Chapter Forty-one
Killian
“Before we get to the first order of business, does anyone have anything they want to bring to the table?”
“Yeah,” I say.
Hex looks at me. “Go ahead.”
“I have a personal matter I’m gonna be dealing with.”
“What kind of personal matter?”
“A nobody. Some scumbag. I’ll be careful, and I don’t expect I’ll need any help, but I figured I’d mention it.”
“Is he local?”
“Not really,” I say, reluctant to give more information than I have to.
“Who is he?” Hex asks, his gaze fixed on me.
I sigh with mild annoyance, but I meet his gaze unflinchingly. “Someone from Brynn’s past. Like I said, there’s no reason it would ever come back on us, I have no connection to the guy myself, but he’s gotta die, so…”
“Does Sloane know about this?”
“No,” I clip, shooting him a look. “It’s none of her fucking business.”
“I have a hunch she would disagree about that,” he says wryly.
“Well, she’s entitled to her opinion.”
Hex leans forward, steepling his hands on the table. “What’s going on with you, Kill?”
“Nothing is going on with me.”
“Really? Because you have the Hope diamond of human beings for a future wife and a fortune bigger than all of ours coming to you, and you’re acting like it’s a fucking albatross.”
I shake my head because I’ve thought about bringing it up, but it’s the kind of thing you can’t take back. Once it’s out there, they know where I’m at in all this, and if there’s no way to dissolve it…
“Have you taken your eye off the prize, Kill?”
“No.”
“Then why are you set on avenging Brynn?”
“It’s nothing,” I tell him. “A promise I made to her before that I still want to make good on.”
“You sure? Because I’ve gotta say, Kill, I’ve never known you to strap on a suit of armor before this girl, but you’re still looking pretty fucking shiny to me. What’s your end game here?”
“Same as it’s always been,” I state, but the words feel like a lie on my tongue.
“So Brynn doesn’t mean anything to you? You’ve cut her loose and this is just a farewell gesture before you marry Sloane?”
“That’s right.”
He nods, watching me. “Good. Then you won’t mind if I go after her.”
My blood runs cold.
I’m hyperaware of all of them watching me for a reaction, and it feels less like sitting at a table with my friends than being at the center of a pit of vipers, all poised to strike if a threat makes itself known.
I try to keep cool, but even though I think Hex is just testing me, my body is reacting to the threat I know he could present if he wanted to.
“I don’t think you’re her type,” I say, forcing a bit of a smirk.
He shrugs. “That’s all right. I can make me her type. See, with a girl like Brynn, you fuck her once, and you have lifetime access no matter how much you hurt her. A girl like that will suffer for you. You can put her through hell, and she’ll still love you if you pluck at her heartstrings just right and tell her pretty enough lies. Yet somehow, despite her deeply rooted issues compelling her to be a fucking fool for you, she’s not an idiot. She has a brain, she just doesn’t use it to make romantic decisions. I like that balance, and I already have an in with her. I had a little fun with her while you were still together. She tell you that?”
My stomach bottoms out.
What the fuck is he talking about?
He runs his palm over the grain of the table as if he’s caressing a woman instead of a thing.
Which is funny, because I’d wager sometimes when he touches women, he makes them feel like things.
But the idea that he ever touched Brynn…
No. He didn’t. I know he didn’t.
She would have said something.
Right?
I feel a moment of cold horror when I remember her story about her stepfather, about how she kept what was happening to her bottled up to protect the people she loved.
You made me fall in love with you.
Oh, that fucking hurts.
I can’t be getting distracted like that when Hex has me in his crosshairs. This is hard enough as it is.
He didn’t touch her. I know he didn’t touch her, so I just have to focus on what I know and ignore his baiting.
“I knew she couldn’t be anything serious to you, of course,” he says. “We all knew that from the beginning, so the normal rule of hands-off doesn’t really apply to her, does it? She was never more than a passing amusement for you. She couldn’t be. Any one of us could fuck her. Hell, all of us could.”
“Well, some of us,” Silvan corrects.
I glance at him and see Dare smirking faintly next to him. Of course that fucker’s enjoying the show. My gaze drifts back to Silvan, and he locks eyes with me, trying to ground me and encourage me without words to keep it together.
