Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“MR. SANDMAN” BY SMYL
JUDE
Iwatch as our beautiful, broken Nightingale falls back asleep, Tarl’s drugs doing their job and giving her some rest. Wrapping her in my arms, I pull her tightly until our bodies press so closely together that not even a sliver of air is between us.
It’s funny really, in a fucked up kind of way, anyway.
We have a lot in common; both losing our mothers to violence.
I mean, Mom isn’t dead, just holed up in a nice, cushy mental health facility on the west coast with top-notch security.
The Soldiers fucked her up, literally, but it wasn’t until the murder of my sister that she broke completely.
She couldn’t cope with the loss of a child, kept talking to June like she was still there, and wouldn't let anyone touch her room back home.
It was six months later, the second time that we found her in the bath with slit wrists, that Pops admitted she needed help, so sent her to Mount Pleasant.
She seems to get along well there, Aeron and I are due for a visit as we try to go once a month just to check in on her.
Perhaps we could take Nightingale this time.
Light fills the room as the door cracks open, and I look up to find my brother standing in the doorway.
“Family meeting, Dad’s on the phone,” he says, his voice low as his eyes trace over Nightingale in my bed.
My stomach drops, just like when you’re on a rollercoaster but not nearly as fun.
“Shit,” I mumble, carefully untangling myself from our broken bird. Getting up and out of bed, I bend back down and tuck the blankets around her. She doesn’t stir, her breaths even and deep as she sleeps on.
I hesitate, something pulling me back down, and I press the lightest of kisses on her temple, eliciting a sigh from those sweet lips of hers.
“Come on,” Aeron mutters from next to me, and a smile lifts my lips when I straighten up, only for him to lean down and kiss her too. She’s definitely ours to keep.
We leave our sleeping beauty, quietly closing the door behind us—a brand new one that I had a couple of our members put in after Aeron blew the last one off. Still worth it for a taste of my Nightingale’s sweet nectar.
“So, what does the old man want?” I ask as we make our way down the stairs, and Aeron gives me this look that tells me I just asked a stupid fucking question. “Alright, don’t get your balls in a twist. I’m guessing it’s something about Nightingale?”
“I imagine so,” he answers as we reach the bottom of the stairs, heading towards a door off the main living area that leads to our office. My chest tightens as he confirms my suspicions.
I hear Pops’ deep voice as I open the door, his laugh warming me as it always has since I was a child.
Unlike my Nightingale, our father always showed us love and affection. Yes, he was hard on us sometimes, but family is very important to him, always has been. As he likes to remind us, we are his legacy, the future, and he wants us to be men that can hold our heads up and defend our home.
“Hey, pops,” I say as I spot him on the enormous TV screen mounted on the wall. He’s in a lavish hotel suite in the Middle East somewhere, if the modern yet tribal decor behind him is any sign.
Adam Taylor is who I will be in thirty years.
If I need to know what I’ll look like when I’m in my fifties, I just need to look at my Pops and there’s my answer.
He has thick, dark hair, longer on top and slicked back–that’s currently covered by some sort of patterned head cloth–and deep blue eyes that have a darkness in their depths that only comes from gang life. Overall, pretty fucking handsome.
“Jude!” he exclaims, the lines around his eyes prominent as he grins at me.
“How are you, my boy?” There’s an edge of concern in his tone as he checks me over, no doubt trying to see if there are any fresh scars on my bare torso.
He knows my need for pain when my emotions run high, and although he hasn’t pushed me to seek medical help, I know that he worries.
“I’m fine, old man,” I tease, and his grin grows wider.
“Careful, boy, I can still whoop your ass!”
“A little hard to do from all the way…where are you exactly?”
“Just outside of Dubai, boy, and you won’t believe the Arabian stock they have here. Absolutely fucking stunning!” His eyes are gleaming as he speaks on his most favorite topic; horses.
“So you’ll be bringing some back then, Adam?
” Tarl asks, his own passion for the creatures rivaling that of my father’s.
He’s especially excited at the prospect of some being brought back from his homeland, his mismatched eyes gleaming and sparkling as he waits for Pops to answer.
I’m surprised that Pops didn’t take him with on this trip.
He usually would, but maybe it’s because it’s so close to Tarl’s homeland or Tarl asked to stay here to help deal with our little Nightingale.
“I may be in talks with Prince Faisal,” he tells my lover, both their eyes twinkling at the thought of new Arab thoroughbreds in the stables.
