Page 45 of Vicious Minds: Part 2 (Children of Vice 5)

“And the diapers?”

“I’ll change yours if you change mine.” He winked, and I laughed. He was an idiot, and I was still so much in love with him. I wanted to stay here with him in our little greenhouse.

“Isn’t funny how we live long enough just to end up like infants again?” I asked.

“Oh, enough of this,” he said, hopping up and pulling me up with him.

“Declan!” I squealed.

“Let’s do something fun…something young,” he said, wrapping his arms around my waist.

“And that would be? Young people don’t ask what is young or fun; they just make it happen.”

“Then, I will make it happen.” He wiggled his eyebrows, kissing my lips gently.

“You always do.”

10

“Authority is the ability to rule

Dominion is rulership.”

~ Sherry K. White

ETHAN

“Do you know what the most common question I get asked is, Darcy?” I asked him, lifting the cards Greyson had dealt us both.

He stood silently to the left of us while I tossed a chip into the center.

“People question you?” Darcy replied, surprised, folding. When he did, Greyson dealt again.

“Unfortunately, but it’s not as if I rule the whole world. Why wouldn’t people question me?” I replied, picking up the new cards. “So again, what do you think that question is?”

“I don’t know.” He frowned and gave me a look. This was not the time to be oblivious. “If I had to guess, it would be what you are thinking?”

“Close,” I stated, betting once more, “but no. They ask me what I am planning.”

; He raised, and when he did, I revealed the royal flush in my hands. He scoffed. He looked over his cards once more and then glanced around the table before his hazel eyes met mine. I stared back blankly, waiting.

“The game just started. The deck was new. I shuffled, you getting the best hand on the first two deals is impossible.”

“Not impossible if you cheat,” I stated, dropping my cards onto the table.

“We aren’t really betting on anything, Ethan. Why cheat—”

“We are betting on everything, Darcy.” Did he really think I had brought him to a condemned diner to play poker? “The game didn’t just start. We’ve been playing since we were children. The deck may be new, but I own the company that makes the deck. You shuffled because I wanted you to feel like you had control.”

“What do you mean this game started when were children?” He frowned, laying his cards, all twos, on the table.

“Greyson,” I looked over to the man standing beside me, “give my cousin and me a few moments alone.”

“Yes, sir.” He nodded and, without another word, walked outside the boarded-up doors and closed them behind him. When he was gone, I turned back to Darcy.

“Your earlier question is not the question you should be asking right now. What you should be asking is, what was the point of this?” I stated and waited for him to ask him.