“I’m not watching her for another hour,” Bastian screamed into the phone.
“Another hour?” I heard Dante sound off from afar.
I winced. “Might be two hours.”
“What the fuck, Katalina?” Bastian roared into the phone. I heard my little girl giggling in the background. He murmured something to her and then roared again. She squealed in delight.
“You’ll be fine,” I said with a smile.
“Put Rome on the phone. He’ll listen.”
“You’re right. He will. Which is why he’s not getting on the phone.” I eyed the man sitting next to me at Heathen’s Bar, his very first bar down the street from where I’d gotten a tattoo not too long ago. He was all broody male and sitting with his brow completely furrowed. Those dark eyes held worry and fear and dread all wrapped into one big daddy package.
“Do we need to leave?” he asked, already standing.
“Sit down.” I grabbed his tattooed forearm and pulled him back to his seat. “She’s fine.”
“No! She’s not. Well, she is, but I’m not. She doesn’t listen to anything, Katie. Ivy, don’t you dare spill—” Bastian swore fluently away from the phone. “She’s smiling, woman. She’s worse than you and Rome combined.”
“I’ll see you in two hours.” I hung up before he could argue.
“What’s wrong?” Rome asked immediately, his jean-covered knee jumping up and down.
“Nothing. He just hates babysitting because Ivy doesn’t listen to him.” I shrugged.
“She’s not hurt?” His shoulders hadn’t relaxed and his hand was now fisted on the bar. “We should leave. We’re too far from home if something happens.”
We’d taken this trip to see how Heathen’s was getting along. It was hopping and doing well. Cole and a pretty brunette were making drinks while college kids buzzed in and out from the patio. The lights twinkled outside, mixing with laughter and a cool breeze.
“You needed to come see this place off,” I murmured. He was giving it to Cole; it belonged to that guy anyway. He was here night after night. From every call Rome made to this bar over the years, I knew that Cole had his heart and soul invested here. Rome’s was invested in other areas.
“Look, we’ve got guards up Bastian’s ass for Ivy’s protection, Rome. Not that she needs it. Dante’s there and Cade probably is already on his way over. She’s fine.”
“She’s a goddamn angel and we need to protect her,” he grumbled and I gave him that look you give people when they’ve fallen off the deep end. He sighed heavily. “I’m being overprotective.”
“You’re being obsessive and crazy.”
Rome wasn’t just that though. He barely let me hold our daughter when we were home together. We’d moved into his place. Sometimes the panic room had perks and I wasn’t about to pass them up by staying where I was. We’d turned the guest bedroom into a nursery. Little Ivy didn’t love her room much or maybe she loved her father’s arms more. That girl screamed for long minutes from the moment she learned she could. Rome would be across the hall in a matter of seconds. He’d rock her back to sleep or mix her a bottle of formula.
Now, he was giving away bars, trying to teach our guards what it was to be an enforcer. He wanted to give Ivy her daddy. The standard he held himself to was exhausting.
And amazing.
And hot.
I downed my drink and hopped up from my bar stool. “Time to go.”
“Go where?”
“I want a tattoo.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Kate-Bait. We don’t have time for that.”
“I think we do. And I’m getting what I want or I’ll tell Bastian to keep the little minion from you.”
“We both know that’s not ever happening. I’d hunt him down.”
I gave him a big smile. “I have a feeling you’d find him too.”
“You bet your ass.” He finally smiled a little when I wiggled it in front of him, and then he rolled his eyes and waved to Cole. “Keep it in line or call me when you can’t.”
Cole smiled and nodded, no other communication because that was how their relationship had always been.
We ambled down the street, and I took in the cool air whispering through my hair. “Remember when you walked me here last time?”
“Unfortunately.”
“I didn’t think we’d end up here back then. I was set on killing the chemistry between us.”
“That would have been impossible. I’d stared at your ass far too long to forget it.”
“See, but you were much more committed to having me forget you, forget the family, back then.”
He rubbed the scruff on his face and smiled. “Woman, the monster in me was willing to do that. We’ve always warred over you.”
I walked on in silence, waiting for him to continue his explanation.
“My head has always known you were made for more than all of us. You had those crinkled up papers with all your notes on how to make your father comfortable. You had a heart, one that had been loved and nourished from a young age. None of us did.”
“Just because you weren’t loved like my daddy loved me doesn’t mean you couldn’t do it yourself.”
He chuckled and pulled me to his side by my waist. “I know that now. I know that now because of you. You gave me Ivy. You tamed the monster.”
Those words had my heart veering off course. I was so damn in love with him that I held onto my crazy idea until Zane was in front of us giving me a tattoo of Ivy’s name on my wrist. I sat there while Rome held my hand like he had before.
He finished and cleaned his gun.
“Zane, can I try?” I pointed to his tattoo gun.
His gaze ping-ponged between Rome and me, then he narrowed his eyes at me. He either knew something I didn’t or he just trusted Rome. “Fine. Button’s here. You dip in ink. I’ll have to clean up what you mess up. Be gentle on him or it’ll end up jacked.”
I’d been watching him do my wrist and took the gun to mimic the same steps. I drew a straight line across my wrist under Ivy. It was messy but it was there.
“That’ll do just fine.”
Zane spun on a heel and left us alone in the parlor again.
This time, I wasn’t going to hold back. I was the queen and I did what I wanted. I tilted Rome’s head, ready to tattoo my name on him. “You said you were ready to take my name on your neck. Tonight’s the night.”
The man shook his head before he chuckled. “Give me the tat, Cleo. I’m yours forever, anyway.”
I did just that.
