Page 101
Blood?
Right. My brothers and I are covered in it.
“Please don’t tell me she’s afraid of blood,” my father murmurs behind me, low enough that only I hear.
I grin to myself, knowing that is not the case, not at all. Blood doesn’t scare Cove. At this point, I’m not sure anything really does.
She sighs, making her way over to us. “Normally, I don’t care—I find it a turn-on, actually—but at this point you’re going to be tossing out shirts on the daily. Because you damn well know I’m not going to allow Maria to bust her ass off trying to get those stains out. That’s just cruel.” She tsks, pointing at Maverick’s shirt. “Go change. Quickly. I am not going to have all my hard work go cold because you three can’t kill in a more tidy manner.”
My father lets out a choked sound of surprise. “I was not expecting that.”
“There’s a lot about Cove that will surprise you–all good, I promise.”
As soon as I speak, Cove realizes my father’s here. I watch as her body locks up, her eyes landing on the massive man behind me. He’s not hard to miss, but I guess when you’re not expecting it, you don’t look for it.
“Who’s this?” she asks slowly, but by the tension emanating from her body, she knows exactly who it is.
“Dmitry Volkov.” Father steps around me, holding his hand out to Cove. “You must be Cove. I’ve heard a lot of wonderful things about you.”
She hesitates, but takes his hand and shakes it, not wanting to be rude or maybe it’s in fear of disrespecting the Pakhan.
“Thank you for having me over. It’s been a while since I’ve spent time with my sons like this.”
“Don’t thank me,” Cove says, pulling her hand back. “I wasn’t aware you were coming.”
“I hope you don’t mind. I felt like it was time I met my daughter-in-law. The girl who’s captured my sons’ attention,” he chuckles. My brothers and I make no effort to move, watching the two of them interact.
“I’ve heard a lot of things about you, too,” she replies, not taking her eyes off him.
She says nothing about the daughter-in-law comment. Does that mean my Little Bunny is coming around?
“All good things, I hope.”
Cove crosses her arms and raises a brow. “Actually, no.”
My spine stiffens, and Shepherd lets out an awkward laugh. “You know what, we really should go wash up. Don’t want dinner to get cold.”
“Good idea. Cove, come help?” I suggest, not wanting to leave Cove alone with my father. Not that I think he would hurt her, but I’d kill him if he did. But because I want to make sure Cove is okay. If him being here is going to be an issue for her, I’ll ask him to leave.
The last thing I want to do is upset her. We’ve been making progress, and I won’t have anything jeopardize that.
“Sure,” she says slowly, giving my dad a lingering glare before letting me lead her away and up the stairs.
As soon as we’re in my room, she turns on me. “Are you fucking kidding me? A heads up would have been nice.”
“I’m sorry. It wasn’t planned. He asked us to talk to him after we dealt with Rafe’s men. He wanted to meet you, and we didn’t really have a good reason to say no.”
“How about the fact that I can’t stand the man?”
My shoulders drop. “Cove, I know your first impressions of him aren’t good, but you need to understand that the things in our world are a lot different than everyone else's.”
“He put you through some fucked up soldier boot camp!” she argues. “He had you do horrible things.”
“I know.” I step forward, taking her face in my hands. I hate seeing her upset.
“Why don’t you hate him for it?”
“Because he’s my father.” I smile. “And I love him. Despite the things we’ve been through, he’s always been a good dad. He’d die for us. Burn the world down to protect his family. What we went through was needed. It helped shape us into men who could not only survive in this world, but run it. The only thing we resent about the time we spent there is that we were away from you. That’s it. And we don’t even really blame him for that because at the time he didn’t understand just how much we cared about you. He does now. He’s given us his blessing, even insists on us following through with our plans.”
