Chapter 1 Anna
ANNA
I never thought I’d see someone upset at saving a woman.
But Cap was on a fucking rampage.
“You could’ve blown everything,” the man said as he paced back and forth.
Brutus just stood there, arms crossed over his chest, always looking like he didn’t give a shit. But for once, he stared down at his feet.
He never stared down at his feet.
I didn’t like that.
“You should have come and gotten me. They’re going to know we were there, Brutus. Do you realize that?”
“The fuck was I supposed to do, Cap?” Brutus asked as he lifted his head. “Leave her there?”
“You should’ve come and gotten me! You know how this fucking works! You don’t go rogue!”
Brutus threw his hands into the air. “We’ve all gone rogue! All of you have gone rogue! The only difference is that the woman I went rogue for, I don’t wanna fuck!”
“GOD DAMN IT, brUTUS!” Cap bellowed.
I had enough of this shit. “All right!” All heads turned as I stepped up between them.
Not in Cap’s face, I wasn’t stupid, but close enough that he’d have to go through me to get back to Brutus.
“He saved someone. I know that screws up the plan. I know you’re pissed.
But the man pulled a woman out of that hellhole and you’re standing here chewing his ass over it like that’s the problem worth solving right now. ”
Cap went very still. The kind of still that meant I had approximately one more sentence before this got bad for me.
“So maybe redirect,” I said, quieter.
“Anna.” My brother’s voice was a warning behind me.
Cap looked at me for a long moment. Something shifted behind his eyes, not softening exactly, but recalculating. “You have about five seconds to walk away,” he said, low and even.
I held his gaze for exactly four of them.
Then I shot Brutus a look and went after my brother.
I heard soft crying, and something in my chest pulled tight.
I didn’t know how to do this, how to be around grief this raw, this open.
I’d spent my whole life learning how to keep my own locked down.
Watching it spill out of someone else, someone who had every reason in the world to fall apart, made me feel like the walls of the safehouse were closing in on me.
Though, they had good reason for it, I suppose.
Still. I left the kitchen, storming out to go figure out what in the hell my brother was doing.
But when I found him in the living room of the safehouse, I saw something I’d never once seen in my brother before.
Softness.
He was crouched down and murmuring to the woman who couldn’t stop crying.
“It’s okay, there’s just a lot happening right now,” my brother said as he held out his hand for the woman. “No one is upset with you. Everyone is really glad you’re safe.”
She sniffled, her words broken with her emotions. “No one sounds glad.”
“I’m glad,” my brother said.
I watched him bring the back of that woman’s hand to his lips to kiss.
I quirked an eyebrow as I watched the scene unfold.
I was so busy watching my brother and taking in the scene before me that I didn’t even realize Doc entered the room until he crouched down to her side. She flinched, and almost immediately, my brother was up from his crouched position and sitting next to her on the couch.
“Would you like an arm around you?” he asked.
Since when the fuck did my brother ask permission for anything?
It was like watching a completely different person, to be honest.
Every time Doc did something that made her flinch, my brother was right there, murmuring to her and soothing her.
She finally allowed him to wrap his arm around her, and he tucked her to his side like she was a wounded little bird that had yet to fly the nest. Doc was careful with her wounds, checking out the back of her head and cleaning off the matted blood from her scalp.
I noticed she had ligature marks around her ankles.
Skin that was rubbed raw.
Fucking hell, she had been shackled.
“No,” the woman said.
My attention snapped back to her face and I watched her bury herself into my brother’s side.
“We don’t have to do it right this second,” Doc said. “I’m sure you want a shower. Maybe some food. But if you won’t let me take blood, we have to check and make sure—”
“I’m not spreading my legs for you,” she hissed.
“Hey, hey, hey,” my brother said in a voice I didn’t really recognize before he gripped her chin and tilted her face up to meet his.
“You’re okay. It’s okay. Whatever you don’t consent to, you don’t consent to, and that’s that.
We do need to check things like your hormones, check for infections, your vitamin deficiencies.
Things like that. But once you’re ready for a blood test, that should be enough without needing a pelvic exam. Right, Doc?”
My brother shot the man a hardened look, like it would mean Doc’s life if he didn’t agree. But Doc didn’t seem fazed.
“He’s right,” Doc said as he sat crosslegged on the floor. “If you can find a way to tolerate the needle for just a few seconds, that’ll be all I need.”
The woman sniffled. “But can I take a shower first?”
Doc nodded. “As long as you feel strong enough to stand by yourself in the shower. Otherwise, I’m sure there’s a tub around here that you can use.”
“Three of them,” my brother said as he scooped the woman beneath his arm a little more. “We’ll figure out what makes you comfortable and go from there. Okay?”
She tilted her eyes up to his face “Promise?”
Did my brother just fucking smile? “You have my word.”
I pushed off the doorway and headed back into the kitchen. I didn’t know what to do with what I’d just seen. My brother, of all people, soft like that. It unsettled me in a way I couldn’t name.
I expected Cap to still be handing Brutus his ass when I slipped back into the kitchen, but there wasn’t anyone there.
Everyone had already scattered, so I started my search.
I wanted to see how Brutus was. I wanted to congratulate him on a job well done.
Rescuing a woman would never be something bad in my eyes.
I was happy he found her.
Hell, I was just happy they were all safe and sound.
“Fucking brute,” Cap grumbled to himself as he charged down the hallway.
He rushed by me, and I pivoted on my feet. “Cap.”
“What?” he asked, not stopping to face me.
“Go find Ariel. You need to breathe for a minute.”
