Dead Man Walking (The Fallen Men #6) - Giana Darling Page 0,12
who was so willing to kill for me?
“Well, stop it,” Lou snapped.
Zeus’s loud, rumbling laughter interrupted our tiff. His head tossed back, all that long brown and blonde hair shimmering in the yellow artificial light. His beauty and amusement filled the room with simmering energy that instantly made me feel better.
“Stop laughing, Z,” Lou demanded, but there was a current of laughter to her own voice as she leaned over me to swat at his chest.
He caught her hand and pinned it on his chest over his heart as he recovered himself enough to say, “Gotta admit, Lou, you’re not exactly in a place to judge. You fell for me when you were just a girl. And I’m ’bout as bad as they come.”
“You saved me,” she reminded him, but her hysteria, her anxious edge of anger wore smooth under the weight of his loving gaze. “You were never a bad man to me. Just my guardian monster.”
I watched them, the way the entire world fell away as they looked at each other. My parents had never been very much in love. Instead, appearance and status were everything for them, and in the end, it killed my father and cast my mother into ruin. This, the love that radiated like a second sun between Zeus and Lou, this was what love should be.
Pure. Intense. A light that brought brightness to all the dark moments of life. One that could never be extinguished.
“You two have inspired me for years,” I said quietly as Zeus brought his wife’s hand to his lips to kiss before releasing it. “So if I like bad boys, it’s basically your fault.”
Loulou groaned, but Zeus winked at me, prompting me to laugh even though it ached in my ribs.
“Bea, honey.” My mum, Phillipa, swept into the room on a cloud of Chanel perfume, holding a tear-soaked silk handkerchief to her mouth.
Behind her, considerably calmer, was my grandpa.
I smiled as soon as I saw him. I always did.
He smiled back.
Pastor Lafayette was the only reason I didn’t change my name after my father was killed by the corrupt, criminal outfit he’d been colluding with. My grandpa was soft spoken and wise in the way of prophets and poets. He refined the complex world around him into clear paths and distilled emotions for his parishioners, and he never judged anyone, even the criminal who’d married his firstborn granddaughter.
“Grandpa,” I whispered, suddenly a little girl too shy to make friends who needed my grandpa to hold my hand.
“Sweet Bea,” he murmured as he moved to my bedside and leaned down to kiss my forehead.
He smelled of old paper, frankincense, and myrrh, the fragrance of the church and of my childhood.
Suddenly and strangely, I felt like crying.
“Move aside, Michael,” my mother demanded, hiccoughing through her tears, her hands fluttering and floating around me as if she wasn’t sure where to land. “Oh, my goodness, Beatrice, you’re absolutely wrecked. What would I have done if I lost you?”
“It’s not about you,” Loulou muttered. She’d never recovered from Phillipa’s negligence and couldn’t understand, as I did, that Phillipa was fragile. She’d been a show pony for so long that she didn’t know anything else other than being loved for her beauty and engaged with because of her gossip.
She was harmless, if a little annoying sometimes.
I hushed her now, as she bent to kiss my cheeks. “I’m fine, Mum, please don’t worry about me.”
“Of course, I’m going to worry. You are my daughter, and I am your mother.” She sniffed, shooting a little glance at Zeus. “I’m just glad those ruffians aren’t crowding you. You need space to heal.”
As if on cue, sensing the drama of the moment, there was a swell of thunder on the air, rattling the cheap windows in their frames.
It was the roar of Harleys. Dozens of them.
Phillipa looked sharply at Zeus, who shrugged unabashedly. “Might’a told one or two’a ’em that Bea here was awake.”
My mother sucked in a breath to argue, but Grandpa beat her to it with a soft hand on her arm.
“They’re here to pay their respects,” he said softly. “They aren’t just Louise’s family anymore. They adopted Bea a long time ago. There is no space for judgment where there is love, Phillipa.”
His words made warmth soothe the ache in my limbs and swell in my heart until it felt overfull. One more word of love or praise and I felt I might burst.