Page 38 of Danger Close (Mourningkill #3)
I'll Carry You
Teri
Cobra stepped out of the car, taking his warmth with him. I had to take several breaths to steady myself. That kiss… it was… everything. I swallowed the heaviness in my tongue, my knees weak.
He’d called me his wife again. He’d been calling me his wife since I’d fainted in his arms. His wife. His wife.
I kept the Guerro name because we’d given it to our daughter, and I was not attached to my own family name. I opened the door, just as Cobra came on the other side, giving me a look of absolute disdain that I’d opened my own door.
“Will you be introducing me to my sister-in-law?” A man called behind him. “We are family, after all.”
A brown-haired, brown-eyed man stood tall, looking down his nose at me. On his arm was a stunning, red-haired, ghost-pale woman who leaned her cheek on his shoulder.
“No.” Cobra shut my door and kept his back to the man—my brother-in-law? His brother? I wasn’t sure who he was. I pulled the shawl close around my shoulders as I shivered against the autumn air.
The stranger wasn't deterred.
“My name is Jericho Vasiliev.” The man had a slight Russian accent. His voice, his look, unsettled me. “I am Cobra’s younger, and more handsome, brother.”
I looked at Cobra, who just rolled his eyes. I tried to look around him as I quietly whispered, “Pleasure to meet you.”
With Cobra’s arm around my waist, we started walking. I whimpered in pain as my ankle twisted on the gravel when my heel tipped between the stones.
Cobra’s hand tightened around me. “Princess?”
I thought he was going to just help me walk to the barn. The parking lot was full of cars, so the walk would be a bit longer than normal, but I could make it with a steadying arm to hold on to.
“Hang on to me,” Cobra whispered, before he bent down. He pulled me up into his arms like a bride.
“What are you doing?” I threw my arms around his neck. “I can walk!”
“Save your strength. Heels on the gravel would exhaust anyone, much less someone who's been through what you have.” He placed a kiss on my temple.
“Is that from first hand experience?” I lifted a single brow.
“There might have been an incident in Latvia.” He smirked, and gave me a wink.
“What?” I exclaimed, unable to help the smile on my lips. “What do you mean?”
He didn’t answer me.
“Explain yourself, Joe!” I playfully slapped his chest.
We laughed as he walked, his rhythm swayed me in the comfort of his embrace. It felt right; my arms around his neck, the slight smile on his lips.
“I’ve looked into the account you set up,” Jericho said to Cobra’s back. “It has never been touched. A pin number hasn’t even been established for any of the cards to access it.”
Cobra’s steps halted. His shoulders straightened with me in his arms.
“My sister-in-law never accessed it. And the interest rates, alone….” Jericho let out a long whistle. “The growth has been significant.”
I watched him from over Cobra’s shoulder.
“Perhaps she’ll be more amenable to your advances if she knew how much money was in the account.”
My eyes widened, my face flushed. My mouth hung open as my heart raced. Not because I was offended, but because of the tic in Cobra’s jaw. He was holding on by a thread.
“Should I tell her?” Jericho pulled a paper from his pocket. It looked like a bank statement. “It’s more money than she’s had pass through her fingers in a lifetime–”
Cobra put me down. He carefully waited until I was settled on my high heels. Then, he turned around and punched Jericho across the face. I squealed, covering my mouth.
Jericho burst out laughing, even as his jaw changed from a light tan to a swollen red. Jericho’s own wife, the redhaired siren, looked sharply at her husband as if he was a misbehaving child.
“Don’t listen to him,” Cobra said as he bent down to pick me up again. “Sorry you had to see that.”
“You didn’t need to do that,” I gasped.
Cobra walked on, but looked at me. The fire of anger was still in his eyes, but it didn’t scare me. I knew it wasn’t directed at me.
“You have no idea how much I needed to do that.” We got past the gravel, to a path that led to the red barn. “No one— no one— gets to say that about you. Especially not to me.”