“And on that topic, I need you boys to go down to the stables and check everything is set for race day. You’ll also need to be there, top hats and tails, on the day as I’m going to be extending my stay a little. ”
“Yes, sir,” we all say in unison, and he chuckles.
“Stand down, soldiers.” He laughs, his face becoming serious and more like the face he shows to the rest of the world. “On that subject, how is our little Soldier doing? Has she broken yet?”
We all go still, and it’s taking all my concentration not to blurt out how fucking strong our Nightingale is. How beautiful and fierce she is. How much I want to hold her as we break her and then help put her back together again.
“We’re trying an alternative approach,” Aeron says, his back ramrod straight. “Hopefully, by getting her to trust us, she’ll tell us what we need to know. We’ve already discovered that she hates her father, so I know we can exploit that somehow.”
“Good work, son,” Pops replies with respect shining in his eyes as he gives Aeron a nod. I want to sink a kitchen knife into Aeron’s left testicle for exposing our Nightingale like that. Even if it is to the man that I look up to most in the entire world.
Aeron returns the nod, but I notice his hands clench into tight fists at his sides, his jaw tight too. Looks like he didn’t want to spill that tidbit either.
“Well, boys, that’s all for now, I think. I got your report on the foot soldier that was spying. Shame he divulged nothing of use,” Pops muses, and I look between Tarl and Aeron.
Tarl gives a minute shake of his head, confirming that they didn’t tell my father about our bird being the Soldier’s Darling.
Even the thought of that raises my temperature, and I count slowly back from ten to keep my cool and not fly off the handle like I did when they told Knox and I exactly what they discovered.
We still need to clean up the living area after Knox went apeshit and smashed everything he could get his hands on.
“Goodbye, father,” Aeron says, bringing my mind back to the room.
A chorus of farewells follow, my Pops giving us his own before disconnecting the call.
“She needs a break,” Knox says quietly into the silence.
“I know,” Aeron replies, scrubbing a palm over his face in a rare show of emotion. “And don’t think I don’t know that you fucked her again, Knox.”
They both glare at each other, their war as old as, well, as old as my sister's rotting corpse. We all know that Aeron blames Knox for her death, she was sneaking out to meet him the night it happened, and even though I’d followed her to see what she was up to, I couldn’t do a fucking thing to stop her fate.
Suddenly, heat flushes through my body, my pulse speeding.
“Enough!” I shout, and they all whip their heads towards me.
“Stop fucking fighting! What happened to June wasn’t anyone in this room’s fault.
So, just stop. Please.” Both their faces soften, all the anger draining out of them at my plea.
“I propose we take Nightingale to the horses, and then she can be my date to the races.”
“Seconded. Though, she’ll be our date,” Tarl states, sauntering over to me and placing a kiss on my lips, and the red haze drains out of me. “I can smell her scent on you, Brat. Like a warm summer’s day and sweet cherry blossoms.”
“She does smell like that, doesn’t she?” I exclaim excitedly. It’s been bugging me not being able to describe her sweetness.
“I also vote in favor,” Knox says, and Tarl and I look over at him and beam.
“Thank you, Daddy.”
I see Tarl raise a brow from the corner of my eye, and I can’t help the way my grin widens at Knox’s blush.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake! Will you all stop fucking my brother!” Aeron throws his hands up, and a bark of laughter escapes my lips at how emotional he’s been lately. I knew Nightingale was going to be good for us.
“You could always join in, bro. I’m sure Nightingale would like that too. She could be the filling in a Tailor brother sandwich!”
“Jesus fucking Christ, Jude.” Aeron sighs, rubbing his face again. “I will not fuck you. End. Of.”
“But you wouldn’t object to sharing pussy space with Nightingale?” I press, unable to help to tease him. Although, that would be hot as fuck. Both of us squashed in that tight cunt of hers, rubbing up against each other’s dicks.
His jaw ticks and that’s when I know I’ve got him.
“Back to the matter at hand,” Aeron says through clenched teeth, instead of answering. It’s okay, I know that it’s a yes. A firm one if the way his slacks are straining at the crotch is any indication. “Let her rest today, then tomorrow we’ll take her to the stables.”
“And the races?” I ask, waiting with bated breath.
“And the races.”
Looks like I’ll need to go My Fair Lady on Nightingale’s ass.