Page 112 of With This Kiss
That was how this worked.
I nodded, and then I collapsed against him, completely and utterly exhausted.
23
REIGN
Ihad never been more scared in my life than the moment I saw Jamie near my fucking bastard of a father.
And she was the one who had put herself there.
I fucking knew she hadn’t planned on that run-in when she decided to seek out her father, but that was what happened. Fucking hell.
I ran my hand up and down her bare back, taking in the solid feel and warmth of the girl in my arms. She had been quiet since she came, her face resting on my chest, and her arms wrapped loosely around me.
I leaned down and pressed a kiss on the top of her head, feeling her move a little and snuggle further into me.
My heart reacted to the simple move, and I wondered if there would ever be a time when she didn’t affect me so much.
“Are you okay?” I asked softly.
She nodded. “I’m just a little tired.”
And I got the feeling she meant she was tired more from everything that was happening than she was physically tired.
If only I could help her carry all that weight on her shoulders.
“Reign?”
“Yeah, baby?”
“What are we going to do?”
“About?”
“About everything. About Caine. About my dad and your dad. About this obviously impending war between the Italians and the Russians.”
And whether or not we wanted to be, we were right in the middle of it all.
I tightened my arms around her.
The easiest thing to do was to leave everything behind and let everyone handle this by themselves—or let them kill each other until there wasn’t a Caparelli or a Mahankov left in all of New York.
But we knew leaving wasn’t easy. And there wasn’t a chance she would leave her brother behind, nor could I leave Kingston, even if I didn’t exactly trust him. My loyalty had shifted from our father to him a long time ago, and had only cemented when Caine approached us for the first time.
It pushed me toward his side against everyone else, including our sperm donor.
And then there was my mom. She would never leave Dad, even if I wished she would.
“Why don’t we just not worry about that? Why don’t we just take it one day at a time?”
“One day at a time,” she repeated. Then she pushed off my chest and looked at me. I tucked a stray hair that had fallen over her face behind her ear. “Does Caine really intend to kill my dad?”
I didn’t respond because I didn’t know how to tell her without making it hurt.
Her face fell at my silence.
“Do you really not trust your brother?”
