Enduring (Family Justice Book 8) Read online

  Zeus, the attention hog, rolled onto her back and made soft woofs while Alex chanted.

  After his thigh died from the effort, he dragged himself off the floor and went through the routine of checking diapers and cleaning everyone up.

  “Daddy has a favor to ask. MomMom and Papa Cris want us to come over once a week for family night. Sounds good, right?”

  Aiden cooed and laughed. Stevie squeaked.

  “Aunt Sophie and Teo will be there too. It’ll be fun, but there’s just one thing.”

  Zeus looked at him expectantly as if she was following the conversation.

  “The logistics of taking you guys out of the house has a difficulty rating of ten and rivals anything Major Daddy did. As a matter of fact, I think moving a platoon of men was hella’ easy compared to all of us getting out of the house at the same time in more than our underwear.”

  Alex understood why his mom pressed the issue. It took him a while, but eventually, he put it together. Handling twins made it too easy to expect everything to happen at the Villa. But life wasn’t easy, and they couldn’t point to convenience for every little thing. The kids had to learn how to adapt and go with the flow. This meant acquiring proper car seat behavior and learning to be a good guest.

  “So, here’s the deal—you cut Mommy and Daddy a break. We need best behavior, okay?”

  He moved Stevie’s hand for a fist bump and did the same with Aiden.

  Checking his watch, he noted the passage of time. Meghan should be back by now. She bolted for her yoga studio less than fifteen minutes after he returned from Drae’s, leaving him no time to get into it with her about some concerning behavior her brother was exhibiting. He was curious what her reaction would be when he shared the latest.

  “So listen, hon.”

  Alex’s tone got her attention. Meghan looked up from the article she was engrossed in.

  “I think your brother might have a problem.”

  She closed the magazine and tossed it next to her on the sofa. One of her brothers having a problem was an all too familiar theme in the O’Brien household. For shits and grins, she casually inquired which brother and what sort of problem even though she knew he referred to Finn.

  Handing Aiden off to her, Alex took up the middle of the sofa in his usual man-spread with Stevie casually tucked in his arms.

  Kissing her beautiful son, she snoodled him as he baby cooed.

  Daddy and daughter looked on with matching smiles. Though their darling daughter resembled her mama, she was more like Alex in temperament. And Aiden, who looked like his father, displayed qualities of empathy and emotion similar to Meghan. It had to be the handiwork of universal jokesters!

  “Have you see Finn’s Instagram lately?”

  Settling Aiden comfortably on her shoulder, she patted his back until he found his comfort spot and melted into her. It never failed to astonish her how strong the mother love was that she felt for her babies. Not a day went by when she didn’t count her blessings. Sometimes hourly.

  “Not a lot of time these days for trolling his dumb ass on social media,” she pointed out. “What horrible, stupid thing has he done now? Please tell me no dick pics are floating around.”

  His droll reply, delivered with a mocking smile, deserved the laugh it got. “Dog selfies. Dozens of ’em. I’m worried he spends all his free time getting Lady Fifi ready for a close-up.”

  Huh? Her brows bumped together, and she stared a hole through her husband’s head. “Say again?”

  Alex let loose with a heavy sigh. He leaned down and kissed Stevie’s head before wiggling a bit to get at his phone. While jostling the baby, he tapped a few times, swiped, and then held his phone up to her face.

  “This is Fourth of July FiFi decked out in patriotic red, white, and blue.”

  “Um,” she mumbled.

  “Hold on,” he drawled, “there’s more.”

  After a few more swipes, he held up the phone again, and this time, she groaned out loud.

  “Oh, my god,” she croaked. “Seriously? Has Ma seen this?”

  Alex chuckled. “Who do you think showed me?”

  “This is all because of Remy,” she said with a sigh.

  Alex’s face told her he was debating his response. She knew him so well and wondered which loyalty thread was pulling at his conscience. A spot in a corner of her heart filled with peace. What did it matter that there was probably some form or fashion of fuckery going on that they would have to deal with? The thing that touched her the most was her great big bear of a man being so open and willing to share everything with her.

  His response was firm yet tentative. “Ma doesn’t disagree.”

