Page 36 of Hostile Saint

With resolve, he answered, “Yeah, kid, she’s safe.”

“Please don’t be mad at me for waving the white flag. I’m just owning my feelings.”

“Fair enough.” He stared for another few minutes before saying, “My real name is Duke.”

Him revealing such information caught me off guard.

Duke nodded. “Yeah, and I carry my dad’s last name. I am proud to be Duke Bryant.” Sitting upright, he pointed at me. “And you carry your dad’s last name: Tate Young. But most importantly, you carry his blood. He’s inside you, kid. Just like my daddy is.” Lynx tapped his chest. “Even though he no longer walks this earth.”

My eyes widened.

Lynx quietly admitted, “Neither does my mama.”

Ah, shit. Neither of us had parents anymore.

He tapped his chest again. “But they’re here. In my heart that pumps their blood.”

From my pillow, I nodded. “I feel you.”

Duke smirked. “There’s my little Life Warrior.” He got up from the chair. “Now, get the fuck out of bed.”

A smile finally formed. “Yes, sir.”

Entering the living room, I saw Dagger, Vice, and Lynx in the kitchen. Lynx was digging through the fridge when Vice bumped into him. “Vice, off my ass, bro.”

Vice was trying to move past Dagger now. “This kitchen is simply too small.”

Again, Dagger lit up when he saw me. “My man! Got you a surprise.” He held up a box that read Eggos. “Let go my Eggo!” As if a gleeful child, he now held up a bottle of syrup. When I didn’t react with the same enthusiasm, he waved both items in the air. “Dude! Fucking waffles!”

That piqued my interest. “Those are waffles?”

His full hands dropped to the counter with a thud. “Do not tease me by saying Daddy Dagger is about to be the very first to introduce you to waffles.”

I couldn’t stop my forming grin as I rushed forward. “Not one bite.”

Lynx placed a tub of butter on the counter in between us and pulled out his cell. “I’m videoing his first bite.”

On the opposite side of the two-foot kitchen, Vice also pulled out his phone. “I’ll get this angle.”

When the toaster popped, I could have sworn Daddy Dagger was now wearing an apron and had been retitled Mama Maggy by the way he happily exclaimed, “I’ll butter them!”

Sitting on the barstool, I observed the scene resembling the movie Three Men and a Baby. Two men were practically cooing how epic this was going to be while Dagger cut up my breakfast into bite-sized pieces.

When the plate and a glass of milk were finally set in front of me, two men zoomed in on their cameras, and Dagger gleamed as if witnessing his baby make his first smile.

Feeling as if I was lost in a different dimension, with deadly bikers doting on me as if I were a toddler, I slowly brought a loaded fork to my mouth.

As soon as that sweetness touched my tongue, I forgot about being a spectacle and moaned deliriously. “Jesus. H. Christ.”

Howling laughter boomed…

“I totally got that on video.”

“Me too! Look.”

“Aw, look at his smile—”

With my mouth full, I stared at them.