Fangs and Fennel (The Venom Trilogy #2)(30)

He nodded. “Yeah, we’ve been dating like two weeks. I’d rather not move in with her that fast.”

“Point taken.” I wiped my hands on a tea towel. “Your night was okay?’

He grinned at me. “Probably not as good as your night. Remo take you out on the town?”

I started to laugh, and once I started I couldn’t stop. Tears streamed from my eyes, I struggled to get enough air, and I knew my brother was staring hard at me.

“Sis?”

“Oh, Tad. You have no idea what a cluster of gopher poo I dealt with last night.”

“That’s a new one,” he muttered. “Why was it bad? You and the boss have a fight?”

The boss. Like Remo was my boss and Tad’s too.

“He is not my boss. And he’s not yours either.” I pointed a wooden spoon at him.

Tad grabbed another couple of cookies with one hand and a few meringues with the other. “Sure, but he’s the mob boss around here, which kinda makes him everyone’s boss when you think about it.”

“Tad”—I rolled my eyes to stare at the ceiling—“he may be the mob boss, but he doesn’t know everything.”

“What happened last night?”

“I’ll wait for Dahlia. Then I only have to tell it once.” I turned back to the baklava and finished pouring the honey over it. I cut into the delicacy and popped a slice into my mouth before placing the pan on the table. At least I could taste my food again. The flaky pastry seemed to melt in my mouth, and I chewed slowly, enjoying the flavors.

Tad looked at the number of goodies on the table, spread out like a buffet. “Sugar craving?”

I sat down and chased the baklava with a cookie. “Maybe. Better than my other options.” I dug into the cheesecake next, and Tad sat beside me, helping himself to a slice.

“Hey, I’ve been thinking about Dad,” he said between bites. “You know, it would make sense that he only has a little bit of Super Duper blood. Maybe he doesn’t even realize that he’s tainted. That would explain his denial.”

I scooped my spoon through the cheesecake and eyed the bite up. “Maybe. But I don’t think so. He’d just laugh it off. Or do the blood test like we offered. I think he knows exactly what he is.”

Tad reached over and put his hand on mine in an uncharacteristic move. “We’ll figure it out.”

I smiled and put my hand over his. “Yeah, I just worry . . . that when we find out, we won’t want to know. You know?”

He bit his cookie in half and shrugged. “But neither of us will ease up until we know.”

The word game went on a few more minutes, each of us using “know” as much as we could. A silly game from our childhood that had driven our parents batty.

The sun dipped lower and lower. Ten minutes and Dahlia would be up. Ten minutes . . . I leaned my head on Tad’s shoulder. “Did you ever flat out ask Dad?”

That was our little family secret. Both Tad and I had gotten the deadly Aegrus virus, forcing us to choose between dying or being turned into Super Dupers. We’d both chosen to live, despite the way supernaturals were treated in our world, and despite our ultraconservative Firstamentalist upbringing.

The kicker was that the only people who could contract the Aegrus virus were those who weren’t fully human—not something the general populace even knew. I mean, I’d found out only after I’d been turned into a Super Duper. We knew our mom was pure human, which meant our dad was anything but normal.

“He’s denying it.” Tad shook his head. “Says we were just lucky we could be turned instead of dying and we should leave it at that.” He shook his head, waving a cookie back and forth. “And he said it with a straight face. I thought maybe I’d get a wink or something, but nothing.”

“In other words, we should be taking him to Vegas to play poker.” I snorted and took another bite of cheesecake, the last of the rumbles in my belly finally easing. “He’s hidden himself well for a long time. I mean, even Mom doesn’t know.” Which was so, so weird to me. How could you not know your spouse was a Super Duper? The thought was ridiculous, at least to me. Then again, I had no room to judge; I’d not known Roger was cheating on me.

“Maybe it runs in our family, turning a blind eye.” Tad didn’t seem to see anything wrong with pointing out my faults. That’s a brother for you—to the heart of the matter regardless of how tender of a spot it is.

I struggled to swallow the last piece of cheesecake, thinking about Roger and what he was putting me through. A shimmer of indignant anger rose in me. I would not let him put me through anything. I would get that dang divorce if it was the last thing I did.

“You okay? Your eyes totally just flashed . . . snaky.” Tad stared at me, eyes wide and brows raised.

“Yeah, had a moment of insight. I’m not walking in Mom’s footsteps anymore; I’m not turning a blind eye to things done to me.” I smiled, though I was far from happy. Determined? You bet your sweet hind end. “Roger isn’t getting away with all my money, the house, or my bakery. I don’t care what I have to do, I’m getting a divorce. And I’m getting Vanilla and Honey back.”

He grinned, but I saw the doubt in his eyes. “You know I’ll stand by you, no matter the outcome.”