his pocket, he leans down and cuts both that are wrapped around his ankles. Then Ty yanks on the new rope around his neck, pulling his bare feet up off the floor.
I slide an arm behind Blake’s knees and the other around her back, picking her up and start carrying her down the stairs while I listen to Matt struggle before silence falls over the cathedral.
EPILOGUE
RYAT
TEN WEEKS LATER
IENTER THE cabin. “Blake?” I call out but am met with silence. “Blake?” I say a little louder but again get nothing in response. When I rush into our bedroom, the door hits the interior wall from my force. “Blakely?” I snap her full name.
Still nothing.
Entering the bathroom, I let out a sigh when I see steam coming from the shower. I start kicking my shoes off and undo my jeans, followed by my T-shirt. Opening the glass door, I find her standing with her back to me and her head under the water.
Reaching out, I wrap my arm around her and pull her off her feet, making her squeal. “Ryat!”
I spin her around and pin her back to the wall, cupping her face, and she laughs.
“You scared me.”
“Sorry.” I smile, and she gives me a face that says she knows I’m not the least bit sorry. “How much do you love me?” My hands drop to her growing belly. We just found out last week that we’re having twin boys. I couldn’t be more ecstatic, but a part of me feels sorry for my wife. The fact that she’s going to live in a house with me and two boys just like me. Good thing she’s stubborn and hardheaded.
Her face falls, and she stiffens against me. “What did you do?”
“I lied,” I admit.
“About?” she growls.
I had told her that I had an early meeting at the house of Lords, but that’s not where I’ve been for the past two hours. “I had a meeting, but it wasn’t with the Lords.”
She frowns. “Why would you lie about that? Haven’t I proven myself, Ryat? That I can handle this.”
“Of course, you have.” I didn’t want to get her hopes up just in case it didn’t work out, but it did. And now I’m dying to tell her. “I had a meeting with Gregory Mallory.”
Her frown deepens, tilting her head to the side. “I … wait, isn’t he the judge that you went to jail for?”
I nod. “He owed me a favor.”
“What kind of favor?” she asks skeptically.
“Remember how you said if you had the choice, you’d choose to stay living here in the cabin, in Pennsylvania?”
“Yeah,” She answers slowly.
“Well, I just cashed in my favor.”
“I don’t understand.” She licks her wet lips.
“He’s going to be retiring and when that happens, I’m going to take over his position.” Being a Lord is a fast-track to your career. But it’ll still be about ten years out before I’m a judge. In the meantime, I’ll be a high-priced attorney to get the courtroom time needed. If I start right out of the gate, it’ll raise too many questions.
She gasps, her hands going to her mouth. “Are you serious?”
I nod. “Yep.”
“We’re staying here?” Her hands hit my chest excitedly. “We don’t have to go to New York?”
“Nope.” I shake my head.
She jumps up and down before she slams her lips to mine. My hands go to her wet hair.
I never wanted to go to New York. My wife’s reluctance just solidified it for me. I can be powerful anywhere I go. The Lords want me to be a judge, so that’s what I’ll be, but they never said where I had to live. Everyone just expected me to go back home, but things have changed. This woman has become my home. She’s having my sons. And even more of my kids after that. I want a house full of them. I’m going to keep her knocked up. She deserves for me to give her the life that she wants. And that is here, in this cabin, with me and our growing family.
I can’t guarantee that I’ll grow old with her, but I will spend every second of every day that I’m alive proving to her that she comes first no matter what.
BLAKELY
I ENTER THEhouse I grew up in, in Texas. Shutting the door behind me, I walk down the hallway to my father’s study. Turning the doorhandle, I pause and knock on it instead.
“Come in.” The voice calls out.
Taking in a deep breath, I enter. LeAnne sits behind his desk, looking like the queen sitting on her throne, dressed in a black off the shoulder dress with her fake tits popping out the top. Her dark hair up in a tight twist.
I hate how much I look like her. It’s a reminder of how stupid I was all those years that I believed the lies I was told about my mother.
“Does Ryat know you’re here?” Is her first question.
“Of course.” Lie. “I don’t keep secrets from my husband.” There’s no way in hell he’d let me come and see her without him. He hates her! Doesn’t trust her. I feel the same way, but a part of me couldn’t turn down her request to see her today. Ryat got called away for an assignment late last night and I feel like that wasn’t a coincidence. Something tells me that this woman has a lot of pull with the Lords. I’m just praying that he’s too busy to check the tracker he placed in me after I ran. A part of me wants to rip it out. The other part reminds me that it saved my life and being a Lady means I’m never truly safe.
