The taste in my mouth becomes sour and the thumping of my heart quickens. Another Greene male is not something this world needs. Hell, if I’m being honest with myself, Richter is already one too many.
This entire fucking debacle should have died with Dad.
“She doesn’t remember me. At least, I don’t think so,” he continues as he blows out his breath and leans back in the chair. I watch as he folds an arm behind his head and glances out the window, feeling like I’m looking at a ghost that I would rather forget. But I guess when the blood of Luke Greene burns like lava inside your veins, it’s inevitable to see him from time to time.
“Remember when we used to sit at the table with Mom and Dad? Remember how I used to throw bread at her?” he asks, pursing his lips for a moment. I nod even though I know he’s not looking at me because he’ll just assume that I’ve agreed with him anyway. “I tried that, you know? I figured if anything would help Cleo figure out who I was, it would be that. And you know what she did, Skylar? She cried.”
I sit in silence for a moment trying to choose my next words carefully because he’s a little volatile right now and it’s scaring me.
“She probably has bad memories about this place, Richter. You remember how Dad treated her, don’t you? You were the one that kept us safe from him when you could, and Mom too. You were the man of this house when you shouldn’t have been burdened with it, and Cleo is probably afraid that Dad is still here.”
“Bryden, that’s the guy who runs the place, says that I can go back tomorrow but he wants you to come too. He wants us both to be there the next time I go see Cleo, and this time, I’m not coming back without her. You’ll help me, won’t you?”
I turn my eyes toward the ceiling in frustration. He’s completely bypassed everything I said to him because he so desperately wants to be right.
“Skylar?” he presses, his tone becoming stern.
I close my eyes for a moment before I open them again and look at my brother across the room from me. ‘No’ is not something these men understand either, but what I do will be for Cleo and not him.
One of us has to have some kind of chance in this world, no matter how muddled her brain may be.
I lick my lips nervously and nod.
I’ll go back with him, I’ll ask Bryden if I can speak to him alone, and I’ll tell him everything that Richter has done to me in a bid to keep Cleo far away from these walls.
“Good,” he says in relief as he gets to his feet. He comes over to me and extends a hand down. “I’m going to need some help falling asleep.”
I grit my teeth but take his hand and let him lead me upstairs to our bedroom. Nothing good ever came from telling a Greene man ‘no’ because they don’t understand it regardless.
As he pushes the door to our room open, I reach up and pull my hair back into a tight ponytail, walk over to the dresser, and retrieve a hairband to hold it in place.
Richter’s already sitting on the edge of the bed, leaning back on the palms of his hands. With a deep breath, I drop down to my knees and unzip his jeans.
I pull his dick through the fly of his underwear, wrapping my hand around it while I try to send my mind somewhere else. As I take the head of it into my mouth and begin to move skillfully up and down his length, I tell myself that tomorrow will be different because whoever this Bryden person is, he’ll see that this is all wrong, and he’ll help me set Richter straight.
Fifteen
Bryden
It takes a bit longer than usual for the little ones to get to sleep, and I know that’s because of the chaos of the day. Yet, now that the house is winding down, I can feel peace returning, and while I listen to my older children brushing their teeth and getting ready for bed, I can’t help but smile as I step out onto the back porch, breathing in the frigid air.
I’m really a lucky man.
They’re all good kids, and that’s because I’ve become a better father over the years. More consistent. The younger ones know what’s expected of them as they grow up, how the way we love each other grows as they do.
Ella and Wesley just… didn’t have anyone setting a good example for them.
My gaze drifts over to the tree line where I know they are. Beside their mother, Marian, who tried to abandon us. Underneath the tree where Ella tried to hang herself when she was carrying Tristan. The rush of rage that memory summons still feels fresh, raw, and I can remember the way Wesley screamed like it was yesterday. If the branch hadn’t snapped, I don’t know where I’d be now. I don’t know where any of us would be. Each of my beautiful children wouldn’t exist if she’d succeeded… but I never gave her the chance to betray us like that again.
It hurt me to lock her in the closet those days after, especially after Wesley admitted why she’d done it as she screamed and cried through the door.
She was pregnant with our first child, and whether it was mine or Wesley’s didn’t matter to me—it was still mine. As much as Ella and Wesley were mine. And she’d tried to take it from me, tried to abandon us just like her Mama did.
I’d bought the stuff to make her chain that week because I couldn’t trust her not to try and
