Page 25 of Diamond Desire

“Don’t die on me, okay? I don’t wanna have to find your ghost to beat some sense into it.” I kissed Delilah’s cheek and moved in front of her to head down the steps to the basement first. “Now come on – let’s go get our girl back.”

She gripped her gun tighter, nodded her head, dropped her smile and I instantly felt the change in the air.

Delilah wasn’t an innocent girl anymore. She was a woman on the first steps to taking back her life from the types of people who had wanted to ruin it.

She was embracing her new surname in the same way Sapphire acted when we did dangerous things.

She was taking back control.

Chapter Six

My boyfriend was deep in work on the couch crying and there was nothing I could do to stop him. Truthfully, I was crying too. But his grief was worse than mine. Misha’s was about his fatherandhis mother. He was having twice the amount of pain in his heart than I had because he’d lost the man who raised him, and instantly been left behind by the other.

Unlike the majority of the people left behind at Sapphire’s mansion the other day, Retta had survived. She’d been shot in the shoulder and had a nasty black eye, but that was the worst of it. And truth be told, just like Yeva, she’d done more damage to the three men who she said had come for her. The ones who now lay in vats of acid thanks to Raya and her men. But I wasn’t shocked at that – Retta had been Malone’s wife, after all. I might not have seen her do more than help him clean his guns, but we were all aware she could shoot and throw a good punch.

The moment we had arrived home to hear she was in the local hospital Raya trusted, alongside Darius, I had been filledwith relief, but she had been the one I worried about the least. I was more concerned about the innocent house full of children who had no chance to defend themselves.

Relief for Retta’s safety had been short-lived the moment Lincoln had explained to her what happened to his dad and Retta had left the hospital in the middle of the night, refusing to come back to the mansion or say another word to any of us since. Even Misha. He had called her non-stop, desperate to check in on her at the hotel Raya had checked her into down the road. But his mother hadn’t been able to speak – we’d all heard her crying and the room service bill she’d been racking up was mostly alcohol, not food.

She’d lost her husband. She’d lost him and now she was lost too, and there was nothing I could do to fix any of the Leroux family. Fuck me, I would try. But I really wished she had found a way to at least be there for her sons and not just cut them off entirely. I could have done with a hug or two, so fuck knows what Misha and Linc would have been better off with.

“Mish.” His head snapped up when I said his name and he tried to wipe his eyes quickly and pretend I hadn’t watched him stare at his laptop screen in silence for the last few minutes as he cried. “You don’t need to hide your grief from me. I get it. But I think you need to take a break and-”

“I don’t have time to be sad.” As if to emphasize his point, he pulled his laptop closer, monitoring the shitty nightclub and Widow and Delilah as they headed into a bathroom. With a gangster they were no doubt going to kill trailing along to his doom.

I hoped they gouged his eyes out. Then his heart. Anything gory and painful like he and all the rest of his kind had earned. It was what I wanted to do had I not wound up on guard duty for everyone who remained at Sapphire’s mansion. We wouldn’t be caught unaware again – anytime a bulk of us went out, wewould leave enough of us behind to take care of things. Not to mention the entire team of Red Diamonds gangsters that were walking the perimeter that Beau had summoned, or the entirely new surveillance system and whatever else Beau had snuck into the grounds in his bid to distract himself.

“You have time to do whatever you want. We’re all doing our jobs, but you need to look after yourself, too.” I headed closer, handing Misha a bottle of water I had brought from the kitchen and waiting until he started drinking it before I took a seat on the chair next to him.

He hadn’t been looking after himself half as well lately and I was done with it. If he refused to take care of himself properly, then I would step in and do it for him until he felt well enough to do it again. It was the least I could do for someone I loved.

“I’ll do that when Saph is home.” He insisted with a little huff. “Or when my mother can stand to look at me. Maybe even when I don’t feel so damn guilty for what happened.”

I had no idea where he got his ideas from, but I wasn’t having it – I wasn’t letting him blame himself. I was blaming myself already for having put the collar around Malone’s neck instead of telling John O’Malley to go and fuck himself with the pointiest stick he could find. Maybe one wrapped in barbed wire, too.

“Your mom-”

“Don’t.” Misha cut me off. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

I wasn’t usually so pushy, but I had no patience anymore. My heart was torn between wanting to be there for Misha and Lincoln, and needing to be outside, hunting down my girl and bringing her home. I was stressed the fuck out and there was only so much I could take.

I was done being nice. I was going to be… well, not mean. But I was going to be a fuck ton more pushy with my niceness.

“Can we talk about your dad?” Leaning back in my seat, I tried my best to sound casual and like I wasn’t playing catch with a live grenade or something stupid.

Misha almost snapped anyway as he glared at me. “No.”

“Fine.” Bending forward, I yanked his laptop out of the way, closing the lid and putting it beside me on the chair. “You can have a break now, then. Fight me about it and I’ll put you on your fucking knees.”

His hands balled into fists, his non-existent temper flaring. “I bet you’d like me on my knees.”

“I really would. But not yet – not when you look like that.” He was taunting me and I wouldn’t fall for it, even if it would have been a great distraction. Not when he looked one moment from sobbing and hadn’t slept for God knows how long.

Misha wasn’t Sapphire. He didn’t need sex as a distraction or a way out of his head. He needed something different, and I was eager to get that shit sorted out so he could return to the tiniest bit of his usual self again.

Scowling, he got to his feet, stepping toward me and no doubt thinking of all the ways he could steal his laptop back and continue to work himself into the ground.

“Are you calling me ugly?” His jaw ticked.