Chapter 12 Brutus
brUTUS
“I’ve never seen your nose twitch before,” she said with that giggle in her voice that made my pants way too tight for comfort. “Twinkle Toes would be proud.”
“I don’t think you understand,” I said as those beautiful ice blue eyes of hers stared up at me. Christ, she was tiny. “This isn’t a teasing moment. You can laugh this off any way you fucking wish, Anna, but you know goddamn good and well—”
Her nose wrinkled. “You really don’t like this.”
“Glad to know you’re slow on the uptick.”
She slammed her hand into my chest, but I didn’t budge. She shook her hand out, anger covering up that wrinkled nose and igniting those bright blue eyes of hers. They were like the sky when the sun was out and proud. Not a cloud in it. Not a bird in sight. Just clear blue for days and days.
“I would have never allowed Cap to agree to this if—”
She scoffed. “Like you control Cap.”
“I control a lot of things in this fucking crew that you have no fucking idea about,” I said, the snarl in my voice something I could no longer control.
Her back straightened, but all it did was push those luscious tits of hers closer to me. I saw her puckered nipples through her shirt, and I couldn’t help the grin that slid across my face.
She liked this.
The fighting.
The cornering.
The tension.
“What?” she asked flatly. “The hell you smiling about?”
My eyes darted down her body, drinking in the voluptuous curves that her five-foot-nothing body held. “You’d love to know, wouldn’t you?”
She shoved her hand against my abs, but all it felt like was a child trying to play fight. “Back the fuck up, Bee.”
I bent down a bit lower until my lips sat at her forehead. “And what are you going to do if I don’t?”
“Answer my goddamn question,” I said, not relenting from my argument. “I would have never allowed Cap to agree to any of this shit had I known this was your fucking home.”
“And I don’t understand why you’re so goddamn hellbent on making sure I’m just as helpless as the other tit-carriers in this—”
I slammed my free hand against the wall next to her head, but my voice was dangerously low when I spoke.
“You clearly don’t get it, you thickheaded woman.
You do realize that if we’re attacked again, this puts you in grave danger.
The ring will know where you live. The exact location of your home.
Where you sleep. Where you eat. Where you play.
And even after all of this is said and done, what the fuck is stopping them from coming after you when they know exactly where your location is? ”
Her face dropped, but I didn’t like the statement that came out of her fucking face. “You’re seriously worried about this.”
“The fact that you and your brother are not boggles me, and shows me why their territory is so little.”
“All right,” she said as she stomped onto my foot.
I grunted as I bent over, and she slipped from in between me and the wall. “You little fucking—”
“You little fucking what?” she spat as I slowly turned around, limping on my goddamn foot. “You don’t get to barge into my room, rip apart the plan that I made with my brother and his crew just because—”
“It is my job to take care of every man, woman, and person in this safehouse! Your brother lied to us! This isn’t a safehouse! This is your goddamn home!”
“And you don’t get to come into it and yell at me like you own the fucking place!”
“I do when your goddamn safety is on the line!”
Her bedroom door slammed open, and there stood King, glaring at me with a fury. “You wanna tell me why the fuck you’re yelling at my sister?”
I turned toward him, rolling my shoulders back and balling my fists up at my sides. “You wanna tell me why you’ve made your own goddamn sister’s home a fucking target?”
His jaw ticked. “Her and I talked it over with my crew. We decided—”
“It is not for you to decide!” I bellowed as I stormed toward him. “We brought you into this, not the other way around! You are not in charge! You don’t get to make decisions on—”
King puffed out his chest. “This is my crew, my territory, and my sister. I get to make any goddamn decisions on it that I fucking want. And when Anna came to me—”
I saw red as I reached out and shoved him into the hallway. “And when Anna came to me, you what? Rolled over and decided that sacrificing your sister was worth the other lives of everyone wrapped up in this? Huh? Is that what you thought!?”
“King, no!” Anna exclaimed.
It was the only thing I heard before his fist connected with my jaw. And then, I blacked out.
It was never good when I blacked out.
“No!”
“Brutus!”
“Get off him!”
“Hey! Knock it off!”
“The fuck’s happening!?”
“Jesus fucking Christ.”
“Knock it off, you two. Knock it the fuck off!”
“Get King! I’ll get Brutus!”
But it was Anna’s voice that pierced through the blackened haze that had overcome me. “Bee! Please! You’re hurting him!”
When I zoned back in, King’s bloodied face was beneath me. His nose crooked on his face. Blood poured from a gash in his cheek. I felt hands on me. Lots of hands. All the hands.
On deck.
Memories of my time in the service flashed through my mind.
The men I’d beaten to death with my bare hands during missions I had no business talking about, much less reliving.
