22. North
Chapter 22
North
W hy is Wylder here?
I stare at my brother while his eyes trail between Ranen and the mess we’ve made of his kitchen, and a small part of me wants to shove him out the door and lock it behind him.
That smug bastard must have been so happy when I called him and told him I needed his help. He must have been practically laughing his ass off when he told me his stipulation was coming to see me.
I turn my head up to look at him—and have to keep looking up.
Fucking goddamn giant .
It doesn’t stop me from crossing my arms over my chest as I glare. “What are you doing here?”
“Is that any way to introduce someone?”
I’m still caught up on Ranen’s confession, and on giving the words back to him—the word love clings almost heavily in the air, impossible for me to ignore. I want to hear him say it again.
I want to make him say it over and over.
I have to push that want to the side, because Ranen and Wylder are both looking at me expectantly, and I relent with a groan.
“Ranen, this is Wylder. My dumbass brother.” Wylder arches a brow, and I continue on. “Wylder, this is Ranen. My… boyfriend.” It still doesn’t sound right, but it’s the best I can do, given the circumstances. It’s strange though—I’ve said it before, but it feels like it has more weight now.
“Boyfriend?” Ranen repeats the word softly. His eyes are wide like he realizes it too. It’s different this time. I mean it, not just as a way to get my dad off my back.
And Wylder, the asshole, mouths it back at me like he can’t believe I said it, drawing the syllables out.
Honestly, I can’t believe it either, but not for the reasons he might think.
“It’s a real pleasure to meet you, Ranen. Of course, it could have been under better circumstances than this.” He glances around the apartment, and finally, his eyes land on the mess. “Fuck, North, when Dad said you needed help—”
“ Dad called you?” I can’t hide the incredulous tone in my voice, but it just makes him laugh even more.
“He didn’t say you’d made this big a mess, little brother.” He crosses his arms over his chest, and it makes his biceps bulge. “I thought you were better than this?”
That’s the problem—I usually am better than this. I’ve been more messy since I met Ranen than I have since I was a teenager. Even then, I was a little better at covering my tracks.
But this… telling Ranen that I watched him, that I’ve been obsessed with him from the beginning, from the first time I saw him?
I was practically asking for trouble.
But somehow…
My eyes flick back to the lithe man in the corner of the room as he looks my brother up and down with a mixture of apprehension and curiosity.
“Uh, I’d offer you a drink, but there’s kind of a body in front of my refrigerator.” He says it in a confident voice, but I don’t miss the way he moves around the room until he’s standing beside me.
If I was smart, I’d try to play it cool around Wylder, so he doesn’t realize how much Ranen actually means to me.
But I’m apparently even less smart than I thought, because my arm goes around him and I pull him closer. Ranen melts into the side of my body like he was waiting to see if I was going to claim him in front of my brother. I’d already let Dad know how I feel about him—things haven’t changed.
At least, they haven’t changed in any way that would make me want to show him off any less.
If anything, I want to show him off even more. I want everyone and everything to see that he’s mine.
I want—
“Seems like you two have already had a good time, so can you wipe that look off your faces until we get this mess cleaned up?” Wylder interrupts my thoughts, and I scowl. I risk glancing down at Ranen, but he’s laughing softly even though his cheeks are flushed. It’s not like there’s any way for us to hide what we’ve been doing.
Might as well embrace it.
The sound of his laugh draws Wylder’s attention to him again, and my brother grins at him from behind his beard. “You’re a strange little thing, aren’t you? Are you a killer too, or…?”
He trails off like there’s some logical explanation for what’s going on, a reason why someone who looks as sweet as Ranen would be able to summon up a smile at all when there’s a dead body a few feet away from him and his entire body is covered in bruises and bite marks from his very feral, very violent lover.
“No, I just love your brother,” Ranen says and draws himself up taller. It takes me a second to realize what he’s doing. “So whatever you need to do to get rid of this, to make sure he doesn’t get caught, I want to help.”
He’s making sure Wylder knows our secret is safe with him—that he’s not a threat, not a danger to me.
He’s trying to prove himself in a way that only someone who’s in love with a killer would have to.
It makes my chest feel warm, makes me wonder if it’s possible to fall even more in love with him from something as simple as that. I drop my hand down and thread our fingers together, and Wylder watches the entire interaction with a bemused expression on his face.
“Calm down, kitty. Put away the claws.” I wonder if I can kill Wylder for using pet names. “My brother’s already made it clear he’s willing to leave a mess behind wherever he has to if it means keeping you safe.” He turns back to the body, so he doesn’t see the way my eyes widen slowly as he continues to talk. “First he calls and asks me to kill people who are leaving you threatening messages, and then he leaves a man in fifteen pieces in Dad’s basement because of you… and now this. I’ve never seen North so care… less…” He slowly trails off as he turns around and sees my expression. “Oh, shit. He didn’t tell you about any of that, did he?”
“Uhm, no. He hadn’t mentioned anything about… any of that.” Ranen’s voice is quiet, a little careful, but he isn’t trying to pull his hand out of mine.
He promised there wasn’t anything he could learn about me that would make him turn away. That didn’t mean I expected an entire laundry list of my sins to be dumped on him all at once. If there was ever a trial by fire, this was it.
