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“Quinn,” I said as I turned to look at him. “We need to talk.”
He froze, his eyes worried, as he moved in close to me and pulled me into his arms.
Again with the tight hug.
“What’s wrong, Soleada?” he asked.
I looked around the empty parking lot to make sure we didn’t have any unwanted eavesdroppers before saying, “Costas talked to me before the trial started.”
He let me go, but only to grab my hands seconds later. He guided me to the truck as he said, “Okay?”
“He told me something,” I explained as he opened my door for me and helped me inside.
“Yeah?” he pushed.
“He, uh, told me that he wants me to get his kids and make them my own.”
He blinked at me. “He said what?”
I pulled out my phone and went into my email.
The email I had from Costas’ lawyer was lengthy, but I went to the first picture that I got to and said, “These are his children. Catherine and Cillian.”
Wide-eyed, Quinn stared at the screen for a long time before saying, “He didn’t tell you?”
I then went on to explain everything Costas had said in the short time allotted.
“Apparently, he was with a woman pretty consistently for a few years,” I explained. “Then one day, she started seeing this rival member, and he stayed away from her. He only found out about Catherine and Cillian a few days ago.” I rolled down to the next photo of Selene, Costas’s baby mama.
“I know her,” he rumbled. “You’re right. She bounces around from gang member to gang member. Shit.”
“Costas said that he paid his lawyer to help us,” I explained. “He wants us to fight for them.”
I could see the pain in his eyes as he asked his next question. “And after he gets out? What then?”
“He said that he wants us to raise them like ours,” I whispered. “He wants us to be their parents. He wants them safe, and happy and healthy. He says when—if—he gets out, he wants them to know about him, but he says they’ll stay with me. But he doesn’t feel like he’ll get out early, and it won’t matter anyway.”
Quinn rubbed his chest before looking at me and saying, “If you want them, baby, we’ll get them.”
Days later, the end of the trial happened.
My brother was sentenced to twenty years in prison, with the chance of parole at ten.
And I was sitting in the living room, explaining to the Carter clan how I needed their help.
“Of course,” Garnett said at my question. “But what is the problem?”
I looked over to Quinn, who’d been very supportive of me and my request—Costas’s request—since I’d told him two days ago.
“My brother told me that he found out while he was in jail that he has a son and a daughter,” I murmured quietly. “Cillian, who is two, and Catherine, who is three.”
There was a collective breath taken from the room at large.
“And he asked me to fight for custody from their mother.”
“Is she unfit to care for them?” Germaine asked, sounding shellshocked.
I pulled out a file that I’d had my boss, Silas, pull some strings for.
