He apparently doesn’t mind doing that with my wife.
Though Lia does have that quiet, spellbinding energy, where she’d capture anyone’s heart without even trying. A fact due to which I tried my best to keep her shielded from the world once upon a time.
I still want to lock her up so no one but me can see her, where only I’m her world as much as she is mine, but I recognize how much she needs to be out there.
My reward is having her willingly come back to me every night, to willingly seek refuge in my arms, and willingly want to spend time alone.
That’s the best gift I could ever receive.
“Try this, Creigh. I made it.” Annika scoops out what looks like some sort of appetizer and places it near his mouth.
The fucker-on-borrowed-time actually opens his lips and eats. Without a change of expression.
It’s Yan and Lia who wince, sharing a look.
“What do you think?” my daughter asks with expectant glee.
I’m ready to pummel him to the ground if he so much as changes that expression, but he nods. “Pretty good.”
“I knew it!” She glares at Yan. “See? I told you someone likes my food. It’s all about perspective.”
“You really okay there, man? Want me to call an ambulance?”
“Yan!” my wife chastises.
“No, something is wrong with the kid, Lia. He actually eats the things your food terrorist of a daughter cooks.”
“Wanna die?” my daughter asks with a murderous expression.
She got that one from me.
“Don’t call her a food terrorist,” Creighton says point-blank, earning a wide grin from Annika and a motherly smile from my wife.
“Boom,” Annika says, unable to hide her boasting expression. “Mic drop.”
“The sorry fuck is too in love to see how horrible your food actually is. Listen, kid, love won’t save you when you’re driven to the ER because of food poisoning.”
“I’m going to kill you,” Annika announces and proceeds to try and stuff him with her appetizers, but Creighton snatches them and starts to eat them all.
Christ.
The little shit might have a death wish, after all. In this house, we don’t eat Annika’s food or else there will definitely be some form of food poisoning. Or stomachaches. Or just plain inconveniences.
She tends to use what she thinks is beneficial for health out of context, like honey with spicy food or some nutriments with seafood. And she has no sense of how much salt she should put in any dish.
We know she means well, so Lia, Jeremy, and I usually tell her not to cook. Kolya and the other guards try to be diplomatic about it, too.
Only that fucker Yan told her the truth directly and has long since labeled her a food terrorist.
Creighton King is the first person who’s eaten her food willingly and even compliments her for it.
However, I refuse to warm up to him due to that gesture. Or the fact that he’s the one who made Annika abandon whatever suicidal thoughts she had on that island.
I haven’t told Lia about that episode and ordered everyone not to. It would ruin her to know that dark thoughts have invaded our daughter’s mind and we almost lost her.
But we didn’t.
Because Creighton was there and managed to tug her from the edge of nothingness.
It’s mostly because of him that I still have my daughter in one piece. But it’s also because of him that she got to that state, so I will be considering that incident neutral.
“How is that girl?” Lia asks Creighton while Annika chases Yan with a flower because he keeps calling her a food terrorist.
“Girl?” he echoes with a hoarse throat—definitely not as unaffected with the food as he claims to be.
“The one who told us about where you took Annika.”
“Cecily?”
My wife nods.
“Do you really want to know?”
She inches closer, her soft features creasing. “Why? What happened?”
“You do realize that Jeremy didn’t get that information out of her by being a good sport, right?”
My wife swallows. “I figured as much. He…can be cold-blooded, he takes that after his father, but they do have a heart beneath it all, I promise.”
“That’s what my mother says about my brother, and the worst part is that she believes it, but we all know he’s a functioning psychopath.”
“Jeremy isn’t a psychopath.”
“In view of what he’s done, he’s probably worse.”
“What did he do?”
“I promised him I’d stay out of his way if he stays out of mine, and I’d like to keep that truce. Not for self-serving purposes, but for Annika’s sake. She doesn’t like it when we clash.”
Lia nods in understanding, and I want to haul my son back from the other side of the ocean and shake the fuck out of him.
He’s not supposed to accept Creighton this easily, or fast, no matter what type of deal they struck.
Though after Annika shot Creighton to save him, his disapproval was slowly subsiding anyway.
“I hate to see her go, too, but maybe we should let Annika make her choice this time, Dad,” is what he told me the last time we saw each other.
That’s obviously because of whatever deal he struck with this little shit.
Said little shit gets up, whispers something to Annika that she pauses her antics with Yan to hear, then she smiles widely at him.
He walks toward the house and I hide out of view as he goes into the bathroom, probably to wash his face or throw up whatever she fed him.
When he emerges, I don’t bother to hide and he pauses before he heads in the direction of the garden.
I block his path and he stops, raising a brow. “Is this my welcome? Or do you have a gun hidden somewhere to threaten me with?”
“You’re awfully talkative today.”
“And you’re suspiciously not threatening me with bodily harm.”
“We’ll get to that point in a few.”
“By all means. Let’s get the tedious chore over with.”
“Was that sarcasm?”
“Was it? Annika is rubbing off on me.”
This little fucking shit will be buried six feet under before my wife and daughter wake up tomorrow.
He takes a step toward me, all nonchalance vanishing from his face. “I’m happy to indulge in whatever threatening kink you have going on, and I won’t tell Annika or Lia about it, but I’m telling you right now that you won’t be able to get me away from what’s mine.”
“What the fuck did you just say?”
“Mine. Annika is mine, and no one will change that fact, not even you.”
“Annika will get over you eventually.”
“Keep dreaming, Adrian, and while you’re at it, I’ll become your son-in-law. We’ll work hard to give you beautiful grandchildren.”
“Not if you somehow end up dead before that. And who gave you permission to call me by my name?”
“I don’t like Mr. Volkov. Too long.”
Either this fucker is bold or he has no care whatsoever for his life. Or probably both.
“Also, if you’re so territorial, how come you still haven’t done something about him?”
I turn around so that we’re both facing the scene in the garden. Annika splutters on water and Lia bends over laughing at something Yan has said while he grins like an idiot.