There was that feeling again… the feel of being exactly what he called me. A princess.
I placed my head on his shoulder, accepting his kindness. My white knight. My sweet, sweet, Joe.
The barn was decorated in what I could only call “country chic”. There was a paradoxical combination of white tulle, gossamer, and lace with the roughness of burlap, exposed and rough wood, mason jars and Edison lights. Men in black suits and well-dressed women mingled in the cold air.
“As I live and breathe! It’s the Ghost.” The black mass of suits parted, and a man whose face was everywhere stared back at me. “I heard the agents gush about you.”
“President Lau!” I said in a gasp, then grabbed Cobra’s collar, shaking him to get his attention. “Put me down, for God’s sake!”
I kicked my feet to make him put me back on my feet, whining when it tweaked a sprain at my hip.
Cobra sighed, placing me on my feet, but kept his arm around my waist.
“How romantic.” The First Lady Lucia Jimenez-Lau smiled. She was wearing a velvet maroon dress that grazed her ankles. “Joaquin Guerro, I didn’t think you had it in you.”
Her thick, tightly curled black hair was in a coif at the nape of her neck. She had a rose in her hair, her plump lips painted the same deep red as her dress.
“Why don’t you ever do such sweet things for me?” the First Lady asked, wrapping her arm around the President’s elbow and leaning into him.
“Because the Secret Service don’t let me carry things while I walk, amor.” He winked at his wife. “And while Guerro and I might be the same age, time has not affected our backs the same way.”
“Greetings to the Father of the Bride!” Another man, the father of the groom, came to give Joaquin a handshake, holding out his open palm. Cobra stared at his proffered hand for a long, long time.
With a grunt of agitated reluctance, he finally shook it.
“You’ve met Kamilla, I’m sure. And my other son, Kaleb.” The man had slicked black hair, a prominent nose, and slender face. He would have been handsome were it not for a certain something in his eyes that unsettled me. “I’m Roland Griffith, Kai Griffith’s father. And this is…?”
He gestured to me.
“Mrs. Teresa Guerro.” Cobra didn’t give me a chance to answer. There he was, emphasizing the missus again. His hand tightening around my waist, as if pulling me back from the hand Roland reached out. “Mother of the Bride.”
“Oh.” Roland looked surprised, his eyes darting between me and Cobra. “Well, it’s clear your daughter gets her good looks from you, eh?”
That, of course, was a lie. Trinity looked like a female version of her father.
I tried to smile at the fake compliment, leaning into Cobra because something about him was… strange. Uncomfortable. I wished I could put my finger on it, but I couldn’t.
Whatever I felt Cobra silently validated with a gentle squeeze of my hip.
“We’ll see you inside, Mr. President. First Lady Jimenez-Lau,” Cobra said, giving President Lau a smile and nod that was an obvious farewell to extract us from the situation. “We’re going to go inside and sit so we can marvel at how far we’ve come.”
Cobra smiled down at me, as if had raised our child together. As if we were a married couple, wanting to reminisce about our long years. For a moment, I felt like I was in a parallel universe where that life was real. Where we had stayed together. Where I had waited for him.
“Please, you know better. Call us Davis and Lucia,” the President corrected. “I hope you’ll let me call you Teresa.”
Cobra was about to bend down to pick me up again, before I pinched him in the ribs. “I can walk, ducon !”
“Fine.” Cobra grinned at me, his eyes bright as he leaned down to kiss my temple. To President Lau–uhm, Davis– he said, “You try to be romantic, and the practical woman shoots you down.”
We walked through the open doors of the large barn, and I was immediately hit with the warmth of little heaters spaced throughout the room. I moaned, enjoying the warmth. Cobra loosened his grip around my waist as we walked towards the pew benches that made two rows, and an aisle in the middle.
Cobra brushed his lips against my ear. “Never be alone with Roland fucking Griffith.”