Page 11 of Christmas With The Kings
She stared at me for a long ass time, and something in her softened a little—right before it crumpled.
“Oh,” she breathed, her disappointment clear as it slid into place behind her eyes. “That’s kind of…sad.”
I opened my mouth, but she kept going. “Do you not like Christmas?” she asked, her voice quieter now. Her eyes searched mine, not with frustration this time, but with something gentler.
Then, soft as a prayer, like she wasn’t sure she had the right to say it, “Is it because of…Vanya?”
She breathed our late sister’s name as if it were holy. The air left my lungs. For a second, I didn’t move. Didn’t blink. My jaw tightened as her face blurred, my brain scrambling to reroute the conversation.
“No,” I said quickly, too quickly. I stepped forward and caught her hands in mine, needing her to see it, tofeelthat this wasn’t coming from pain. “No, kitten, I promise you. It’s not that. It has nothing to do with her.”
I expected relief. What I got instead was her face falling, the last of her hope slipping right through the cracks.
“Oh,” she whispered, brows pulling in as her lips parted in something like disbelief. “Well, that…would’ve made more sense.”
My stomach dropped.
“I just…” She blinked, took a shaky breath. “That, I could’ve understood. That would’ve explained why you guys avoid it. Why you don’t make a big deal out of it. Why you don’t see it the way I do. But if it’s not about her, then what is it?”
She pulled her hands back, wiggling free from my grip. That stung. “I’m trying so hard,” she said, quieter now. “So I guess you reallydon’tlike Christmas.”
“It’s not that we don’t like it,” I said, sounding far too defensive.
“Then we’ll upgrade my assessment fromsadtotragic,” she snapped back. “It’s the most wonderful time of the year. We have so much to be thankful for. And I have the best gifts for all of you.”
She didn’t say it, but I heard what came next in the silence.
But I guess that doesn’t matter. I don’t matter.
She stepped back, enough to make the absence of her touch feel like a slap, the warmth from earlier disappeared. The kiss, the laughter, the light in her eyes…all of it shattered in an instant. I opened my mouth to speak, to explain something—anything—but she beat me to it again.
“Never mind, and actually,” she looked down at her watch. “You aren’t ever home this early,” she said, voice flat, her eyes suddenly locked on a random spot behind me. “Did something come up?”
The shift was so fast it disoriented me. She retreated into guard mode. Distant yet still polite. Her question pulled me back to reality, snapping the thread of whatever Ithoughtwe were doing a moments ago.
Right. I hadn’t come down here to kiss her breathless or to argue about mistletoe. I was the one who drew the short straw—tasked with delivering the news she was going to hate. I ran a hand down my face and exhaled.
“Yeah, about that. Something actually did come up.”
I hated how the words landed. Like it was a scheduling hiccup. It wasn’t. She’d understand, this much I knew. It didn’t make delivering the news any easier. In fact, with how much I’d apparently fucked things up in the span of five minutes, this made it harder.
A high-profile case had hit our desks that morning—one we couldn’t ignore, no matter what time of year it was. Some jackass judge released aconvicted paedophile, and now three survivors were in danger while we chased down leads on accomplices.
This wasn’t simply another job. It wasn’t going to be a quick trip to the warehouse. It wasn’t an in-and-out kind of thing. We were looking at a minimum of a week away. Maybe more. And I was about to tell the woman who’d spent three months preparing to give us a picture-perfect Christmas…that we’d be gone for most of it.
“It’s business,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady, hoping it would make it sound more acceptable.
“But it’sChristmas.” She blinked, slow and stunned. She acted as if I had said the holiday had been cancelled altogether.
“It’s just a few days,” I said quickly, reaching for her. “We won’t miss it. I promise.”
But the moment I touched her, she recoiled—jerked back like I’d burned her. Her eyes went wide, glistening with unshed tears that she blinked away so fast I almost missed them. Almost.
Her shoulders slumped under the weight of something I hadn’t seen coming, hadn’t even thought to look for. The spark that had lit her up moments ago had vanished as if it had never existed.
In its place was something smaller. Quieter. And too fucking fragile for my damned ego. I stood there like an idiot, mouth parted, debating whether to tell her the whole truth—that it was Death Squad work.
She knew the kind of men we were, the things we couldn’t walk away from. But the other part of me, the part that had already seen the way her joy had dimmed, knew she’d worry herself sick the entire time we were gone. So I said nothing.
