“Hey, do not talk that way about Dexter,” Adam said. “Only I can talk shit about my dog.”
“And only we can talk shit about our kids,” Atticus countered. “Now go home.” After a second, he said, “And…thanks. For watching them.”
Noah smiled. “It was fun. Anytime.”
Adam glowered at Noah. “If we get them some kind of muzzle.” Noah raised a brow at his husband. “What?” Adam said, tone pissy. When Noah kept staring he made an exasperated noise. “Oh, my God. Fine. You’re welcome or whatever. Can we go home now?”
They said their goodbyes. Once the door was shut, Atticus locked it, then fell into Jericho’s arms. “Do we…have a talk with him? About…tongue etiquette?”
“Not tonight, Freckles. They’re tired and strung out on sugar. We will all get some sleep and revisit the topic in the morning when we’re all well rested. Okay?”
Atticus nodded against Jericho’s shoulder. “This shit is so hard.”
“The hardest.”
“I’m glad I’m not doing it alone.”
Jericho smiled, wrapping his arms around Atticus’s waist.
Their hug was interrupted by the sound of Boots hissing and growling, then screeching.
“Daddy,” Jett called. “Jagger tried to lick the cat.”
Atticus groaned, but Jericho kissed his head. “I got it. Why don’t you go lay back down.”
Atticus sighed, then shook his head. “No, they’re our kids. We’re in this together.”
“Even if we have weird kids who lick cats?” Jericho asked.
Atticus gave him a tired smile. “Yeah, even then.”
Thomas twirled his pen, watching the younger man on the screen. Aiden. The son he’d almost had, but who’d rejected him outright. The man who’d refused to see Thomas as the man he pretended to be, but had realized almost immediately that his whole life was a fucking lie.
It was a close up shot, making Aiden’s handsome face an almost wall-sized presence in the conference room, leaving everything from the chest down a mystery, but that didn’t stop Thomas from…wondering.
Not wondering, remembering.
He reached for his whiskey glass and downed it in two long swallows. Day drinking was starting to become a thing for him. Things had been…strained since he’d sent paperwork dissolving the adoption. It wasn’t that Thomas didn’t understand why Aiden would want to end that perceived role between them. Father and son. They’d been many things to each other, but never that. Aiden had come to him wild and had only grown more so under Thomas’s clumsy attempt at fatherhood.
Fatherhood was hard enough when you had six psychopathic children who were—theoretically—incapable of showing theirlove. But Aiden had been so much more. Aiden was the antithesis of a psychopath. Aiden had a classification that many behavioral scientists refused to even acknowledge existed.
The dark empath.
Someone who experienced all the feelings, understood the ramifications of their actions, could see down into people’s true insecurities and then twist them for his own manipulative needs. Aiden knew what it was to hurt people and he enjoyed it just the same. If anything, he enjoyed it more so because he understood precisely how accurate he needed to be to shred someone’s soul. Thomas knew firsthand.
But unlike most dark empaths, Aiden had recognized that deviance within himself and isolated himself from society. Away from his brothers. Away from Thomas. They’d spent so little time together over the years—zoom meetings, kill confirmations, the occasional late night phone call—yet no matter how far Aiden went, part of him was still tethered to Thomas, whether they liked it or not.
“Thomas?”
He jerked his head up. Meeting Aiden’s steely gaze was a gut punch. “Yes, sorry. I didn’t get much sleep last night. What were you saying?”
Aiden looked like the one who hadn’t gotten much sleep. He was clean. His beard trimmed, even his shirt was clean, but there were circles under his eyes and a weariness that seemed beyond his usual level of exhaustion.
Avi had blamed it on his brother’s bizarre new hobby. No, not his brother. Christ, this was complicated. Almost as complicated as understanding Aiden’s latest obsession. Medieval torture devices. People were entitled to their hobbies, but the idea of Aiden, isolated in the woods, bringing back the world’s worst atrocities to continue Thomas’s work was just…heartbreaking.
“So I’m good to pull the trigger?” Aiden asked, his words stilted.
Thomas frowned, before his gaze fell to the photo on the folder before him. “Yes, of course. Just get with Calliope to make sure your alibi is air tight. Without the family surrounding you, you’re more vulnerable should you get caught.”
