“Mmm,” Dom hummed, and I shot him a look. He was unrepentant as he looked back at me, shrugging when I scowled.
“I won’t tell you to ignore him, but you can ignore him for the moment,” Marcus said with a chuckle, letting go of my hand. “We worried about him too.”
“Marcus,” Dom warned.
“It’s true,” Marcus said, undaunted by Dom’s tone. “He wouldn’t speak to any of us about what happened, wouldn’t even say where you went. He tried to be angry, he really did, but he was...more than just angry. You know how he can be.”
“I do,” I said softly because I did know. I might retreat into myself when I was wounded, pull up the drawbridge, seal the windows, and refuse to come out. Dom though...Dom would rage, fill himself with so much anger and fury that there wasn’t enough space in his heart for him to even feel the pain. The pain was still there, of course, but it served as fuel for his anger, and if he didn’t find a place to put all that rage, he ended up exploding onto someone who didn’t deserve the fury boiling away in his heart.
“Marcus,” Dom protested.
“You hospitalized someone,” Marcus told him lightly. “And barely avoided going to jail over it. You’re lucky.”
“Oh?” I asked, eyes going wide.
Marcus winked. “I’m not trying to start trouble, but...you were missed. If you decide to take off again, try to make sure that you don’t stay gone this time, alright? I can see you two are back to your old ways...and then some. So, try to be better this time, alright?”
“I—”
“I won’t ask you to make any promises that you can’t keep.”
“Right.”
He smiled, a note of sadness in his expression. “In the meantime, come sit down. Arlo texted and said he’s in the lobby, so we’ll get started soon. Make yourself comfortable.”
“Sure,” I said a little meekly. It wasn’t every day that the family you had almost counted as your own greeted you with open arms, warm smiles, and a side dish of guilt thrown in.
I looked at Dom, who had a look on his face that seemed unable to decide if he wanted to be angry or just plain upset. Iturned him so they couldn’t see his face. “Stop. They have every right. Just like you had every right.”
“Funny you say that now,” he said with a scowl that didn’t have enough force to be taken seriously.
“Probably because when you wanted to blame me, I wasn’t ready to accept you in my life, let alone take your anger. I think we’re well past that now,” I told him, reaching to take his hand gently in mine and squeeze it. “Plus, this was your idea, your family. You should have seen all this coming.”
His scowl didn’t hold, and he let out a soft laugh. “Honestly, I’m surprised it’s gone as well as it has. I was waiting for Mason to find a way under your skin and Matty to grill you on everything you’ve been up to for fifteen years.”
“Speaking of,” I said as we walked to the table, leaning in close so only he could hear me. “What exactlyhaveI been doing for the past fifteen years?”
“I told Matty you’re a businessman. I didn’t want to get into the details because if there’s anyone here who would know how to lie their way around that...lie, it would be you,” he said, and when I raised my brow, he scoffed. “What? It’s true. If I have to admit how dangerous this is, then it means I should be honest about your other, less-than-honest skills too.”
“Mmm,” I hummed because there wasn’t much I could say to refute it. Well, that and we were too close to the table and potentially prying ears for me to say anything. Instead, I took my seat between him and Matilda, while he sat next to a boy no one had introduced me to, but I assumed must be the nephew, Micah.
A new, bright voice came echoing down the hallway. “I’m telling you, you’d love it.”
“No, I wouldn’t,” came another voice that seemed familiar, but was the darkness to the sunshine of the first voice.
“That’s because you and fun get on like gasoline and fire,” the first voice said as they appeared in the doorway. For a moment, I thought there had been some other story that hadn’t been told to me, namely that Milo had an older brother, which would have made no sense because technically, his older brother was sitting at the end of the table next to Elijah, and an empty chair. “It wouldn’t kill you to have some fun once in a while.”
“I have fun,” the other man said, and it took me a minute to recognize him.
“Jesus, how many monstrous people are in or adopted by this family?” I muttered to Dom, who chuckled when he saw I was staring at Jace making his way around the table. The other man, whose hair was the brighter side of blond, was trying to grab Jace’s face to force him to smile. The Jace I remembered would have threatened to break someone’s arms if they?—
“If you jab your fucking fingers in my face again, I’m breaking them,” Jace snarled.
The other man just grinned and reached out again. “I’m trying to show you how to smile. You never got any practice, obviously.”
“Kayden, I swear?—”
Mason snorted, taking hold of Jace’s wrist, yanking him down into the empty seat next to him. “He smiles for the kids, that’s what matters.”
