Two Can Play (Celeste and Dominic) novel Chapter 402

SPARROW

The dinner finally wound to an end when the old woman had run through every wedding idea she owned and Tasha had agreed to all of them with the patience of a saint.

I rose from the table and said my goodnights, and Granny pulled Tasha into a hug so long and so tight that the question surfaced again, unbidden: what would she do when she finally learned the truth about the girl she was already calling granddaughter? Tasha smiled her way through it, called her Grandmother one last time, and followed me out the door.

The night air met us on the porch, cool and clean after the heat of the dining room, and I walked to the car without looking back. Tasha climbed in beside me, and we drove through the quiet streets in silence, the mansion shrinking in the rearview mirror until it was gone.

We found them where I had suspected they would wait, parked under a streetlight on the corner.

I pulled up alongside and rolled down the window. "Get in, both of you." I jerked my chin at the back seat. "Scarlett, follow behind until we clear this neighborhood. Then ditch the car and hop in."

She studied me for a moment, her eyes unreadable in the streetlight, then nodded. Jasmine and Maya climbed out of the other car and into mine, and I drove on. When we hit the main road, the lights swung into a side street and went dark, and a few minutes later a figure jogged out of the shadows and slid into my car, the door barely whispering shut. She smelled of night air and that warm, spicy perfume she wore, and I kept my eyes on the road.

My fortress rose out of the dark like a sleeping animal, walls high and crowned with razor wire, floodlights sweeping the grounds in slow, patient arcs. The gate opened for my eyes alone, and the steel doors sealed shut behind us with the sound of a vault closing. I did not sleep here often.

The place was for war, for the times when enemies circled close enough that a man needed walls he could trust. But this qualified. Big Bryan's reach was long, and I had four women under my roof who could not defend themselves, most of them. Until I handled him, this was the safest place on earth for them, and the only place I would sleep easy with them under it.

So I said goodnight.

Something flickered in her eyes, disappointment and confusion and a wounded pride she tried to smooth away. I did not wait to watch it play out. I turned and walked back to my room and closed the door behind me.

I lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling, and the sleep I had been looking forward to did not come.

It was not a regular thing for me to have so little on my plate that I could retire early. Moments like this were rare, and I usually cherished them, guarding them like stolen treasure. But tonight the quiet felt wrong, the sheets too empty, the dark pressing in from every side.