Page 45 of Queen Crow
“Daniel. Poe calls him Uncle Danny, it’s fucking weird.”
Noah pulls himself up so he’s sitting with her, propped up on his arms as he leans over. “Uncle Danny. You trust him? You guys are friends with him?”
There’s a moment of silence because every person in this room has an opinion on the Boar and I’m not sure any of them line up fully, but I’m interested to see what Lips tells him.
I should’ve known she would only ever go with blunt honesty with him.
“No, we don’t trust him. He knew who I was related to for a very long time before he ever told me. He watched me starve and be abused for years without a word. I’m not sure whether he’s evil or just a really shitty uncle.”
He nods and looks up at the wall again. “Why isn’t Poe up there? Where’s the other brother?”
Atticus tenses next to me and I hand him the coffee cup again as a distraction. There’s no way it’ll actually distract him from this, but there’s not much I’m working with here.
“Poe and Nate are both family. There’s no need for them to be up there—we trust them. We know everything we need to about them, nothing else matters.”
Noah nods and takes another second to look at each of the photos again, including the ones I’d been sent of Senator Blakeley and his kids with their eyes crossed out. “Whoever did that to the kids’ photos needs to die. Bringing kids into this ain’t right.”
There it is. There’s the little glimmer of hope that he’s going to grow up a bit and turn out halfway decent.
I take the coffee back and grumble over the rim, “Agreed, but the senator could be knocked down a peg or two. Nothing serious, just a light maiming to shift his thinking a little.”
Atticus scoffs at me. “Not a fan?”
Aodhan grimaces at him. “He was a complete fucking asshole to her, even after she saved his ass.”
I shoot him a look because there’s way too much testosterone and chaos in this room for him to be making those sorts of statements without thinking it through first. He smirks at me, completely unrepentant.
“I’ll kill him. If he’s going to talk to you like that, then what the fuck is he going to say to his little Mounty sister? Fuck that,” Harley snaps, and I hold out a hand at him.
“He wasn’t that bad and, besides, his problem with me was my assumed allegiance to Grimm. A man that high up in Congress that we could get on our side if we prove we’re firmly anti-Grimm? That’s too good of an opportunity.”
Lips stares at me for a second and then nods slowly. “Plus, we need to think of the kids. We’re not taking out a father just because he doesn’t like his criminal bloodlines.”
I nod, she’s always far more pragmatic than anyone else, and I add, “He’s a great father. He’s surprisingly present for his kids, even with his aggressive political scheduling. I’ve trawled through his underwear drawer at this point, those kids know nothing in their lives but love and support.”
Aodhan’s eyes flick between us both before he says to Lips, almost hesitantly, “The kids both look like you, the girl especially. The pictures don’t do it justice, she even moved like you. It was fucking weird.”
Lips shrugs and glances at Noah again. “Maybe Jackson is right. Maybe Grimm really does have super-villain DNA. It would explain a lot.”
* * *
When we finally leave the panic room to head back upstairs, I’m surprised to see how easily Atticus is moving now with only a few more days of rest here. I shoot Lips a look and she shrugs. “I let him roam around a bit while you were gone, maybe the movement helped him out.”
Ash clearly doesn’t want to look at or think about Atticus in any way and hauls Lips against his body, murmuring something in her ear that turns her eight shades of red as he drags her away from us in the direction of the pool.
I’m going to have to get it cleaned out again, goddamn him!
Aodhan stops me at the foyer to say goodbye, still completely unconcerned about the rest of the family around us, and kisses me like he’s been poisoned and I’m hiding the antidote somewhere around my tonsils.
I don’t hear anything else until he finally pulls away from me, smirking and biting his lip in a way that is far too tempting. My eyes are glued to it as he leans forward to whisper, “I have to make sure you still remember me now that he’s been up there in your bed all week, Queenie.”
My heart clenches in my chest and I whisper back, “There’s no forgetting how much I love you. Once he’s healed, we can… work this out.”
He grins at me and flicks the little caged diamonds around my neck. “I want a fifty-fifty share. Every other weekend, we can split the holidays.”
I shove at him for the sass in his tone that’s so unlike him, but he’s an immovable wall when he wants to be, chuckling as he catches my hands and kisses me soundly on the lips again. “I love you too, Queenie. Don’t worry about shit that doesn’t fucking matter. I can see it all over you already and I’ll see you after I’m done with this shit at the docks.”
I press my lips together and wave him off, glad no one is here to see me holding back the tears at him leaving.