* * * *
While they went to go shower and change at Papa and Alpha’s place, the men once again fucked her brains out, both before and after their group shower.
The only reason they let her wear panties under her pink sundress was because they didn’t want their cum dripping down her legs in the middle of the ceremony.
She wasn’t complaining. She was eagerly looking forward to the “being made to stay naked and getting her brains fucked out until she got pregnant” part of their honeymoon.
It’d been the thought that had kept her going, helped her survive the last few clean-up missions she’d had to help out with before being able to, with a clear conscience, walk away from the military for good.
She could have left the service after rescuing her mom, but she wasn’t quite ready.
Despite having two hunks waiting for her, she needed to atone.
One of those atonements was finally visiting all four families of the men she’d killed in KC and talking to them in person. She couldn’t admit exactly what she’d done, because it would counter the official story they’d been told. But she had been able to apologize for not being able to save their lives.
And she’d made sure they’d all received their vaccines.
And sizable payments from Bubba’s various black ops accounts.
Someone had fetched the padre and Gia, who was also the justice of the peace, made sure they had a marriage certificate. With an impromptu celebration being staged at the Hernandez family’s eatery, the smell of food being frantically cooked filled the air.
Everyone was in attendance. All the Drunk Monkeys, their women, a lot of family and friends, and townspeople who’d adopted Sam and Ken as their own when they’d settled there.
Luckily, the padre spoke English and conducted the service in both languages so no one was left out.
Noel’s men had one more surprise, though. They produced two wedding rings that apparently they’d purchased before “retiring” to Colima.
“We wanted to be prepared,” Sam said.
“Yeah,” Ken added. “We were ready.”
At least she’d had the foresight to get two bands for them, too, not imagining the legality would be sealed by a fortuitous change in the laws.
When the padre told them they could kiss to seal the deal, it was Sam who stepped in first. “I outrank you,” he told Ken as he grabbed her and kissed her.
“Not fair,” Ken said, immediately pulling her into his arms for his kiss.
“Okay, I’m laying down a law of my own,” she said. “Rule one, family disputes don’t get settled by paintball battles. Period.”
They grinned. “Aw, why not?” Ken joked. “I was starting to get into that.”
“Because I outrank you,” she said, poking him in the chest. She turned to Papa and poked him in the chest. “And because I said so. And I think I remember two monkeys promising me that they were going to get me pregnant and spoil me rotten.”
“Well, she’s got us there,” Sam said. “Now let’s have a tequila toast and start the celebration.” He nuzzled noses with her. “Enjoy this one drink, baby, because from this point forward, you’re in momma-to-be mode. We’ve got a lot of monkeying around to make up for.”
Her heart did a little somersault in her chest. “Roger roger.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
It was one year to the day since her official divorce by death, as she thought of it, from Hannibal Silo.
Merry Christmas to me.
Kali and her three adopted sons had led a televised celebration service earlier in the day, which was broadcast live all over the world and on the Internet.
In the past year they’d opened fifty clinics around the world and helped sponsor dozens of others, ensuring hundreds of thousands of people had been vaccinated against Kite and other diseases that had gotten lost in the shuffle to save the human race. The church had been instrumental in helping with the distribution of vaccines, food, and other supplies to all parts of the world.
Following lunch downstairs in the dining hall with her sons and the St. Louis compound residents, she retired to her quarters for the afternoon to rest.
She needed some alone time.
At first, the one thing she hadn’t anticipated when she took over the church from Hannibal was how nerve-wracking she’d find public speaking. Before, everything had been carefully scripted by Hannibal, her contact with the masses always controlled.
Now she was in control and she wouldn’t deny she’d needed a few months of adjustment to get used to the role.
Thank god for Ax, Rami, and Altoh. She relied on them for far more than their help running the church. They truly had become sons to her, in her heart.
She and Ax had agreed not to tell his brothers all the details of what had happened and what they’d done, exactly, to rid the world of Jerald and Hannibal. All that mattered now was the future, and the men had quickly grown into their new roles as co-leaders of their humanitarian enterprise.
She was standing in the living room, a glass of wine in hand, when someone rang her doorbell. Frowning, she walked over to the viewfinder, a little curious as to her guest’s unannounced appearance.
Unlocking the door, she let him in. “I wasn’t expecting to see you today. I thought you were in Washington.”
He held up the small, gaily wrapped box in his hand. “I wanted to hand-deliver this to you, Kali.”
She smiled. No matter what, he always used her new name when they were alone together, even though the world at large still knew her as Mary Silo.
She closed and locked the door behind him. “You could have given it to me next week.”
“But then it wouldn’t be Christmas.”
She smiled up at him. “You just couldn’t wait for me to give you my present, could you?”
He pulled her into his arms. “What do you think?”
“Wait, my wine.” She set it down on the bookcase next to the door and draped her arms around his neck. “I think you’re a very naughty man with very naughty thoughts.”
“I haven’t heard you complaining.”
She smiled. Smiling felt easy now, felt damned good. Never faked or forced.
