AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Not that she’ll need the money any time in the future, but I suppose her having the blood money may be of some comfort.
Eden only nods at Simon. “I knew it was too good to be true, anyways. My uncle never did anything that wasn’t skewed in his favor.”
“We need to talk to Mickey sooner rather than later,” Simon says. “If he’s helping the Russians get back in the city, we need to know exactly who is coming back, why, and when.”
“What do you mean speak with him?” Eden asks and sits up straighter.
“At the present, nothing more than a very quiet chat,” Lucifer says. “If we can flip him on whatever the Russians want, it would be to our benefit.”
“I’ll start with going through a back channel,” Simon says, “See if we can pay for his information. He’s certainly not in the best place to decline any decent offer we make.”
* * *
Home.
It’s such a bizarre word rolling around in my brain.
Home.
Never has it had more meaning to me than it does now. Never in my life has a word seemed so foreign yet oddly comforting and terrifying at the same time.
I’ve been a nomad for thirteen years, wandering the planet. I’ve been sent to almost every single continent on this rocky earth and felt no affinity for any of them.
This home has a dangerous draw to it.
A sense of something more.
Something I’ve never had before.
Is it safe to have somewhere that pulls me to it?
Is it safe to have something that binds me?
When I was a child, a home was a museum. I was not to be seen or heard, unless it was requested. When I was seen, it was to be paraded about, as if I was something to be shown off like a showpiece.
Boarding schools, summer camps… anything to keep me from being home. My life was a disruption to my parents. A disruption that was better off out of their sight.
Will I feel the same way about Abel and my unborn child?
Never.
Eden has been mostly silent, occasionally looking out the window as we drive through the city in a brand new SUV.
When we pull up in front of the house, I watch in my rearview mirror as Thaddeus drives past us then circles around the cul-de-sac.
“Will we be safe here?” Eden asks quietly while she takes in the large house.
I must confess it certainly has changed since I last slept here. It looks inviting, if I take an outsider’s opinion of it. Especially the welcome home flag attached to the house right by the front door.
“Yes,” my words come out of my mouth before I even think about them. “Johnathan lives across the street with his wife and children. Gabriel and his family are two houses down that way. Uriel and his husband, Han, live around the corner. We’re protected here.”
We’ve moved most of the family into this large, well-protected gated community over the last year or so. We don’t quite have the same safety as Lucifer’s compound, but it’s close.
Everyone is fully vetted before they’re allowed to buy a home in this neighborhood and visitors are thoroughly screened.
Each house has been built with protection in mind, from outside forces and within. We learned a valuable lesson when James’s house was attacked and the corrupt, Russian-backed police stole his wife, Sophia. A lesson that none in the family is willing to repeat again.
Getting out of the car, I move quickly to Eden’s door and open it for her. Once she starts to get out, I reach into the back and unstrap Abel from his car seat.
