Page 84 of Reaper’s Wrath

“You know what?” Kai asks, getting her attention with his excitement. “I have a few cookies left in my stash. Would you like a cookie and some milk?”

Tessa nods. “Does it have nuts? I don’t like nuts,” she says with the tiniest hint of attitude.

Kairos and I both grin. This girl is strong, and with our help, she just might survive this.

“No nuts, but there are chocolate chips. Is that okay?”

She gives us our first peek at a smile, and the sight floods my chest with warmth.

We can do this.

Plenty of men are fathers at our age. We’ll take it one day at a time. Hopefully, together, we can keep her safe until we can find her a real home.

Three Years Later

“El, when you go ashore this time, will you find new workbooks for me? Mine are all used up.” Tessa is sprawled out on the floor of the lounge drawing as she talks to me. She has an entire box of art supplies, and she’s quite talented for a six-year-old. But then again, she has a lot of time to practice. There aren’t other children to play with or parks to go to in the middle of the ocean.

She handles the confinement surprisingly well and spends much of her time drawing or learning to read and write. The three of us share two bunk rooms—Kai and I take turns sleeping in the top bunk of Tessa’s room so that she’s never alone.

“I should be able to.” We’re docking in Dublin, which means access to English study materials. I’ll need to stock up because there’s no telling when we’ll be back, and she’s learning quickly.

The glass door to the deck opens, and Kairos joins us.

“I talked to Stavros,” he tells me, sitting beside me on the couch. “He suggested you and I take the first shift onshore. By ourselves.”

I stiffen.

We’ve talked in the past about this sort of opportunity presenting itself. It’s something we would have killed for years ago—before Tess—but things are different now. I can’t leave her behind. I don’t think Kai is willing to do that either, but the temptation is still there.

First, we swore not to leave one another behind. Then came Tess.

I’m not sure where I thought we’d be this far down the road, but I’d hoped we would have been allowed to find a home for Tessa. She deserves a stable family life. At this stage, I haven’t seen any indication that the Greek or Stavros have any intention of letting us do that for her.

They’ve made it clear through the years that they have no qualms using her as leverage to keep us in line. I don’t fully understand it all. Why manipulate us when plenty of others would be happy to serve as crew in our place? Plus, it’s not like either of us has anywhere to go. Kai’s family is dead, and mine rejected me. Still, the Greek keeps us on a tight leash.

“I don’t like it. I don’t want to leave her here without one of us around,” I tell him. One of us is always with her—not necessarily by her side, but if she’s on the boat, one of us stays on the boat. If the Greek takes her ashore with him, one of us goes along while the other has to remain on the boat.

This is the first time it’s been suggested we leave her behind.

“I agree. Knowing Stavros, she might not be here when we get back,” he murmurs to keep Tess from overhearing. “But what if they insist?”

“Then we refuse,” I say in no uncertain terms. “She’s our top priority.”

Kai nods, his lips thinning.

Hours later, we’ve docked the boat at the pier. After helping with the moorings, I go back inside to find Tess and discover she’s in the sky lounge playing with her toy ponies and listening to music on her headphones.

Stavros stands in the middle of the room between us.

He’s sharpening a knife, the blade making a swooshing noise as it slides across the sharpening block.

“You and Kairos heading out?” he asks, eyes briefly flitting to mine.

My heart feels like it plummeted along with the anchor to the depths below. If I don’t want to leave Tess with him, I’ll have to confront him. I know how deadly the man can be. Deadly and dirty. My skills have come a long way, but taking on the man who taught me is risky. He knows every nuance of the way I fight.

“Kairos is going to go. I thought I’d stay here for now.” I command my body to remain relaxed. Any sign of unease will feed his power trip.

“No reason to stay. I’ll look after the girl.” Again, he eyes me, getting off on putting me in an uncomfortable position. They know how protective we are of Tessa.