And she smiled a lot when with him. “Why would I complain, Joe?” She wiggled against him, feeling almost like a teenager again.
Hell, she had her life back and had a lot of lost living to make up for. Why not enjoy it?
“I’d hope I’m keeping you happy, baby,” he said. “But I want you to open this before we get too distracted.”
She took it from him and he followed her over to the couch, standing there as she sat and unwrapped it.
Her breath caught in her throat as she opened the box and saw the gorgeous diamond ring nestled there.
He knelt in front of her and gently took the box from her, slipping the ring out of it and onto her bare left ring finger. “Kali Enyo,” he gently said. “Would you please do me the honor of marrying me? I love you, and the past eleven months with you have been the best ones I’ve had in a long, long time. I never thought I’d ever meet anyone I was willing to give my heart to again.”
She couldn’t speak, so shocked, startled at this development, she finally nodded, hard, tears blurring her vision as he gathered her in his arms and tenderly kissed her.
“You tell me when,” he said. “Even if you just want to be engaged for a while. This is all your call.”
So different in every way from Hannibal. He’d been patient, loving, generous, gentle, and above all, kind.
At first, she’d been thrilled by getting involved with him, a naughty “fuck you” to Hannibal’s memory.
Until she realized she genuinely cared for Joseph Arliss the man, and not just as the general who’d been as desperate to take down her husband as she’d been.
The man who’d kept an arm around her shoulders one year ago to the day as they stood there in the condo’s hallway and watched a SOTIF team dump Hannibal’s body into a metal dr
um that was then loaded onto a dolly and hauled out of the bathroom.
He’d shown her how a real man treated a lady, how a gentleman treated the woman he treasured.
He’d won her trust and earned her heart and she hadn’t honestly given much thought to her future beyond trying to undo all the damage Hannibal had wrought over the years to her and to the world at large.
But General Joseph Arliss had made her care. About him, about herself.
She closed her eyes and breathed in his scent from where he had her drawn close to his chest. She could lay there for hours in his arms, in his loving embrace, just listening to the sound of his heart beating, his breath filling his lungs. So many years, one of Hannibal’s countless punishments had been a lack of any kind of loving physical contact.
Tenderness.
Cuddling.
Their first weekend together, they’d spent it curled up together on the couch and watching whatever she wanted to watch on TV.
Not once had he tried to make an advance.
He’d finally admitted their third weekend together that he was going to let her set the pace of their relationship.
That’s when she’d climbed on top of him and rode him like a Kentucky Derby winner, until they both collapsed in happy exhaustion several hours later, laughing, smiling, emotionally and physically sated.
She pulled herself back to the present. To him. “I love you, Joe,” she whispered.
It still terrified her to say it, as much as it had when she’d first uttered it months earlier.
He nuzzled the top of her head. “I love you, too, baby. So damn much. That’s why I wanted to do this tonight. For all the reasons.”
She looked up into his eyes and found him staring down at her with love and longing and genuine devotion. She wasn’t sure exactly when their relationship had tipped over the edge from mutually fun to something organic and all their own, and she didn’t care.
It was what it was.
She kissed him, her eyes falling closed as she savored it, not caring what the world might think of her if they knew the truth of what she’d done, what they’d done.
“Mary Arliss,” he whispered, smiling down at her. “Or Kali Arliss?”
She smiled back. “No,” she said. “Mrs. General Joseph Arliss.”
He arched an eyebrow at her. “Oh?”
“I can either choose to trust you, or let what he did to me ruin the rest of my life. I refuse to do that. I want to be the woman who helped save the world, not the woman too afraid of her own shadow or of the ghost of a monster to move forward and live. I survived. I want to be that woman. The woman I choose to be.”
She patted him on the chest. “Let me get your present.” Untangling herself from him, she went to the bedroom and retrieved the wrapped box from her dresser, the watch she’d picked out, purchased, and had engraved for him.
Then she paused at the closet door and thought for a moment. There was something else she could give him, under the circumstances.
The thing she’d held on to for the past year.
She retrieved it from the safe in the closet and held her hand behind her back as she walked out to the living room. She handed him the wrapped box and stood there as he opened it.
“It’s gorgeous, sweetheart,” he said as he removed it and looked at the back side, broadly smiling when he read the inscription. “I love monkeying around with you. Love, KE.” He grinned as he removed his watch, tucked it into his jeans pocket, and donned the new one. “I love it. Thank you.” Then he cocked his head. “What’s that you’re holding behind you?”
She studied her feet for a moment. “Maybe this was meant to be tonight,” she softly said. “Maybe this is perfect. There’s something else I want to give to you. That I’m ready to let go of for good so I can keep moving forward.”
She’d never forget that night a year ago, not a second of it.
Including how Joe had put his arms around her, holding her, swearing to protect her, and the men she now considered her sons, at all costs. How he’d asked if there was anything he could do for her, right then.
How he’d had his men give her something she’d rattled off in her rage, a silly, stupid thought he’d completely taken seriously and had done immediately.
