“You knew?” Kruger grunts.
“I hoped for the best, prayed every fucking night, but I knew.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“You love Theo. You knew what he’d been through.”
“You thought I’d go round and cause problems?”
“I don’t know what I thought you’d do. But I couldn’t risk losing you, and I know there isn’t a thing on God’s green earth you wouldn’t do for me, including killing a woman who would take Theo from me. Tell me I’m wrong.”
“You still should have fucking told me.”
“I know you want to fix everything for me, Kruger, but you can’t. You protect me in every way you can, but life just seems to have it out for me. It’s like I’m cursed with something. And every time something happens, you carry a little more of it on your shoulders, like it’s your fault that I’m the universe’s fuck-toy. What you don’t get is that you’re my bright spot, my home when the darkness threatens to suffocate me. If I lose you, Idon’t know what I’d do. I’m as protective of you as you are me because I know what it feels like to lose everything.”
He reaches over, cups the back of my head, and slams his mouth down over mine, sealing our lips in a kiss so hot I’m surprised my clothes don’t catch fire.
Toot whistles. “Now that’s what I’m talking about.”
Kruger pulls back and flips him off.
“Alright, Jesus. Focus here, people. Delphi?”
I look back at Havoc, who looks resigned to multiple outbursts.
“So like I said. I knew what would happen, and I knew I couldn’t stop it, but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t prepare for it.”
“You had a plan?” Circus says.
“Yes. I made a plan with Theo. At first, it was a way to get him back. But after talking with Legs that day, I realized Theo had the right to know either way what kind of woman his mother was. She’d either step up and be the woman he deserved or she’d fuck him over, and he’d grieve what could have been before he started healing.”
“So what happened? How did you know what was going down?”
“I didn’t until Theo texted me that he wanted me to get him some of that tea he liked.”
“Theo doesn’t like tea,” Kruger states.
I nod. “I know.”
“He knew you’d realize something was wrong. It was a pre-planned statement.”
“Not exactly, but we’d joked around weeks before that if he called and said he was drinking tea, know he’d been kidnapped and was signaling for help.”
“How did you get there?” Capone narrows his eyes at me, making Kruger tense. “Tell me you didn’t drive.”
I bite my lip. “I didn’t drive.”
“Then how did you get there?”
“I called a cab.”
“You called a cab, but you didn’t call any of us? Why?” G crosses his arms.
“Because you’d have stopped me. All of you would have patted me on the head and told me to sit tight while the big, strong men in my life fixed it for me.”
“And what the fuck is wrong with that?” Toot hisses.
“Nothing, Toot. Not one damn thing.”
