Page 58 of Serendipity

Marco grimaced.This would be easier if this fucker didn’t know ASL. Why couldn’t he just bedumb and pretty?I gave him a smug grin and winked. He gave me a hand gesture that didn’t need translation.I’ve hated not knowing what happened to you. Hated that I couldn’t protect you eventhough you’d been given into my care. I didn’t want you to think that I just pushed you out when itgot too fucking hard. I’m not that guy. When you called me that day…His jaw pulsed, but he trailed off. I knew that pain. The pain of knowing you were too far away to save someone you loved. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.

Dippy stepped out of Cain’s arms, and I saw my Brother flex his hands as if he wanted to pull her back to where she belonged. I know I did. She stepped close to Marco, giving him the illusion of privacy.

“I understood, Marco. I would never have stayed and risked the kids. When Uriel arrived here…”

she shuddered, and I pressed my fingers to her back to reassure her that we would always have her.

We’d keep her safe. She threw me a grateful look. “You would have died. The kids would have died.

I would never have forgiven myself for that.” She touched his cheek, and he stared at her like I imagined we all did. With awe, lust and possession. He wanted her. Maybe he even loved her.

I hated him.

Do you want to come home with me?When she went to look at us, he captured her chin, turning her face back toward him. Goliath growled and grabbed his wrist. I wondered if he’d crush it. I also wondered if Marco could shoot straight with both hands. Marco, to his credit, ignored the giant angry bastard glaring at him, his eyes only for Dippy.

She looked so damn sad. “I miss you and the kids too. But I’m happy and protected here. I need to stay.” She smiled sadly, like she knew she was breaking his heart. “I want to stay.”

Marco nodded once, releasing her chin. He straightened his spine and shuttered his expression, probably so Dippy didn’t see his heart was breaking.

He whistled and the kids both turned to look at him, pancakes halfway to their mouths. He signed to the boy, and the kid looked between his parent and Dippy. “Isn’t Sera coming home too?”

Marco shook his head, and the little girl began to cry softly. But they both obediently slid from the barstools and went to stand beside Marco. Dippy’s eyes looked too huge in her head, watery with unshed tears. Ah fuck.

She grabbed the kid and pulled her into her arms. “Hey, it’s okay. I’ll come and visit.”

The little one's lip trembled. “Don’t you like us? Don’t you like Marco?”

I raised an eyebrow at the kid calling Marco by name. Wasn’t he their father? “No! That’s not it at all, Sweetheart. I love you guys. You’re the best kids ever. And Marco is amazing,” her voice broke a little. “But these guys are amazing too. And I love them as well. I wish I could keep you all, but it isn’t safe for the baby.”

Cara chewed her lip, and gave her a wobbly nod.

“What if they stayed too?” Judas said softly, and every set of eyes turned to his. Not just those in our group. Every single set of eyes in the room.

“What the fuck, Pres?” Goliath growled.

But Judas wasn’t listening to him. He was watching Serendipity’s face, his own expression soft.

He fucking loved her, even if he didn’t know it yet.

Are you nuts? I can’t bring my kids to live in a fucking biker clubhouse,Marco signed, and I kind of agreed. But the look of absolute hope on Dippy’s face kept my mouth closed. Judas’ eyes slid to mine. “What did he say?”

I relayed Marco’s misgivings, and Judas shrugged. “You brought them here today, didn’t you?”

Marco’s face twisted into a frustrated look.

The boy piped up. “It’s because he doesn’t trust anyone else to look after us. Our dad…” his little face screwed up, darkness that no kid should possess clouding them, “he wasn’t a good dad. He had lots of bad friends. And people who didn’t like him. Now we own all his money and people keep trying to use us. Use me.”

My eyes flicked from the kid to Cain. There was a slight tenseness to his shoulders, but I’d known the big bastard for a lot of years. I knew it meant he was chasing his own memories out of his head.

His own abusive father.

Judas was looking at his VP too. “They stay. We’ll protect them all,” Cain said tonelessly, then turned and left the room. Kids and women. They were Cain’s weakness.

Marco watched him go, his eyes flicking back to us, then back to Dippy.I don’t know. I don’ttrust these fuckers at all. That one looks like he wants to gut me already.He nodded toward Goliath.

I laughed.Probably. But he won’t. His relationship with Serendipity is rocky, but he’ll comearound. He’s fighting it. He wouldn’t lift a hand toward a child or woman though. We’d kill himourselves. That’s not what Damnation is about.

Marco gave a lopsided grin.She has that effect. You start out swearing to yourself that she’s theworst thing that ever happened to you, but when she’s gone, it's like she's stolen all the light in theworld.

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