And as he’d put it into her hands, closing her fingers around the Mason jar filled with vodka preserving a grisly trophy, she’d looked up into his eyes and realized that, for the first time in her life, she completely trusted someone.
“If you ever want to get rid of it, I’ll take care of that for you, too. Whatever you need, that’s what I’ll do.”
His words had echoed through her soul, along with the tender, caring tone in which he’d issued them. She’d never ever thought she’d trust again. Thought Hannibal had taken that ability from her as well.
Back to the present, Joe sat back on the sofa and studied her. “What, sweetheart?”
She took a deep breath and revealed what she’d hidden. The Mason jar. Her wedding rings made a soft tinkling at the bottom in the now-cloudy fluid preserving the only physical manifestation left of Hannibal Silo.
His severed cock and balls, shriveled and barely recognizable in the alcohol tinted a brownish color from blood. Joe had personally donned gloves, severed them from Hannibal, and put them into the jar for her after scrounging it from the kitchen, along with the bottle of vodka from Hannibal’s personal stash.
She’d added her rings before he’d sealed the top and handed it to her.
All done before his men had cut Hannibal free from the chair she’d taped him into and dumped his body, head-first, into the fifty-five gallon drum and sealed it.
Joe stood and stepped over to her, his gaze never wavering from hers. He took the jar from her and held it up, staring at it. “I think it’s time we got rid of this thing, then.”
She nodded. Sometimes, she’d opened the safe and just stared at it, an hour or longer at a time.
Just to remind herself it was real, that he was dead, that she was free.
It was time for that to go away now. She didn’t need to waste another second of time on Hannibal Silo.
With his free hand, Joe laced fingers with her and led her to the very same bathroom where Hannibal had breathed his last.
Joe lifted the toilet lid and seat. Unsealing the jar, he dumped the entire contents, rings and all, into the toilet.
She started to reach over to flush it when he stopped her. “Not so fast, sweetheart.”
His playful smile warmed her heart even as she watched him unfasten his jeans, pull out his generously endowed cock, and take a piss in the bowl.
It was always a not-so-secret source of amusement on her part that for all of Hannibal’s actions over the years, he’d only been half the size of Joe.
She giggled, taking her own turn after he finished.
Without a second look, she cleaned up, closed the toilet, and flushed.
They both washed their hands and left the bathroom, turning the light off behind them and shutting the door.
In the hallway, he scooped her into his arms and carried her to the bedroom. “I think I hear a pussy in desperate need of a good eating,” he said, waggling his eyebrows at her.
Same said pussy clenched in eager anticipation. “I think you heard right, sir.”
“Good. Because I’m in a mood to wear you out tonight, baby.”
How many hours had she cried in his arms after confessing to him what she’d endured? How many times had he tenderly loved her back to sleep after nightmares had awakened her?
Too many to count. And more than enough to prove to her that he was a good man, the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with.
A man who had no problem exorcising her demons, or the ghost of Hannibal Silo, from her brain.
That’s exactly what he proceeded to do that night.
And hoped that he’d be able to keep doing every night for the rest of their lives together.
Chapter Twenty-Five
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Five years later…
“I am gonna kill you sonsofbitches!” Noel screamed. “I swear to god! India, get me scissors, I’m gonna cut their motherfucking dicks off—aaahhhhh!”
India smiled down at her friend. “You said that the last two times, sweetheart. Don’t you know how this happens by now?” India was also sporting a baby belly.
Again.
Unlike her friend now going through labor, India was only working on baby number two.
On either side of Noel, Sam and Kenner were each getting a hand crushed by their wife’s killer grip.
“You boys might want to consider vasectomies,” India teased. “Either that, or stainless steel cups.”
Sam’s voice sounded pained. “We told her after Jimmy was born that if she wanted to get another five-year put in that we were okay with that, that we were only joking about—ow!”
Noel let out another scream of pain as she clamped down even harder on their hands. “Oh, no, you don’t, you sonofabitch!” she gasped. “You promised to give me babies, and you’re gonna fucking give me babies!”
Ken’s fingers were turning an alarming shade of purple in her grip. “Sweetheart, we don’t have to—”
“Nope. Two boys, we still have to have one more girl after this. Even numbers.” She started panting through the next series of contractions that would eventually deliver their first daughter.
“Doesn’t always work on demand like that,” Noel’s mom said from where she was standing out of the way.
“Then we’ll keep. Fucking. Try—aaahhh!” Noel’s rant dissolved into another scream of pain.
“I think these two men are closet masochists.” Between Noel’s legs, Dr. Paul Karsonnes was ready to deliver the triad’s third child and first daughter, and he looked like he was enjoying the hell out of the two men’s torture.
From somewhere out in the hall beyond the closed door, a man called out. “Carlos and Leo just called. Kyong’s water broke. She was over at the airport. They’re bringing her in now.”
“Thanks, Doc,” she called back. “It’s just a baby bonanza around here this week,” India joked. “Shasta nearly ripped Daryl and Nolan’s hands and nuts off last night before she delivered, and when I checked Gia yesterday, she was starting to dilate. We’ll be seeing her in here any day now.”