Blue Bloods can’t fight with each other over territory, and that’s what Brynn would be considered. If Hex can bait me into a brawl over her… well, Brynn’s fucked.
It goes against every agitated instinct in my body, but the only way I can keep her safe is to refrain from attacking this fucker as he does his best to get punched in the face.
Seeing he hasn’t pushed me far enough yet, he pushes a little harder.
“Yeah,” Hex murmurs. “We could tie her to this table and take turns with her right in front of you. Kind of like we tied her to this table that night. Legs spread so we could all see that pretty pussy barely shielded by her virginal cotton panties. Arms overhead with her tits pressed out so we could have a nice view of those, too. I bet you’ve seen her like that, huh? The perfect sacrifice—sans her virginity at that point, of course. But that’s okay. I didn’t need that. I just had to make sure she knew how to keep her pretty mouth shut when I told her to, no matter what I did to her.”
His description of her makes my fucking blood boil and his specifics make me queasy, but I still know there’s no way.
No fucking way.
Brynn was with me almost every night, and when she wasn’t…
She would have told me if he did something to her.
Wouldn’t she?
“You’re right about me not being her preferred type, though. I’m not shiny enough for Brynn Blakely,” he remarks, dark amusement in his tone. “You should have seen how afraid she was when I climbed on top of her.”
My hands fist beneath the table and I have to resist the urge to roll my shoulders, then leap across the table at one of my best friends.
This never happened. Just ignore him. Don’t imagine it.
“When I slid my hand up her soft inner thigh. Her fearful little cry. She wished so badly her hero was here to help her. But he wasn’t.”
My stomach clenches. I have to roll my neck. I can’t help it.
This is fucking torture, and he knows it.
“Stop.” I glare at him. “There’s no fucking way any of this happened.”
His eyes twinkle with amusement. “How sure are you?”
Not sure enough, because I’m about one more fucking visual from torching everything I’ve built for myself and ripping his smug ass off that chair.
“You want to fight me, Kill?” he asks, his tone tinged with dark amusement. “How come? She doesn’t matter, right?”
“You’re being a fucking asshole,” I snap. “Just because it’s over doesn’t mean I didn’t like her. You know I did. It wasn’t a fucking secret.”
“The problem is, I think you still do,” he says, leaning back and crossing his arms. “And I think because you do, you’re not being fair to Sloane.”
“And you care about Sloane?” I ask, amused at the very idea.
“No,” he says flatly. “But I very much care about having the continued favor of her father, one of the most influential fucking people in the country, Kill.” He leans forward, locking eyes with me, and I can see he’s serious. “And so should you. Definitely more than you should care about some girl you fucked for a week and a half.”
He’s right, I should.
Looking at it from his perspective, I’d probably want to kick my ass for acting this way, too. It’s not logical, but the rocket to the top has lost its appeal to me. It doesn’t matter how great that life would look from the outside, it wouldn’t mean anything to me without her.
I’d rather start at the bottom with Brynn and build it all myself than take a golden elevator to the top that demands I let go of her.
I’d rather do anything than let go of her.
But I’m fucking trapped.
Buried beneath the foundation of a life I started building before I met her.
And if I break through that concrete and try to fight my way out, I won’t make it. There are too many opposing forces, and they’re too ruthless.
Hex, in particular. We may be friends, but he’s also our elected monarch, and he takes his responsibility seriously. We all know he has the ability to be a cruel king, lethal and unforgiving if the circumstances call for it. It’s why we picked him.
Unfortunately, it’s also why he would snap Brynn’s neck right in front of me if I threatened the stability of his kingdom.
So I have to navigate this carefully. I’m not worried for me; I’m worried for her.
“Nothing has changed, Hex. I never promised to be a doting husband, all I promised to do was marry her. And her father will be satisfied with that. We both know he doesn’t care about the authenticity of our feelings for one another. He only cares about ensuring stability, that his legacy will carry on through an heir of his choosing, and that that heir’s kids will have his blood in their veins.”
Hex regards me thoughtfully. “Well, last I heard, you have to fuck a woman to put an heir in her belly, and you haven’t so much as kissed Sloane since you started your relationship with her.”