  Aiden’s head popped up. His eyes searched everywhere until he found his little sister perched happily on Daddy’s lap. He jammed two fingers in his mouth and gurgled until Stevie answered with her usual squeak. Meghan suspected he was beginning to teethe because the drool was plentiful with this one.

  “Honey,” she murmured. “What do you think I should do? Those two are killing me. I thought once Remy’s, um, issues were dealt with, they’d find their way.”

  Alex winced. “Some issues are never fully dealt with.”

  They stared at each other for a long minute. She was normally even-tempered but what Remington went through made Meghan see red. Even without hearing all the details, she knew enough to fill with righteous rage.

  Poor Finn. He was hopelessly in love with the prickly female, and Meghan’s squad of Justice ladies had done everything but a blood sisterhood ceremony to help her feel part of the group.

  She wanted to press for details but understood why she would be waiting a long time for an answer. Plain and simple, her husband knew what he did because of who he was. However, Domineau Rivera dealt whatever retribution Justice demanded. The details belonged to her and Remy—if Remy even knew.

  “Ma told me something you might find interesting. Actually, the word your mother used was intriguing. It involves your dad.”

  Meghan’s brows shot up. What was her da up to now? “Oh gawd, what?”

  Alex smirked. “According to Maggie, Paddy chats on the regular with Remy.”

  A reflex squint of confusion landed on her face. “Er, uh … what?”

  “Yeah. Like once a week. He thinks she’s the tits and the balls.”

  “Did my mother use that tacky expression or is it a Major embellishment?”

  “I tried it out on her, and she laughed.”

  “Well, shit, Alex. What does that mean? Da has a weekly convo with Finn’s live-in, sometimes girlfriend? What do they talk about? Sports? Recipes?”

  “Ma says they have a mutual admiration thing going on.”

  She grunted. Aiden gurgled and slapped his gooey, wet hand on her face.

  “My god. Men! Would you learn how to tell a story? You are losing me. What the hell does my father talking to Remy have to do with FiFi’s selfie moments?”

  His answer was to laugh at her. “Baby, at no time did I say I knew what the fuck your mother was getting at. I’m just the middleman, okay?”

  “And why couldn’t my mom tell me any of this? How is it that you two are so chatty?”

  Alex scoffed. “Frankly, Mrs. M, I’ve been talking to Paddy weekly ever since we got engaged. The only time I didn’t touch base with him was on our honeymoon.”

  “Oh”—she snickered—“I see. Got pushed out of the nest by Remy, did you?”

  “Bingo. Ma answered one time when I called and made a couple of jokes about Paddy spending his free time with Remy. We’ve been talking ever since.”

  What should she do? Hmm. She mulled this new information. Aiden rubbed his wet face on her shirt. Alex swung Stevie around like a yo-yo. Zeus trotted by, ignoring them, and headed for the breezeway to Carmen’s quarters.

  A whoosh of intuition told her to get in the car and find Finn. She would know what to do once she got a feel for his situation.

  “I’m going out for a bit. Think you can h
andle these two, Daddy? Carmen is grocery shopping, so you’ll be on your own.”

  “Are you going to meddle? You are, aren’t you?” Alex teased. “Woman, you are just as big a matchmaking shit as I am.”

  She stuck her tongue out and wrinkled her nose. “It’s my brother, smarty pants. Different thing.”

  Her big ole grizzly bear husband playfully gasped. Then he tsk’d three times. “Did you just stick your tongue out at me?”

  Her answer was a dry smirk, heavy with intended shade. “I did. What are you going to do about it?”

  His reply was nothing less than award-winning Major Marquez reasoning.

  “Pets do stupid things when they’re bored. Kids get into trouble when there isn’t enough to keep them busy. Tell me, love. Are you bored or merely looking for trouble because I know a way to occupy your tongue.”

  It wouldn’t take much for her to reconsider going to Finn’s until later. Much later. Maybe after they enjoyed a short siesta.

  Alex’s sexy chuckle let Meghan know her quandary was evident in her expression. “Quid pro quo only, babe. All quickies are now assigned a ‘six-nine’ call sign.”

