Chapter Thirty-Six
Tomás
There was fucked. And there was fucked. I was fucked.
After Kieran left, I couldn’t stay in that room, and I hadn’t seen the fucker at my back until it was too late. I’d been tagged and bagged, like cattle to the slaughter.
They didn’t remove the bag until I entered a dark room where they left me until Liam came for me. Liam glared at Jacob. Unlike Maddox and Tristan, Liam wasn’t imposing. He stood about six feet, lean with a swimmer’s build. He had a tussle of blond hair and his eyes touched more bluer than green. He looked almost delicate. “You were supposed to be gentle,” Liam said, eyeing my wounds.
“He’s still breathing,” Jacob said.
Jacob, too, wasn’t as built like Maddox. But the fucker was solid. Brown eyes, tanned skin, brown hair, he looked like he could’ve once run with street gangs before running with the upper echelon. There was a certain rawness to him. He reminded me of Daniel.
Liam shook his head. “Bring him.”
With that, I was shoved onto my feet and pushed into an office with Kieran and Tristan.
I’d met Tristan Brennan once, after Cillian kidnapped me and Maddox had taken me to his penthouse. I hadn’t really paid attention to the older Brennan, the one Maddox chose over me, at least until now. The guy looked like how I imagined Kieran to look twenty years from now.
“Thank you for joining us,” Tristan said.
“Not like I had a choice,” I shot back.
“No. And it’s a good first lesson for you. When I call, you answer. It isn’t a choice.”
I glared at him and dragged that glare to his carbon copy who looked like he wanted to shut me up too. The shocked look on Kieran’s face made me feel better. He hadn’t betrayed me. He’d never betray me.
“We were just having a conversation we want you to clear up,” Tristan said in way of explanation.
“I don’t know,” I said. The smart ass that I was could never shut up. “My fucking face hurts. I think things got rattled inside a bit. May not be able to help there.”
Anger flashed in Kieran’s eyes. Shut the fuck up.
The thing of it was, I was never really smart. My boyfriend should’ve known that.
Jacob snorted. “I can rattle it some more if you’d like.”
“Big and bad when I’m tied up, asshole .”
Jacob started to move but Tristan held him back with a hand. “Sorry about that. Jacob was supposed to go gentle.”
I couldn’t help but to feel prickly that this was the family Maddox chose over me. His brothers. Not mine. That wedge in my throat made an appearance and I swallowed the shit down.
“Not sure what you expected when you kidnap people.”
“Nothing less,” Tristan said, amused. I did think about punching that amusement off his face, though. My face did hurt. “I recently learned of you and Maddox’s blood relation. I am sorry about what life tossed your way, kid. Maddox is a good man.”
I snorted. “Sorry if I’m a bit prickly on the topic. Being his fucking whipping boy and all. He’d kill this half of the family for you all, so don’t fucking tell me he’s a good man. I hope Alessandro broke his fucking heart, if he even has one. If he even cared about what the fucker did to me.” Yes, I rambled on. But I stopped there, clamped my mouth shut when Tristan narrowed his eyes and shifted uncomfortably.
“What the fuck did Alessandro do to you ?”
For the first time since I got here, I read the room. Maddox was missing. Dr. Casera had given Maddox the video and Maddox wasn’t there.
“Casera gave Maddox the video and Maddox is missing,” Kieran echoed my thoughts.
“You didn’t—” tell him?
“It’s not my place to tell anyone anything,” Kieran responded.
God, I loved the guy and he was mine. Mine.
It didn’t hurt any less telling the story again. But it started to feel as if it happened to someone else. I told Tristan about my mom selling me. About Alessandro protecting me at first. Then what happened when Maddox had agreed to marry Dr. Casera. I even added the bit about Lina.
I think I had the room floored.
Kieran added what happened after the games with Luca and Alessandro.
“Where are Luca and Alessandro now?” Tristan asked.
“We don’t know,” Kieran answered. “Wren took off with Alessandro. He believes Alessandro murdered his mother to kill him in the womb. If there’s evidence of this out there, then he’ll find it. And who the fuck knows where Luca could be.”
I felt oddly unsettled knowing that Luca was out there somewhere quite possibly searching for Alessandro like the hound dog they created. If he found Wren before us, he’d kill him.
Tristan pulled out a blade and started for me. Everything seemed blurred at the edges. My heart sped. I was going to die anyway. But Kieran stepped between us. “You aren’t going to hurt him.”