He growled as he paused, his shoulders pulling taut. “Anna?”
“Yeah?”
“Fuck off,” he murmured before he disappeared around the corner.
Yeah, I had to go find Brutus.
Pronto.
I doubled-downed my search, going so far as to check the room off at the back of the safehouse that he claimed for himself.
Not that they spent much time here, anyway.
Part of me wondered if they were going to have to leave soon.
If they were still entrusting the care of this safehouse and the women inside of it to me and my brother and his crew.
But when I didn’t find Brutus in his room, or in the bathroom, or in the living room with the woman he saved, I searched the only other place I knew he might be.
Standing at the picture window that looked out over the backyard of the safehouse.
“Already done the patrol around the house?” I asked as I stepped up beside him.
“You better not have pickles,” he grumbled.
I had to bite down onto the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing. “Nope. No pickles. Ran out.”
“Good,” he grumbled. But then after a bit of a pause, he nodded. “Yeah, patrol’s done.”
I nodded as I gazed out the window, still trying to bury my grin. “Not much space to patrol here. Not like Doc’s fancy mansion or whatever.”
I watched his reflection in the window as he shrugged.
“So…” I sighed as I continued watching out the window, “Cap not a fan of the rescue?”
His gaze flickered over to me in the reflection before he cleared his throat. “Not a fan of the fact that I didn’t consider that she could have been a plant.”
I nodded slowly. “Aaahhh.”
I tilted my head as I continued gazing out the window.
The safehouses my brother and his crew used were always out in the middle of nowhere but backed up enough that it would take time to scout out the area thoroughly enough without getting caught.
For instance, this safehouse. While it backed up to a thicket of forestry that surrounded two sides of the damned place, the other side had an abandoned building next to it.
Together, it created a sort of funnel that would be easy to take advantage of.
Which meant it was easy to watch.
“I’m glad you made it back safely,” I blurted out.
Not sure why the fuck I blurted it out, but there it was.
I watched his reflection in the window turn toward me, his gaze casting down toward the top of my head.
“What?” I asked with a shrug as I pulled my stare away from the scenery and looked up at him. “Would you rather me say, ‘too bad you’re not dead’?”
The sound that escaped his lips was something between a grunt and a chuckled huff. I wanted to believe it was a dry little chuckle. That I managed to get the big boy to breathe easier for a second. But that could’ve also been me stroking my own ego.
Hey, someone had to do it.
“Remember, we still aren’t done!” Doc exclaimed through the safehouse. “When she’s clean, we need to continue with her appointment!”
I heard my brother’s heavy footfalls storming down the hallway toward us. “Got it, Doc! Now shut up so I can think!”
The woman’s whimper hit my ears as my brother broached the T-intersection of the hallway. He looked down to the left and then swept his gaze to the right before he paused. His eyes landed on me, then volleyed to Brutus.
Me.
Brutus.
Me.
Brutus.
He grumbled something to himself as he started down the hallway toward us.
“How’s she doing?” I asked when he brushed past me.
“Fine,” he muttered.
He shot Brutus a look that I’d never seen on his face before.
“The fuck?” I asked when I clocked the look. “Why the hell are you looking at him like that?”
“He knows,” was all my brother said.
He continued on down the hallway toward one of the empty bedrooms with that woman cradled in his arms.
I stood there in the hallway for a second longer than I should have.
Through the cracked door at the end of the hall, I could hear her crying had finally gone quiet.
Just the soft, even sound of my brother’s voice, low and steady, saying something I couldn’t make out.
I didn’t need to. I knew that voice. It was the same one he used on me when I was seven and convinced the world was ending.
I pressed my back against the wall and let out a slow breath.
I didn’t know her name. I didn’t know what she’d been through, not really, not the details.
But she had my brother’s voice in her ear right now, and that was something.
That was more than nothing.
“The hell’s his problem?” I murmured as I looked up at Brutus, only to find him still staring after my brother.
“Hey,” I said.
His gaze snapped back down to mine. “What?”
I narrowed my eyes. “You good?”
He just nodded before turning back to the window.
“Change of plans,” Cap said as he turned the corner, walking the same path that my brother carrying that woman just was, “we’re staying the night here to give King’s crew a break. Anna?”
I already knew what he was going to ask. “I’m fine. I’ll stay.”
Cap nodded as he brushed past us. “Brutus.”
“Yep?”
“Did you hear me?”
He nodded. “Yes, Boss.”
Cap paused. “Bee.”
That got the man’s attention, and he turned his gaze toward Cap. “What’s up?”
Cap clapped the man’s mountainous shoulder. “You did good saving her. I’m just pissed that saving her required us to leave a trail. We’re staying here until we’re certain nothing backfires on us or the girls, and then we continue on with the plan. Can you patrol that much?”
He just nodded. “You know I can.”
“Good,” Cap said as he continued down the hallway. “Did King come down he—?”
I pointed. “Last door on the left. The bathroom in there is the best one. I think he convinced her to clean up a bit.”
That made Cap pause. “Maybe I should wait then.”
“Maybe,” Brutus said as he returned to staring out the window.
I’d never seen him so contemplative.
“We’ll patrol here in an hour, once everyone is settled,” I said to Cap.
He stared at Brutus for a little while longer before nodding at me. “I can cook tonight, if need be.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Brutus said as he finally pulled away from the window.
And it sure as fuck didn’t take a genius to know where he was headed.
“We’ll patrol after dinner,” I amended as I brushed by Cap.
Because as far as I was concerned, he could go kick some fucking rocks for talking to Brutus the way he did.