  Stevie giggled and rubbed the back of her head on Daddy’s chest. Did she know how naughty her father’s edict actually was?

  Meghan made a face. “Did you just sixty-nine me?”

  “I did.” Her husband laughed.

  She played with him because laughing with Alex was one of life’s purest joys. “You do know I hope that sometimes a girl just needs a little dick.”

  His mocking grin made her flood with embarrassing desire. “Well, since I don’t have a little dick—”

  She cut him off with a tart shriek. “Alex! The children!”

  “What?” He laughed. “You think they won’t figure out the caliber of gun that fired them? Have you seen the size of my shoes? It’s kind of obvious.”

  “Your ego is impossibly big.”

  “Ego. Dick. Same thing.”

  “What the hell am I going to do with you?” She could not help the giggles or her fast as lightning visual assessment of the area around his zipper. It was hard to argue his point. Many men thought they had some swagger in their pants. In her husband’s case, the swagger came with spectacular stats. The shoe size joke hit the mark!

  He gently tickled Stevie until she baby-giggled. Aiden’s little head swung toward the sound incredibly fast—another reminder for her to study up on twin attachment issues. They always looked for each other. Everyone thought it was so sweet, but she and Alex sensed some problems going forward. They weren’t going to be able to sleep in the same room much longer but neither wanted to separate the two.

  “I’ll put Aiden in his seat and then I’m out for a bit. Bottles are in the fridge. Give Ria a shout if you get frantic.”

  Fifteen minutes later, the kids were secure and she’d been thoroughly kissed before grabbing her purse to head out the door.

  “Twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty.”

  Finn stopped counting and flipped around to go back the other way. The modular office he dropped behind Pete’s was a boring, wide rectangle. It was a fuck ton nicer and way more professional than the behind-the-bar shithole that he and Barry inherited when they bought the bar, and right now, it was where he was hiding out and killing time.

  He checked his fancy wrist tech to be sure the step counter was working. According to his mental calculations, that meant a round trip was sixty steps. If he banged out fifty brisk round trips, it would equal roughly three thousand steps.

  FiFi watched him from her fancy doggie bed. Finn did a double take when he thought she shook her head at him with pity.

  “Are you calling me a loser?” He griped.

  Out came her tongue while she sat there and doggie panted. Was his dog giving him shade?

  The restroom door flung open as Remy flicked off the light and stepped into the office seating area. They looked at each other across the wide room. She regarded him as if he was a squished bug on the bottom of her bare foot. He considered coaxing her into a better mood with his tongue down her throat but knew the change would be short-lived.

  “What?” she barked.

  “Nothing.” He shrugged and fiddled with his watch. Stretched too damn tight, she was easy to get a rise out of, plus he was not in the mood to argue so taking the low and silent road seemed like a smart move.

  From the corner of his eye, he saw her shuffle around awkwardly. She was chewing her lip and kept tightening the elastic holding her hair until her face pulled taut.

  Dammit. It took effort to hold in his sigh, but he did because … because why?

  He knew the answer. Had known the answer for some time. He didn’t just love Remy. He loved her and knew she needed him not to make any of this about him. That was a big part of her shitty behavior. The more she tried to test him by pushing or pulling away, the more he dug in. The measure of his limit with her was bottomless whereas keeping up the surly act would break her.

  Technically speaking, it was her day off. She was the type who went to work anyway, but Jace was not having it and had played dirty pool by getting Alex involved. With him and her cousin making it a point never to leave her alone, that meant she either hung close or ignored him and found a thousand other things to do.

  Every night, he prayed for an epiphany, so he would know what to do, but so far, God, fate, and the universe had not answered.

  Their situation remained complex. On the one hand, she was totally dependent on him. He was her safe harbor. The role could be filled by anyone. Or anything. That was how PTSD worked. In this case, it just happened to be him who was nearest when she fell apart.

  However, the other hand was a two-faced fucker. Remy hated herself for needing him. She feared her response was a weakness, and as a result, she fought their undeniable attraction tooth and nail.

  The conflict rolling off her in crashing waves always made him soften. To prove he was the one, Finn had to take whatever she dished out and piss on it.