“Yeah, well, we weren’t supposed to be in a relationship yet. She fucking forced my hand, and I don’t like that. Would you?”
He doesn’t say anything, but I can see he gets my point. If a woman ever tried forcing Hex into anything, I would say God help that woman.
“I’m doing what’s required of me. I have a fucking cake tasting this weekend. I’ll eat the cake because I said I would, but I don’t have to like it.”
Our gazes lock and stay that way long enough for Hex to feel me out.
He must decide he’s satisfied, at least for the moment, because he finally nods. “All right. I’ll allow Brynn’s old ghosts to be exorcised, but I don’t think you should do it yourself. You’re too close to it. You’ll make it too personal. And you say there’s no connection between you, but there is. If this person wronged Brynn, it wouldn’t be impossible to look at Brynn and see you’ve been close to her lately.”
I shake my head. “I’m killing the bastard myself. There’s no formal record of what he did to Brynn, so there’s no reason for a motive to ever be connected to her. I’ll take someone if you want me to, maybe some help for the side havoc I’d like to wreak, but the kill is mine.”
“All right.” His gaze drifts across the table. “What do you say, Reid? Are you up for wreaking a little havoc?”
The dark-haired man on the other side of the table nods. “I’m in.”
“Good. That’s settled then. Now, for our next order of business, I want to bring the possibility of a new recruit to the table.”
I relax a little, knowing the business involving me is finally settled for the time being. He put me through my fucking paces just now, and I need a breather.
And then he says, “Aiden Vasile.”
I turn my head to look at him, absolutely fucking certain I must have imagined him saying it. “What?”
“I know this may be a controversial pick,” Hex allows.
Eyes widening, I say, “A controversial pick? He’s fucking impulsive and duplicitous. He’s too fucking slippery for us, Hex. A guy like that can’t be trusted.”
“There have been many Blue Bloods over time—some sitting at this table with us even now—who could be described very similarly. But he has gone above and beyond to get our attention, and while I agree that he’s a bit rough around the edges, I believe he’s also smart enough to adjust as he needs to. Given the level of effort he has put in and risks he has taken to get a chance to join us, it’s clear he is dedicated and that he wants it more than most. I believe he deserves our consideration.”
“All right. Considered. No.”
Hex looks at me. “That’s not consideration.”
“It is. We all have to agree, or he doesn’t get in. That’s the fucking rule, Hex, and there’s no way in hell I’m agreeing.”
“You don’t even want to hear the case for letting him in?”
“Nope. Nothing you can say will change my mind about it. I tried to fucking kill the guy. I think I made my position pretty clear.”
“All right, then. I guess we can all leave early this evening.”
I’m out of the chair before he dismisses us, leaving them behind so I can get myself a fucking drink.
I expect Hex might come in to talk to me, but Silvan comes in instead. “You all right?”
“Yeah, fucking fantastic.” I pour myself an expensive scotch and throw it straight back. “I need to get Brynn in an apartment where I can keep an eye on her.”
Silvan glances back to ascertain where Hex is, then he looks back at me. “I can help with that.”
“I need to know who’s coming and going to make sure…” I don’t finish my sentence, but I look toward the room, and he knows I’m wary of Hex interfering.
Silvan nods, crossing his arms. “I know just the place.”
I nod, looking up at him, finally feeling like I have at least a slight grip on things again. “We’ll talk somewhere else.”
He nods. “Sounds good. I’m gonna head out. I’ll see you later, Kill.”
When Silvan leaves, I pour myself a second drink, then I sink into the black leather chair nearby so I can enjoy this one.
Reid wanders in next. “You want to fill me in on this side quest I’m helping out with?”
“It’s immensely fucked up,” I inform him.
He shrugs. “I can handle immensely fucked up. You know my family situation.”
I crack a smile. “It might hit a little close to home. I know you can kill, but I need you to hurt someone and not kill her.”
“Her?”
I nod, meeting his gaze.
“Is it justified?” he asks.
“Some people would probably say no.”
“But you’re saying yes?”
“But I’m saying yes,” I confirm.
He considers me for a long moment, but finally, he nods. “Well, I trust your judgment. So, yeah. I’m in.”