“Look at me.”
Slowly, I panned my head toward him. His emerald eyes shone with unshed tears. “Do you regret killing them?”
“I should, but no, I don’t.”
He opened his hand. I moved swiftly to him and slid mine into his. “You did what you had to do for your family.”
“And for you.”
He smiled. “No one since Tenny ever gave much of a shit about me.”
“Well, not anymore.”
He squeezed lightly. “Did you follow through with Lorcan’s death?”
I could still hear his final scream. “Yes.”
“So, it’s done, or was he telling the truth about a war?”
“It’s been fairly quiet. Bainer’s murder, the commissioner’s suicide with the lengthy letter saying how he couldn’t live with the weight of killing his colleague and friend.” I winked at Penn “It’s kept the authorities busy and many of those possibly still loyal to Lorcan in a confused frenzy.” I’d said suicide but Penn knew it wasn’t, not really.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I read it and laughed. “Story time is over for now. You’re about to have some visitors.”
He didn’t say anything, just beamed and brought my hand to his lips for a kiss. A minute later, my family invaded.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Pennsylvania
Through all theactivity of everyone fussing and talking, I became exhausted. While I didn’t feel pain, my body was healing and that depleted a lot of my energy. My eyes closed, the sounds of voices mashed into one creating an almost white noise, and soon enough I was asleep.
When I woke, it was quiet aside from a low scraping sound. I peeked through heavy lids to find Owen sitting at the bottom of my bed drawing with marker on my cast, nobody else in the room. I didn’t want to spook him, but I wanted to see what he was doing, so I released a breath louder than normal.
His eyes darted to me, and I smiled. “Whatcha drawing there?”
His words were coveted since he didn’t speak often. I tried to hide my surprise as he whispered, “Everyone.”
I mean, he was five. Was I expecting an answer much more in depth than that? I lifted slightly and made out a line of what appeared to be people all holding hands.
I was able to make out some of the people—Olivia and himself for sure since they were the shortest. Matteo was the next in height, and Rita seemed pretty clear too. Everyone else confused me. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, so I made sure to make it sound like I couldn’t see.
“Wanna tell me who everyone is? Because it’s hard to tell from here.”
His gaze flickered from my cast, to me, and then the cast again. Maybe it was a lot of words for him; perhaps he was uncomfortable. I was about to tell him not to worry and that I’d figure it out when he spoke.
“This is Daddy, me, Olivia, and Mommy. She has wings cause she’s in heaven.”
“That’s lovely, Owen.”
He went on. “That’s Auntie Rita and Uncle Dean and Matteo.” I nodded. “And next to Daddy here.” He pointed to another guy. “That’s you.”
I was dressed like Batman and I chuckled, both amused and touched. “You put me there, huh?”
“Family,” was his answer, as if it were completely obvious.
“Thanks, bud.”
He colored for a few more seconds but dropped the marker and carefully crawled up the bed. I wasn’t sure exactly what he was doing until he rested his head on my chest and wrapped his arms around me as best as he could in this position.