  Her tone when she spoke was strangely tentative. “I, uh, I’m going to meet Ingrid and Heather at the Double M. Last-minute variety show stuff.”

  He managed to control the sigh but the raised brows from her announcement? Not so much. He did some fast thinking and eased some levity into the tense situation.

  “Heather?” he said with a chuckle. “Cool. Listen,” he continued after she nodded. “See if you can find out what she and Jensen are doing for the show. The fucker is practicing in private! Can you believe that shit? Him and his glee club wahoos.”

  She gobbled his well-placed bait and smirked. “Not glee club, Beantown. Worse than that! Stage crew jocks and theater nerds.” Her mock shudder was adorable.

  “Hey! Don’t be hatin’ on the stage crews. I was crew in high school. It’s where I first learned to cook for groups. We had the cotton mouth munchies a lot.”

  “Oh, my god! I bet Paddy loved you getting fucked up with your theater pals!”

  She was sufficiently loose that he chanced some closeness. Sitting on the cool leather sofa he got off Craigslist, Finn motioned for her to sit. Remy was quick to engage if his father was involved.

  “He knew. How could he not know? Dev was a hell-raiser years before I was, and Mike was no angel. I think with Da, he let us figure it the fuck out. It was what parents did. Teach their kids to make good decisions and then hope the lessons sank in.”

  “My parents were great, as well. Because we spent so much time in Europe, they would tease that being a sommelier was a good career choice because of all the wine I was exposed to. Jace and I were caught being stupid twice. Once when we were twelve and stole a cool looking bottle of peppermint schnapps from the liquor cabinet and another time when smoking was the culprit.”

  “Did you drink the schnapps?”

  She groaned. “Yes and then threw it all up. That’s how we got caught. Puking our guts up.”

  “Bobby O’Malley bet he could drink more crème
de menthe than me. We were such idiots that we holed up in a treehouse and alternated ice cold shots of Coke with the heavy liqueur. Ugh.”

  “A treehouse? Uh-oh!”

  “Uh-oh is right! He ended up vomiting over the railing, and I fell off the ladder and gashed my head. Look,” he said. Brushing hair back from his forehead, he felt around his temple until he found the crescent-shaped ridge of scar tissue. “Five stitches and a furious Maggie O’Brien”

  When she laughed, he smiled.

  “So, Ms. Bisset, what were you and that bad influence cousin of yours smoking?”

  She pretended to zip her mouth and toss the key. He laid a guilty truth at her feet that only one other person was aware of. What he knew about her past was far more personal, but he hoped his uncomfortable confession leveled the field a little.

  “Wanna know why Parker hates me?”

  “Just Parker?” She sniggered. “You were such a dick in the beginning that I was surprised the Justice boys didn’t drop-kick your ass right back to Boston.”

  There was a double helping of truth in her assumption. He had been a spectacular fuckup in the beginning.

  “Got popped. Speeding. Possession.”

  Her jaw dropped open. “What?”

  “Yeah. Total dickhead moment. They clocked me at one ten. As if that wasn’t going to be one hell of an expensive ticket, they found a teeny tiny end of a joint in the ashtray.”

  “Was it yours?”

  “No, but that’s not an excuse. Got sucked in by a couple of the canine crew who were one step over the wildness line. Mike, remember him? It’s a wonder Brody didn’t boot his stupid ass to the unemployment curb. And Richie. I knew better but didn’t stop it. Momentary lack of judgment. The only thing that saved me was the sobriety test I passed with high honors. My dad is a cop. I know how to be respectful and not be a moron. Was smart enough to ask if I could call my attorney and then threw Parker’s name around. They heard Sullivan Legal and could not get rid of me fast enough. Parker got a full dismissal of the possession, and they let me skate with a reduced speeding ticket.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  He shrugged. “Wanted you to know. After that, the guys treated me like a bad kid. Looking back, I honestly can’t blame them. When I bought Pete’s and had Sullivan Legal represent me, Parker read me a memorable riot act. Smacked me upside the head too. Told me what an epic dumbass I was and how if he hadn’t saved my bacon, a possession charge would have prevented me from getting a liquor license.”