Page 122 of Thin Lives

“I let him take my baby,” she mumbled.

Calisto wiped away her tears quickly and gently. “I’ll get him back, Emmy.”

“He just took him from me, Cal.”

“I’ll get him back, I promise.”

She wasn’t really hearing him, though. The panic swelled in her throat until she was gasping for breath and struggling to see straight.

All of the sudden, Emma’s world got a little smaller as Calisto wrapped her in his embrace, and held tight. Her scattered, shattered pieces were held together for a single, quiet moment in her tattered life when he was holding her together. She felt his lips brush the top of her head, his apologies whispered over her hair, and then he was tipping her back a little to kiss her.

Emma needed that—every hard, rough caress of his lips and the demanding strikes of his tongue against her own. She didn’t mind how tightly he grabbed her, even though she was sore and probably needed a fucking doctor. All she cared about was for those few moments, her world was quiet and right.

“I will get him back,” Calisto said against her trembling lips.

More tears slipped from her eyes.

She didn’t wipe them away.

Neither did he.

Instead, Emma let them fall as she focused in on the truth in Calisto’s hard, cold stare.

“I just want him back, Cal.”

“I will,” he promised. “Thank you for keeping my son safe, but now you have to trust me to do what needs to be done, Emma. You can’t do this like I can. You need to stop feeling like you didn’t do enough—you did everything for that baby when I didn’t even know he was mine. Please, trust me right now.”

She nodded.

It was the best she could do.

Calisto

It took every single ounce of willpower Calisto had to leave Emma alone in the bedroom with the doctor. The man was a doctor that the Doanti family kept on hand for emergencies they wouldn’t be willing to take into a hospital and be put on record.

While Calisto didn’t mind getting Affonso’s abuse of Emma on record for the world to see if it pleased them, he knew that she didn’t want that. Being on the receiving end of her bastard of a husband’s fists while she tried to protect Calisto’s son and keep Affonso from taking the boy had been enough for her. She wouldn’t want people touching her, or asking questions.

Please bring him back to me. I did everything I could for all these months. Don’t let Affonso take him from me, Cal.

Calisto’s heart ached, but the burning fire beginning to rage out of control in his soul was much worse. It had been a long time since he felt fury of this sort—one that literally couldn’t be contained without some sort of violence to let it out.

Affonso had lied to him for months—no, for years. Calisto had finally been in a position to put a stop to the man’s abuse, manipulation, and poisoned ways.

But he’d pushed him too far this time.

Calisto could see it now. Wasn’t that always how hindsight worked?

God knew Emma had done all she could throughout her pregnancy to keep his son safe from Affonso’s dirty ways. She lied to Calisto over and over, simply because she couldn’t figure out a way to tell him the truth, but also keep herself, their child, and Calisto alive at the same time.

But, Calisto’s need for revenge had outweighed what he knew would have been the smarter route. One where he could have forced Affonso into a corner, and took what was rightfully his.

Now, Calisto was without his child. His son was in the most dangerous of positions, given who he was with. Calisto knew all too well what Affonso would do to someone he thought was getting in his way, or worse, what he would do to something he wanted to keep if he believed someone might take it from him.

He loved you once, a part of him whispered.

Calisto knew it was true, even if he hated admitting it. Affonso had loved him—selfishly and unhealthy, no doubt, but he had all the same.

It still didn’t make a difference.