Chapter 28
I’m seeingred as I pace the kitchen, listening to James tell us everything that’s gone down in the forty-five minutes since I dropped Hailey off at home. Forty-five fucking minutes ago, this happened, and I’m only just finding out about it now. If he wasn’t like a little brother to my dad and an uncle to us, I’d beat the shit out of James for not calling me sooner.
“Derek needs stitches, but he’s refusing to go to the hospital so your dad’s sending a doctor?—”
Picking up my phone on the island, I take him off speaker. “Put her on the phone.”
“The doctor?”
“Hailey, you idiot.”
James pauses, whispering something I can’t make out before he clears his throat and says, “She can’t talk right now.”
I growl under my breath. “Make her talk to me.”
“You want me to put hands on her?”
Fuck.
“Because she’s already pissed at me for calling you, and I’m pretty sure she’ll beat my ass if I?—”
“I’ll be the one beating your ass, motherfucker.”
He sighs, and I hang up on him, smashing my phone down on the counter. Dropping my head into my hands, I rip my fingers through my hair, feeling sick at the thought of my girl over there without me, probably shaken up and terrified and worried about her piece of shit brother.
Glancing at the time on my watch, I snatch my phone back up and send her a text.
Kai
It’s been an hour, baby girl.
She replies immediately.
Hailey
Don’t.
I grit my teeth. She’s infuriating.
“Kai,” Wren says, breaking the heavy silence.
I look right to find four pairs of concerned eyes on my face. Damon cocks his head at me, and I nod.
“Let’s go,” he says.
Smirking, I lead the way to the elevator. Hailey might hate me for this, but fuck it.
I’m done playing games.
I takethe steps three at a time, my siblings at my back as I pound on Hailey’s door. James opens it, wordlessly shaking his head at us as he steps out of the way. We walk inside, and I immediately look for Hailey, finding her standing in the living room with her arms wrapped around herself, worrying her lip between her teeth as she looks down at Derek. He’s covered in blood, lounging back on the couch, drinking vodka straight from the bottle while our family doctor tends to the gash on his temple.
The fucker has the nerve to glare when he sees me as if he’s plotting my slow death. Despite the circumstances, it makes me grin a little. He can want me dead all he likes, but his sister is mine now, and he’s just gonna have to deal with it. Same way I’m gonna have to deal with him being in her life. Even though I’d love to, I won’t force her to choose me over him. I just hope she doesn’t choose him over me. That would fucking wreck me.
Hailey follows his line of sight, her eyes widening as she steps between me and her brother. “Kai?—”
“Is that yours?” I ask furiously, rushing over to her to clutch the gray hoodie she’s wearing.
She looks down at the blood on it. “No.”
I let out a breath, wrapping my arms around her neck and pulling her into my chest. “I was so fucking worried about you. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she grumbles against me, hiding her face in my hoodie, but she doesn’t hug me back. “What are you doing here?”
Holding her to me, I scan her apartment over her head, sneering at the broken glass on the floor in the entryway, the toppled kitchen chairs, the broken picture frames. The two guys who did this aren’t here anymore, probably having been carried away by our dad’s guards. If I ever get my hands on them, I’m going to bury them in the fucking ground. But until then…
“I’m taking you home.”
Hailey looks up at me. “This is my home.”
“Not anymore.” Releasing her, I tip my head at her bedroom door. “Pack your shit.”
“No.”
“Callie, pack her shit.”
Callie heads toward the bedroom, and Levi follows her, his eyes on Derek as if he’s daring him to look at her. Derek doesn’t. Still sipping from the vodka bottle, he continues to stare me down.
“You’re not taking her,” he says, but he makes no move to come for me, not with my brothers standing either side of me.
I smirk at him over his sister’s shoulder, taking her waist in my hands. “Watch me, bitch.”
His nostrils flare, but again, he makes no move.
Just to be a dick, I dip my head into the crook of Hailey’s neck. She snatches my jaw before I can kiss her there, digging her fingers into my cheeks as she pulls my eyes back to hers. She looks like she wants to punch me, which would make me laugh if I wasn’t just as pissed off as she is.
Still holding my face away from hers, she looks at Wren on my left, then Damon on my right, her eyes filled with unshed tears as she drags them back to me. They’re angry tears. She’s furious with me.
Fuck. She doesn’t want this.
But I’m selfish enough to take her anyway. I’ll carry her out of here kicking and screaming if I have to.
As if she can read my mind, she panics. Releasing my jaw, she tries to back away from me, digging her nails into my wrists when I refuse to let her go.
“Get off me!”
I don’t.
When Callie and Levi return with a duffel bag slung over Callie’s shoulder, I subtly tip my head at the picture on the shelf in the corner—the one Hailey wouldn’t let me look at this morning. Callie picks it up, and Hailey takes a threatening step toward her, gritting her teeth when I pull her back to my chest. When she turns and tries to take a swing at me, I sigh.