I glance down at him, and there’s warmth in his eyes—I’m not sure if it’s anger or heat . I’m not sure if he’s mad that I’ve been cutting a warpath all over his subscriber list to destroy anyone who even thought about being unkind to him, or if he likes it.
I have to hope it’s the latter, because I don’t have time to coax him out of anger.
Not when there’s a body in his kitchen getting colder by the second.
Not when we’re probably going to have to take him apart so we can get him out of the apartment without anyone noticing, and that’s the last thing that I want Ranen to see me doing.
“Listen.” I turn to him and cup his face. It reminds me of earlier, of the way it felt to have him so close, the way he looked at me like the entire world revolved around my body pressing against his and the beat of my heart. “I know you want to help, baby. And as much as I know you could, I’d rather you didn’t watch this part. We have to… uh, make sure we can get this asshole out of here in as many pieces as it takes for us not to be noticed.”
I only have to wait a second for understanding to dawn on his face. He swallows hard, like he’s trying to steel himself.
“I can—”
I cut him off with a quick, fierce kiss, ignoring the fact that Wylder is tapping his fingers impatiently on the counter behind us. “I know you could. And you can help later, but this part… I don’t want you to see this part, Ranen.” Before he can open his mouth to tell me he could still help, I add, “It would make me feel better if you didn’t see it. Do you think you can try to figure out if Mr. Barlowe subscribed to you under more than one name? The more we can erase any connection he has to you, the better.”
It’s busy work—I already know it’s busy work, because I’ll probably still have Wylder use his connections to make sure anything trailing to Ranen is completely erased, but he draws in a deep breath and nods.
“I can do that.”
I lean in and press another quick kiss to his mouth and completely ignore the noise Wylder makes.
“It’s uh, nice to meet you. We can talk more once… this is all…” Ranen’s eyes flick to the body and then quickly jerk back forward. I’m glad he doesn’t feel the need to prove himself to Wylder by insisting on staying in the room while we’re doing wet work.
Honestly, the fact that he isn’t so proud as to try and stick it out is one of the million reasons I love him.
Fuck, I love him.
Saying the words aloud seems to unlock something in my chest, and there’s nothing I can do to take them back now. Nothing I would do to put them back into the dark. I’ve never felt like this about anyone before—I’ve never felt this much before.
Wylder and Dad are the only people I have any kind of attachment to. This is different, though, and I barely had the time to figure it out before my brother barged in and—
“Once we get this all cleaned up, Dad wants us to head to his place. I’m sure we’ll all have plenty of time to talk once we’re there.”
Wylder sounds charming, warm, like some gentle giant.
I’ve watched him snap a man’s arm and use the splintered bones as a knife.
He’s anything but gentle .
I’m not sure if I appreciate that he’s at least trying to wear a mask in front of Ranen, or if it makes me angry.
I’m bringing Ranen into this world—maybe headfirst instead of gently easing him into it like I’d planned… but I’m still bringing him in.
Some part of me wants to make sure there are no more lies, nothing else that could stand between us.
As it is, I have a very strong feeling he’s going to want to talk again about the secrets Wylder spilled on my behalf. I’m sure we’ll find time after we get back from my dad’s.
Of course, Dad is a traitor who sent Wylder here in his place, so…
“Don’t bother calling him. He already knew I was on my way here, and he’s making sure there’s a place for us to dump this bastard once we get to his house.” Wylder has always been able to read me, the expressions that cross my face and the posture of my body. He waits until Ranen closes the bedroom door behind him to sling the backpack he’s wearing onto the floor beside him. The loud clink of metal lets me know he’s brought his tools with him.
“I just want to know why he sent you when I asked him for help.”
“Look, Dad may have taught us, but we both know I’m better at cleaning up your messes than he is. I’ve spent our whole lives doing it, remember?”
I remembered. It was why I’d called him to begin with.
“Wylder, listen…” I trail off slowly, and my eyes flick back to the bedroom. “This is important.”
His face softens slightly, and he digs into his bag and pulls out a saw and a plastic tarp. “I know. I already made a call. I’m just waiting for my contact to get back to me. Do I still need to put in that favor? Seems like you figured out who was causing your problems.”
I only hesitate for a second, because I really do understand what I’m asking when I ask him to call in favors.
Then again, he’s already here collecting on his end of the deal, so… I suppose I don’t have to feel that guilty about it after all, do I?
“I know we figured out who it was, but I want to backtrack all the messages he sent Ranen. If I can, I want to erase any trace of this asshole ever knowing about him or what he does. Honestly, if your contacts are that good, I’d love for Ranen’s name to be completely deleted from even renting here. I don’t think this is going to circle back to him, but…”
The thought squeezes tight in my chest, that something I did in haste might end up coming back down on Ranen’s head. I’ve never really worried about being caught before, because I’ve always been so careful and meticulous.
The second emotions were involved, the second there was someone else to be considered when it came to my… activities.
Shit.
I understand why Wylder thinks who we are and emotions like love can’t mix.
That just means I have to do an extra good job when it comes to cleaning this mess up, so I can prove him wrong. Because at the end of the day, I know one thing.
There’s nothing in this world that’s going to take Ranen away from me. Not this fuck up, not the police, not some stalker asshole who thinks he can have him…
And not my family.
Ranen’s mine. I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure I can keep him.