EVIL VILLAIN (The Royal Court #3) - Rebel Hart Page 0,94
or die.”
“Yeah, but I don’t want you to die,” Deon replied.
“I won’t,” I said. “I can take care of myself, and besides, you’re not going to let anything happen to me and neither are our friends. The only one who should be scared as shit is Connor.”
Deon didn’t seem to like that answer very much, but nodded. “I’d sooner die than let anything happen to you.”
“Well, no dying for you either.” I repositioned myself and leaned back against Deon’s chest and closed my eyes. “We’re going to do this how we should have been doing it all along. Together.”
29
Deon
“Woo hoo!” Colette said, starting a round of applause as we walked into the pool area where the entire Royal Court was hanging out. “There they are!”
“Hey, how was the honeymoon, you two?” Kyle asked, snickering.
Brayden, who was floating in the pool between Kyle’s legs, smacked his knee. “Hey, that’s not okay.” He looked over at Cherri and I. “No wedding without the flower girl.”
Cherri and Nikita immediately broke out into laughter, along with Brayden, while everyone else just stared in confusion. “I don’t get it,” I said.
“None of us do,” Sicily said. “This is an inside joke the three of them have that they refuse to let us in on.”
“I’m sorry,” Cherri said. “I know we probably would have gotten started sooner, but we were… preoccupied.”
“Even this morning?” Alistair asked.
I shrugged. “Checkout wasn’t until 11.”
“Yeah!” Avery said. “Get it, Cherri!”
“Well,” Nathan said. “As much as the sexual exploits of my brother and ex-girlfriend interest me, I would love nothing more than to shift the topic as far away from that as possible.”
“Let’s shut this pool party down then, and head inside to make a plan. We have a crazy man to shut down,” Alistair said.
Those few people who were in the pool started to climb out, and everyone else stood up from the lounge chairs and barstools scattered around the pool. We all made our way back inside. Even though my back and legs were sore in the best way, I did my best to look unaffected by my long, lovely night with Cherri and kept her close to me as we walked in.
Those who were wet went up the stairs to get changed, while the rest of us sat down in the living room. Cherri and the other members of The Royal Court bounced casual conversations off one another for a while, and I still felt a little out of place. I’d judged The Royal Court so harshly back before I went to prison. Though to be fair, so did Cherri. As shitty as Connor was, he’d presented us all with an opportunity to grow as people and become more honest with one another, and as I watched people like Cherri and Sicily chat happily with people like Brayden and Colette, I knew that the universe was hard at work trying to give us back what Connor Loche had stolen from all of us.
Once everyone was in the living room, Nathan stood up and leaned against the fireplace at the front of the room. “Okay. This is it, guys. This is everything that we’ve been working towards. We got Deon back and now it’s time to take Connor Loche down.”
“Nathan?” a voice called out.
“In the living room!” A few seconds later, a shorter, fit-looking woman and a taller, buff man rounded the corner into the living room. “Hey!”
“Who are they?” I whispered to Cherri.
“The woman is Anisa and the man is Cobalt. They used to work for Connor, but quit when they could no longer take how he was treating Nathan. Now they love him like they’re his parents. It reminds me of you with Felicity and Garrett.”
As Cherri was explaining it, Nathan walked over and gave them both big hugs, and Anisa held Nathan’s face just like a mother would. Nathan had been pretty muted since I returned, but when Anisa and Cobalt entered the room, he lit right up. It made me happy to know that there were some people loving Nathan like the parents he never had. He deserved that.
“I invited Anisa and Cobalt because I figured it was time for us to stop storming into dangerous situations alone.”
“You just decided that right now?” Colette said.
“Anisa and Cobalt are retired as far as the muscle aspect is concerned, not just because Anisa only has use of one eye now, but because my father convinced them to take up a pacifistic lifestyle.