Kicking and screaming it is.
Picking her up by her waist, I toss her over my shoulder, holding on tight as she thrashes her little body around like a lunatic.
“Kai!” she yells, hysterical. “This isn’t funny!”
“I’m not laughing, baby girl,” I say quietly.
After carefully placing the photo into the duffel bag, Callie zips it up and walks over to Damon, who hasn’t taken his eyes off Derek since the second we walked in here. She leans back into him, resting her head on his chest while we all look down at Derek Kingston. He’s looking right back up at us from his spot on the couch, looking so pathetic and defeated that I almost feel sorry for him.
Almost.
Hailey stops trying to fight her way down when she realizes we’re all staring at her brother, going completely still in my arms. “Kai…”
I run my hand over the back of her thigh in an attempt to calm her nerves.
“Are you done with him?” Wren asks the doctor, who nods and packs up her things.
“Think you can stop him from drinking that?” she asks. “The boy never listens to me.”
Derek hits her with a fake as fuck grin, lifting the vodka bottle at her before taking another mouthful. “Fuck you, and fuck off.”
She sighs. “You’re welcome, Derek.”
After she leaves, Wren walks over to Derek and snatches the vodka from his mouth, making him splutter and cough. Then he steals the bag of cocaine on the coffee table for good measure.
Derek sneers at him. “You fucking?—”
“You’ve got two minutes to pack a bag and walk your ass down to my car,” Wren tells him.
Derek’s quiet for a few beats, looking unsure as he bounces his eyes between Wren’s. “Or what?”
“Or we’ll leave you here,” he says simply.
Derek lets out a small, broken laugh, his body swaying as he tries to reach forward for the vodka bottle. “You think I give a shit if y?—”
“Derek.”
He freezes, turning white at the sound of my dad’s voice coming from behind us. Derek’s eyes snap up, his shoulders creeping up to his ears when he catches the look on his uncle’s face. This is the first time they’ve seen each other in weeks, and I can’t blame Derek for being terrified of him after everything he’s done. Any grown ass man would shit themselves if Elijah Kingston looked at them the way he’s looking at his nephew right now.
Hailey taps my waist with her fingers, trying to get my attention without drawing any to herself. “Kai, let me down,” she whispers. “I’ll be good.”
“You had your chance to be good, baby,” I whisper back, and she digs her fingers into my sides, clearly trying to hurt me without making a scene. “You’re making me hard, you know?”
“Kai.”
“Baby.”
She growls under her breath. I carry her to the front door, stopping when my dad takes his dark eyes off Derek and snaps them to mine. He doesn’t ask, but I can tell by the look on his face that he expects me to tell him what the fuck I think I’m doing with her.
“She’s mine, okay?” I blurt out, rolling my eyes when Wren snorts behind me.
Our dad tilts his head at me, then looks at Hailey. “Does she want to be yours?”
“No,” she says.
“Yes,” I say at the same time, pinching her inner thigh and making her squeal. “She’s lying.”
He stares at me, blocking the doorway, and I almost think he’s not going to let me go. But then he looks at Hailey again and sighs, stepping aside. “Is there a reason you’re carrying her?”
“Yes.”
“What is it?”
“She’s a runner.”
Nodding, he takes the vodka and the drugs from Wren’s hands as he and Levi pass him. Damon, Callie, James, and two other guards file out of the door behind us.
“Should we wait?” Wren asks our dad, flicking his eyes to Derek who’s still frozen on the couch.
Dad shakes his head. “No. I’ve got him.”
When we get outside, Hailey doesn’t fight me as I carry her to my car. I set her down on her feet and open the door for her, waiting for her to climb in and put her seatbelt on. She doesn’t run like I thought she would while I walk around to the drivers side, ready to chase her if she tries. Once I’m inside next to her, I start the car and follow behind my brothers.
Silence surrounds us, and the deafening sound of it has my teeth clenching together, my anger returning as I glance between her and the road.
Fuck this.
“Why didn’t you call me?” It comes out harsher and louder than I mean it to, making her jump.
The stubborn little shit doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t even look at me. She just stares straight ahead at Wren’s taillights with her arms folded tightly across her chest. My hands clench around the steering wheel. I catch her wiping a tear from her face when she thinks I’m not looking, and I feel like the biggest asshole on the planet.
“Shit,” I whisper.
Flashing my lights, I pull over on the side of the road and hit the brakes. Damon and Wren stop in front of me, but they don’t get out of their cars.
I unclip mine and Hailey’s seatbelts and pull her over to my lap. She curls herself into me, hiding her face in the crook of my neck the same way she did the last time she was almost fucking kidnapped.
There are so many things I want to ask her, so many things I want to make her tell me, but I don’t. I just wrap my arms around her, hold the back of her head, and let her cry it out.