She smirks, gesturing to the chair across from the desk. “You’ll learn that even in a marriage, sometimes the only person you can trust is yourself.”
“Coming from the woman who left her family.” I bite. I feel bad for my father too, I wasn’t the only one she left behind. But she’s got him fooled. Considering he still seems to love her.
She opens up a drawer in the desk and hands me a piece of paper. “What is it?” I ask, keeping my hands in my lap.
“Have a look.”
Reaching out, I take it and read over the writing. It’s a marriage license with her and my father’s name on it. “I don’t understand.”
“Me and your father got married his senior year at Barrington.”
I frown. “What’s this have to do with me?” Tossing it onto the desk, I sit back in the chair. “Just further proves my point that you left not only your daughter but also your husband.”
“Bigamy is illegal in every state.” She answers.
My eyes drop to her ring finger and see a massive diamond on it. “So, you got a divorce and married someone else?” I nod. “Not sure why that was so important.” I remember Tyson and Matt discussing once a Lord dies, his Lady is given to a new Lord. I wonder if she requested my father since Ryat killed her husband last year, now that Valerie is dead also.
“I’ve only ever been married to one man, Blakely.” She opens another drawer and pulls out a picture, placing it on the desk in front of me.
Picking it up, I see it’s a younger version of her, but it looks like me. The guy she’s standing next to is my father. “I … no.” I shove it away. “You were married to the man Ryat killed.” I can’t remember his name. not sure anyone ever even told me that information.
She tilts her head to the side. “Your father’s marriage to Valerie was the lie. It was never legal because we were already married.”
I run a hand through my hair. “Why does this fucking matter?”
“Because I want you to know the truth.”
I snort. “Nothing is true. All I’m told are lies.”
“You think I left you behind because of your father. I left you because the Lords called me. And you never, ever tell them no.”
“Why would they tell you to leave him?” I scoff. I know the Lords have to obey their oath, but I’ve never been told that a Lady has to do with that.
“Because Nathaniel Myers was my assignment.”
My spine stiffens at her answer.
“An assignment that ended up lasting much longer than it should have. That’s why I had the hit put out on him. I was done and needed it to end.”
Swallowing, I shift in my seat. “Still not sure what this has to do with me.”
“Men come and go, Blakely. But your child? That’s where they get you. These Lords prefer arranged marriages because they refuse to fall in love with their wives because that’ll show weakness.” She snorts. “Men can get pussy anywhere. Woman can get dick anywhere. It’s the kids that makes us savages. You have already proven that with how you handled Valerie at the confessional. You took her threat of taking your child personally.”
I admit that I panicked after what I did set in. But if I had a chance to redo it, would I? Absolutely. In a heartbeat. “Is that what you plan on doing? Force me to do what you want or take my child?”
“Of course not.” She snorts as if that’s absurd. “I just want you to understand that I did what I had to do … for you.”
I slam my hands on the desk. “Quit lying to me!” Getting to my feet I lean over it. “You haven’t been around for twenty years! None of what you did was for me.”
She leans back in her seat crossing one leg over the other, not fazed by my outburst. “Ryat.”
My husbands’ name on her painted red lips makes my heart beat faster. “What about him?”
“That was me.” She tilts her head to the side.
“No.” I refuse to believe that. “Dad …”
“Valerie signed you up for a chosen in order to pay off her debt to Matt for killing me. But how do you think you ended up with Ryat?”
I fall into my seat. “Dad made him choose …”
“I made that decision.”
No. It can’t be. My father told me that he knew Ryat was the better choice. He was saving me from Matt. But my father has lied to me more than once. This woman who says she’s my biological mother has no reason to lie to me, right? “Why?” I’ll bite.
“I saw how he was that night. He got in, got the job done and he never told a soul about what Matt did. Or tried to do. That’s a great Lord.”
I roll my eyes. “I’m so tired of the fucking Lords.”
“And Janett?” She laughs. “Did you really think that woman was going to hire you? You had no experience. No ID, money. Nothing. Not to mention you were underage.” She holds her hands out wide. “I made sure that she took you in.”