Page 171 of Deadfall

He looked at me dryly. “Em, there will always be issues. No family is perfect. Least of all this great big pack of misfits that I have back there.” He gestured behind him toward the house. “And I’m not asking for you to act like all is forgiven. I know that will take time—”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

My father sighed and dropped his hand. He ran it over his face instead.

“Despite everything in me that screams to lock you away in your room,” he said dryly. “I won’t.”

“Yeah, that would be weird,” I said, unable to stop the small grin that tugged at my lips. “So, I can go with you to kill Mahoney?”

My father blinked, like he battled with something at those words. He shook his head and threw up his hands in defeat.

“I probably should be concerned that this is how we’re father/daughter bonding—but, I would have taken you hunting with me anyway once you were old enough, so I’m going to pretend this is the same thing to make myself feel better,” he said dryly.

My hopes rose, and I knew he saw it on my face because his expression softened.

“Yeah, you can come.”

I smirked. “Like you said, we’re not a normal family.”

“Far from it,” he agreed.

We headed back toward the house. I felt lighter than I had in a really long time. I walked next to my father and tentatively let reality wash over me—the reality of being home.

I slipped my hand into his. I still carried a lot of anger and trauma around our past, but at least in that moment I allowed myself to revel in the reality of having found him again. Against all odds, we were together, and we would weather everything else as it came.

I stepped through the sliding glass door behind my father and immediately smelled smoke and heard a smoke detector blaring.

“God damn it, Lach. I told you three-seventy-five!” Nyx shouted. “For thirty minutes!”

“Okay, but I don’t see why I can’t have it at four-hundred for half the time.”

I waved smoke out of my face as we rounded the corner and stepped into chaos. The kitchen looked like someone had waged a war against baking supplies, and lost. Horribly. Dishes were piled everywhere. Flour coated every available surface. Eggs lay broken. Nyx wielded a spatula as he chased one of the men I recognized from the war room around the island with it, swatting at him whenever he got close.

I couldn’t help it—I giggled. Their attention jumped to us, and they immediately stopped.

“Emersyn!” The blond man came over and extended a floury hand to me with a rogue grin. “I didn’t get a chance to introduce myself earlier—I’m Lachlan.”

“A fucking shitty cook is what you are,” Nyx growled.

“I don’t know why you’re bothering with cooking lessons, Nyx,” my father said.

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell him,” Atlas said. “I think most of them fail miserably on purpose so he doesn’t rope them into kitchen duty.”

I hadn’t noticed Atlas before through all the smoke and debris around the kitchen, but he was sitting in a chair at the kitchen table, casually reading a book like this was the most normal scene in the world. And maybe it was.

“It just would be nice to have some help sometimes,” Nyx said in exasperation.

“Then hire a cook!” My father exclaimed.

Nyx frowned and crossed his arms. “That’s no fun.”

“I’m sure he, or she, would let you help,” Atlas drawled as he turned a page.

“Ugh, you all are impossible,” Nyx turned his attention to me. “What about you? Your father is shit in the kitchen, but I don’t think the condition is hereditary.”

My father scoffed. I couldn’t have stopped the grin even if I’d wanted to.

I shrugged. “Haven’t really had many chances to try.”