Children of Vice (Children of Vice #1)(94)

“Safe…for now,” I whispered to myself as I lay on the bed inside the jet. My slinged arm was resting on my stomach as I looked up at the ceiling.

I heard the door open but didn’t move.

“You still asleep?”

“Nope,” I whispered, feeling the shift on the bed.

He lay down next to me, groaning. “Walking was a bad idea.”

I giggled, titling my head to the side to look at him, but he just kept his eyes closed. “Did he get on the plane?”

I’d fallen asleep and next thing I knew I was here. I heard his voice talking outside, so I knew where I was, just not what was going on.

“He’s quiet. I think he’s in shock, but he’s here,” he muttered, inhaling deeply, his chest rising as he exhaled.

“What did you tell him?”

He turned his head to me, his eyelids lifting, allowing me to see those striking green eyes of his. “The truth, some half-truths, and a few lies. He’ll be warier of you now…everyone will.”

“I’m on my way to being legendary.”

“Only if you swear never to hide anything from me again,” he whispered, and I knew he’d bring it up at least once.

I nodded. “I swear.”

“Good.” He leaned over, taking my hand and bringing it up to his lips, kissing the back of it. “No one will ever forget the day we came to town.”

No. They wouldn’t.

I tried to think over everything that had happened in the last thirty-five days. But it only left my head spinning. The fact that he could think so far ahead was scary. Everything seemed to line up perfectly except…

“There was no medical kit in Wyatt’s ambulance. Who was the doctor who gave me…” My voice trailed off when I looked at him again, watching his chest rise and fall gently as he slept. He really did look so innocent when he did that…

No one would guess he, a man so prideful he walked like a king, would be willing to take a bullet for no other reasons than to let his wife get closure, teach his baby brother a lesson, and let his little sister taste the little bit of power he believed she needed in order to move forward. What he meant by that? I wasn’t sure. But to say everything went smoothly would be a lie. It wasn’t easy. Seeing him so hurt scared me.

Ethan put everyone in his family first.

Which was why I put his plan first.

A big part of me regretted that choice.

However, the other part of me…wanted him to know I put him first. That I was his and I wouldn’t back down from anything. It was the two of us, Ethan and Ivy’s world. People needed to get used to that. I’d never be useless to him. For as long as we both lived I’d protect him too.





ETHAN


I never thought I’d miss wind as much as I did when I stepped out of the jet.

“Welcome back, big brother.” Donatella stood in front of the Ranger dressed in a white pantsuit, with no shirt inside, sunglasses over her face, though there was no sun. The day was overcast. Beside her, Toby, his face hard, void of any emotion, and beside him, Savino Moretti and a few more Italians.

“This doesn’t feel like a welcome, little sister.”

“You’re right, big brother.” She smirked, taking off her glasses, staring at me with the same green eyes. “I believe the correct word for it would be a coup d’etat.”

“The correct word for it would be a betrayal,” I said to her.

Tobias handed her a gun, which she pointed right at me. “Let’s call it betrayal then.”

It was in that moment I remembered the story she’d written all those years ago.

“Et tu, Dona?” Melody asked her daughter.

“Caesar must fall, Mother,” her daughter said.