The Lost Souls (The Holy Trinity #2.5)(40)

Hockey didn’t answer her. He was too busy watching Nico, waiting for the man to strike, because he was most definitely ready to strike. He was strung so tightly that his body was trembling. Magic poured out of him in hot and heavy waves.

He’d called Becki his wife.

His. Wife.

Hockey forgot all about watching Nico and turned to face Becki.

“What did he call you?” he said quietly. “His wife?”

Becki’s expression crumpled. “I said no,” she said quickly. “He just took me. He just picked me up and took me, Hockey, the same as you!”

He stared at her, skimming over her dark curls, her pretty face, the tattered clothing.

He looked to Mira, standing off to the side watching him, waiting, and then he looked back to Becki.

What was happening?

He was having trouble breathing, his heart was racing, his skin felt itchy and uncomfortable. Something was happening inside of him, something was forming, something ugly and violent that made him want to scream and cry and hurt…Becki.

She wasn’t his wife.

She had never been his wife.

“Tell him!” Nico demanded. “Tell him that it was you who came to me!”

More tears slid down Becki’s cheek. “Don’t do this, Nico,” she pleaded.

“Fuck you!” Nico yelled. “Tell him, fat?!”

“I was lonely!” she screamed. “I’d lost everyone! Everyone! You were there!”

Nico’s already tormented expression turned darker.

“I want to go back!” Becki continued. “Back to camp! Back to our clan! You can’t keep stealing me!”

“I CAN’T GO BACK!” Nico roared. “I stuck a knife through Tobar’s f*cking throat. I killed our baró, Becki, and I can’t ever go back there!”

Becki’s mouth fell open. “Wh-what?” she breathed.

Hockey decided he’d heard enough. Whatever Nico had done, whatever reasons he’d had for doing it, was between Nico and the clan…and Becki.

Not him.

His wife, the woman who had cheated on him, who’d gotten pregnant with another man’s baby, the woman he’d married despite it all, had done it again. She’d left him for yet another man. He’d fought so hard to get back to her, to find her, to see her, to be with her, to be a husband and a father, to rejoin his clan.

He was not okay.

He was NOT okay.

“Where’s camp?” Hockey demanded.

Nico’s hostile eyes leveled on him. “You can’t have her,” he whispered.

“Where. Is. Camp?” he repeated, his voice hard.

“East,” Nico bit out. His eyes shot to the sky. “Follow the sun.”

Without another word, Hockey grabbed Mira’s arm and began pulling her back toward the tree line.

“Wait!” Becki screamed. “Don’t leave me here!”

Hockey didn’t turn around. Instead, he started walking faster.

“Hockey!” Becki continued to scream. “Hockey!”

Anger, pain, regret, self-hatred…all the emotions he’d kept suppressed came flaring to the surface, and he stopped walking and spun around.

Hockey had always done what was right, what was expected of him. He’d adhered to Romani law and the rules of nature. He’d prayed to God, trusted in him, given himself to him. He’d been a husband and would have been a father if given the chance. He’d been bound by both law and God to find his family, to care for them.

He’d never taken his duties lightly. But that was all they were—duties. Duties that Nico had undertaken, duties that weren’t his anymore, and surprisingly, he was fine with that.

He could take Becki back. She was legally his, no matter what bastardized ceremony Nico had performed in his absence. He could have it all back, couldn’t he?

But what would be the point?

Becki had never loved him. She’d settled for him.

And now?

He was free.

Mira…with her big eyes and tiny, delicate elfin features, and her beautiful body.

Mira was his freedom.

He learned something that day.

Hockey learned that life wasn’t always about taking care of the people around him, that taking care of himself was just as important.





Chapter Twenty-Two


Nico felt half out of his mind.

It had all happened so fast. One minute he had been driving, and the next, Skins had come running out of the woods, jumping on the truck and trailer and…

Hockey.

Fucking Hockey.

Frate was alive after all. Alive and well.

As for Becki, she was staring off into the forest Hockey and his Gaje friend had disappeared into, her mouth open, her hand covering her throat, shock and pain evident in her expression.

Goddamn her!

Seeing her hurting over Hockey was killing him.

What more could he do? What more could he be?

Why wouldn’t she just love him?

Him—the man who’d loved her, regardless of whose copil had been growing inside her, the man who’d been more than willing to take her, to keep her, to be her faithful husband.

The man who’d killed his clan’s baró, a former friend, Michaela’s father, just to continue to be with her.