Chapter 356: Clean
*I love you, Pagan. I just want you to be sure about this. – Ciara*
Pagan took his sister home and walked up the stairs to the little apartment above the store. He promised to help his sister clean her house. It was not a cleaning that you did with bleach and a mop. The tools that she would need to cleanse the apartment were in the store below him.
He offered to go with her and help gather everything that Ciara would need. Giving him a hell to the no look, she pointed at the stairs.
“Why? So, I can tell you twelve times which bundle of herbs to get? Or the right color of the candle? Take your color-blind ass upstairs and wait for me.”
“I can see colors.” Pagan pointed out with a grin. “I just choose which ones I *want* to see.”
When they had been kids, their parents were convinced that Pagan was color-blind. He wore horribly matched clothes together and the only explanation they came to was that he could not see the colors. Who would wear a purple shirt with red shorts and one yellow sock and the other orange? Even after he grew out of the ‘He dressed himself’ phase, he still wore garishly matched clothes.
It was not until junior high that they discovered that he knew it drove his sisters crazy. It was then that his parents quit saying that he was color-blind. After that, they described him as selectively color-blind. But it had remained a family joke.
“If it wasn’t for the fact that you make pretty nieces for me, I’d trade you in for a different model.” Ciara warned as she went through the back door to her store, and he went upstairs. Now he stood just outside her apartment, knowing that he could not enter without her permission.
Not only was it because Ciara needed to cleanse the place. It was also that he respected his sister’s privacy and space.
But that was only after walking in unannounced and finding himself face to face with their unmentionables.
As a fourteen-year-old boy, he had complained to his dad. Steele had laughed at his son and asked how odd his sisters felt seeing his stiff socks. Looking to his mother for assistance, she simply shrugged and pointed out that not only did she have to see the socks, she had to wash them also.
He had found no sympathy.
But every year for his birthday, he got socks from his sisters. And laundry detergent from his parents.
“What are you grinning about?” Ciara asked as she joined him on the landing.
“How I’m going to explain socks and laundry detergent for my birthday.” He admitted with a little grin, and she laughed.
“At least you don’t have boys.” She pointed out as she opened the door.
“Anything I shouldn’t see?”
“Maybe some condoms on the floor from the rager last night.” She flipped on the overhead light.
There were no condoms on the floor. Or any signs of any type of rager. Except for maybe a rager that might have been in whatever book she had been reading last night. Or, knowing his sister, books.
Looking at the soft sage green couch, Pagan spotted three books. For a woman who owned a bookstore, that was a small amount to be reading at one time.
One whole wall of her earthtone living room was floor to ceiling bookshelves. The walls in the hallway were the same way. Along with a wall in her bedroom and her office. When she decided to open a bookstore, her family assumed that she would have a hard time parting with the books. She saw her books as going on an adventure of their own when they left her store.
There were books stacked on the end tables, coffee tables, shelves and even on the floor in the corners.
“Was it a rager with you and your book gnomes?” Pagan teased.
“Shush.” She said quietly as she placed the candles where she wanted them. “I don’t ask about your ragers, you don’t ask about mine.”
“You’re the one that brought it up.” He pointed out.
“Start at the door-“
“I know. We grew up in the same house.”
“Alyssa still having problems?”
Pagan chuckled as he lit the long match. “Not since Shiloh chewed out the teacher and principal. I didn’t even know about it until Alyssa was telling me.”
“What did Shiloh say?”
“Nothing. She says someone’s religion or beliefs should not dictate how they are treated.”
“I like her.”
“Me too.” He smiled at his sister. “She was quite upset that you and the girls were taken.”
“I was scared.” Ciara admitted and Pagan lit the last few candles in a rush. He pulled his sister into a tight hug in the center of the protective circle.
“I don’t blame you.” He assured her.
“I could have refused. They… they said that they were a sister club, and you were hurt. It wasn’t until after they had the girls in the car that everything changed.”
“It’s okay.” He murmured as he guided them to her khaki armchair. “I was terrified myself.”
“How did you know we were okay?” She settled into his lap much like she had done with their dad when they were growing up.
“Shiloh.” He admitted softly. “That’s not her name. Well, it is. It’s not the name she was given at birth.”
“She had a milk name?”
“A what?”
“A milk name.” Ciara settled her head on his shoulder. “It’s a name given to a baby, and they use through their childhood. But when they become adults, are weaned off milk, if you will, they would take on their adult name.”
Pagan smiled and pressed a kiss to his sister’s temple. “I like that. I think she would like that too.”
“What was her milk name?”
“Sophia Elizabeth Giovani.”
Ciara stiffened and then sat up and looked at her brother. “Like *Giovani* Giovani?”
He nodded slowly. “Her *family* took care of getting you back.”
“Is that why they took us?”
“It is.” He said and saw the fear in her eyes. “We are now protected. And the ones that ordered for you and the girls to be taken, are dead.”
“By the club or the mafia?”
“The mafia killed them, the club cleaned up the mess.” He gave a small smirk. “Actually, Sophia killed them. And one was her own mother. From what I learned earlier; it was a long time coming.”
“Does that worry you?”
“No. No more than Dom scares me.”
“She never killed her mother.”
Pagan chuckled. “Dom did kill her brother-in-law.”
“He deserved it.”
Her brother cocked an eyebrow at her, and she blushed.
“I clean her blades. She came in once and told me that she needed to get the feel of a person off one of her blades. So, I cleansed it and I’ve given her blessings of protection. Don’t tell her I said anything.”
“Hell no!” Pagan shook his head. “I am not saying anything about how she might be mortal or even merely human like the rest of us.”
“I don’t think she is.” Ciara closed her eyes and took a deep breath before slowly exhaling and opening her eyes again. Once she was centered, she asked the question that worried her. “Are you sure about Shiloh? I mean the two of you. She gives me a strange vibe.”
He smiled at his sister and offered his pinky in the promise that they had used as kids.
“I’m very sure. I love her. The girls love her. And it’s all mutual. And her family adores our girls.”
“Our girls?” She linked their pinkies.
“Yup.” He replied with a pop on the p. “Our girls.”
“I’m going to trust you. But you have to tell mom and dad.”
“They already know.”
“About everything?”
“Everything. Shiloh called them this morning and answered every question. They both had lots of questions.. And she answered everything.”
“Damn. Can she get any more perfect?”
“Yeah.” Pagan grinned. “But I’m working on getting her pregnant.”
“You don’t ask about my sex life; I don’t ask about yours.”
Pagan chuckled and hugged his sister. “As far as I know, your sex life is mainly in your smut books and from what I saw on the couch, hockey smut.”
“I tried reading a biker romance, apparently your club needs a princess. And I tried reading football, but the Super Bowl was played at the teams own stadium. And I tried the witch ones, but everything was done with a black candle.”
Pagan laughed.
“I don’t know shit about hockey, so it works. I don’t even know what the hell a hat trick is.”
“When one player scores three goals in a single game.”
“Seriously? How do you know this?”
“One of the prospects is a huge hockey fan. And your niece has a huge crush.”