There was a gleam in Tristan’s eyes. “And why is that?”
“Because I love him,” Kieran said. “And if you don’t approve, I really don’t give a shit.”
I’m not sure what look passed between them. My view was distorted by Kieran’s back. Until Kieran shifted and I saw Tristan handing him the blade, hilt first. “I was going to untie him. You do the honors.”
Kieran still looked ready to fight, but he took the knife and freed my wrists.
“You’re right. I am going legit. The marriage between Brennan and Mancini was a step in that direction. We were going to give the Mancinis the illegal trade through the union. But now, we’re fucked in that arena. And Maddox, Maddox will still go after Alessandro. He’d want his own pound of flesh.”
“Well, he’ll have to wait in line behind me,” I said.
Tristan ignored me. “We have to find your friend first. And you should go back to school.” He looked at me.
“No,” I said. “I’m not leaving Kieran.”
Tristan narrowed his eyes at me. Kieran’s eyes. They looked so much alike. “You’ll be a distraction. I need Kieran with me .”
“Well,” I said, getting to my feet. “I need Kieran with me .”
“Tomás,” Kieran said. The way he said my name broke my heart. He was sending me away. He’d lied and he wasn’t coming back. Kieran cleared his throat. “Tomás can be an asset,” he said to Tristan. “He knows Alessandro probably better than anyone here. If we’re going to find him before Maddox, we need him.”
Tristan thought about that for a second then nodded my way. “You’ll work with Liam and Graham.”
Liam got to his feet. “I’d rather do this alone.”
“Liam, it’s Maddox.”
The mention of their brother made them look wounded. They cared about him.
“Fine,” Liam pushed out and walked out.
“Tomás,” Tristan said. “Whether you want to believe it or not, Maddox deeply cares for you. You are his brother, just as you are mine.” He reached out his hand for a handshake. I have to admit, I thought it a trick. I slowly took the offered truce. “Welcome to the family. Why don’t you both get cleaned up. Ros will show you to your room.”
Room. Not rooms.
Kieran didn’t move, so I didn’t run out the door like every basic survival instinct warned me to. The head of the most influential crime family had welcomed me into their fold. Which meant, I was one of them.
I hadn’t realized that Kieran placed his hand on the small of my back until he gave me a gentle nudge. I moved out with that hand still on me. A solid, strong presence at my back. Kieran would always have my back.
“Are you okay?” he whispered into my ear. “Because you just looked as if you were considering running and you know what happens if you run.”
My cock pulsed at the suggestiveness in his tone. Run, Tomás. Go ahead and try to run away from me. I will hunt you down.
I couldn’t stop the smile forming on my lips. I wanted him to hunt me down. Do things to me. “Don’t tempt me,” I whispered back.
“Try it, I dare you.”
I saw my play. An open living space, double doors ahead spilling out into the night. My body stiffened, my heartbeat raced, and I started to run but got nowhere.
I squealed as Kieran fisted the back of my hoodie and slammed me against the wall. Then as if we weren’t in a house full of guards and his family, he devoured my mouth. The next few moments a haze as he shoved me into a room. A dark room with a bed. As good as any.
“What happened to our room?”
“There’s thirteen bedrooms in this place,” Kieran breathed into my neck, planting kisses against my throat as he undid my pants, yanking them open and pulling out my cock. “I’ll fuck you in every one of them.”
He shoved me on the bed and yanked my pants down. I’d already lost my shoes.
“Thirteen fucking bedrooms?”
He reached behind him and lifted his shirt off his body. My cock sprung to attention at the sight of him. The man so damn beautiful. The peaks and valleys of his perfect form, the chaotic look on his face. Lust, possession, need. The dark dusting of hair around his cock, and that beautiful appendage gleaming with precum. I almost forgot what I’d meant to say. “Thirteen bedrooms sounds fucking fantastic,” I said as he covered his naked body over mine. The heat of his skin flush against my body. I cupped the globes of his ass and pulled him into me, our cocks slotted together.
It felt so fucking good.
“Do all these rooms have lube?” I asked as he started to kiss down my chest.
“I’m always ready. I’m a fucking boy scout.”
He sucked my cock into his mouth, and I melted onto the bed. Fucking shit. I wasn’t going to last. I didn’t last, coming down his throat too fucking soon. But we did have twelve more bedrooms to explore.