I allowed them to pull me off him. I stumbled backward, my back touching against the wall as a blur of hair and tears whipped in front of me.
“Hey, hey, hey,” I heard Charise’s voice coo. “You okay? I heard yelling, and I got scared, but—”
“’M fine,” King grunted as he tried standing.
Then Cap was in my face, and I’d never seen the look that he had in his eyes. “Explain. Now.”
I stared right back at him. “This isn’t a safehouse.”
He blinked. “What?”
I pointed to Anna’s bedroom door. “This is her home. This isn’t a safehouse.”
That disarmed my president. “It’s what?”
His eyes slowly panned over to the door where Anna stood with tears in her eyes. “I just wanted to help. Why does everyone always fight and hate me when all I want to do is help?”
Cap turned toward her. “Anna, is this—?”
She didn’t give him a chance to ask her question, though. She just slammed her door on all of us, and flipped the lock for good measure. Well technically, I heard her flip three separate locks into place.
Three of them.
Who the fuck had three locks on their bedroom door if they felt fucking safe in their own goddamn home?
As far as I was concerned, it only proved my point.
“Is this true?” Cap asked as he whipped around.
I watched Charise and Doc help King to his feet.
Cap didn’t care, though. He just took a step toward the president of the Devil’s Legion. “Answer me, King. Is this true? Because you told me this was a secured safehouse. It’s the only reason why I ever agreed to bring the woman I love here.”
“I need to take a look at him,” Doc said.
“After he answers my question,” Cap said.
Doc bucked up for a moment. “Captain, with all due respect—”
But, Cap just pinned him with a look.
One look.
That steely fucking look that shut all of us up.
“Answer me,” Cap said as he turned his attention back to King. “Are we in a safehouse? Or are we in someone’s home?”
“The fuck’s the big deal?” King asked through the pain I heard in his voice. “We were at Doc’s home before. The fuck does it matter—?”
I growled. “It matters because—”
Cap shot me that same look and it made me swallow my statement.
But that didn’t stop him from continuing with King.
“I won’t have us fighting against one another when we’re supposed to be working together, but Brutus is right.
We would have never agreed to this arrangement.
The only reason why I agreed to using Doc’s place was because I know Doc.
I know how he locks things down. I know how he operates. ”
“You know me,” King said with accusation in his voice.
Cap shook his head. “Not well enough to put my woman’s life in your hands. I asked you for reassurances, and you gave them to me. And now, I’ve figured out that you’ve lied to me? How secure is this place, really?”
King spat back. “As secure as me and my men make it. You think I’d hang my sister out to dry like that? You really think that’s the kind of brother I am? The kind of man I am?”
“You’ve lied to us,” Cap said. “So right now, that’s the kind of man you are.”
Anna opened up all three of her locks before whipping the door open. “Take your petty spat somewhere else. You’re right. This is my home. And I don’t want you assholes in it a second longer. Find somewhere else to fight.”
Her door slamming closed made all of us jump.
A heavy silence descended over all of us. The women were wide-eyed at the end of the hallway as we all stood around trying to figure out who to blame for this nonsense. I hated it. I hated every fucking second of it.
“We should all get some sleep,” Cap said, making sure his voice was heard by everyone. “We’ll figure this out in the morning.”
“There’s nothing to figure out,” King grumbled.
“There’s a lot to figure out, like what the hell else you and your crew have lied to us about,” Cap said as he pointed at the man. “But, that’s a conversation for the morning. Doc?”
“Yeah, Cap?”
“Get this man cleaned up and figure out if there are any other lies they’ve told us.”
“There are none!” King bellowed.
“Raise your voice again,” Anna called from behind her closed bedroom door, “and I’ll cut out your fucking tongues with my goddamn cuticle clippers!”
King went to go open his mouth, but I stepped in. “You heard her. Move. You have your orders.”
At first, no one moved. We all just looked around at each other, waiting for the next person to pounce. But it was Doc’s head movement that caught my eye, and I turned my head to find him nodding at my hands.
“Come see me in the morning if they hurt,” he said before he slid King’s arm around his shoulders. “Come on, big guy. Let’s go get that nose set.”
“Can I come?” Charise asked softly.
“You can do anything you’d like,” King said. “You’re free to come and go as you please here.”
“Okay,” she said softly as she fell in step at his other side.
It wasn’t until the hallway ws evacuated that Cap turned to face me. “You and I will speak tomorrow.”
I just drew in a deep breath and nodded. “Yes, Boss.”
He leveled me with a look before it softened. “I get why you’re upset, but throwing hands—”
I held up my hand and nodded. “I know. I got out of control. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”
“Make sure that it doesn’t,” he said before he lowered his voice. “But for what it’s worth, I would have had the same reaction. No one lies to us and gets away with it. King should’ve been forthcoming with all information so we could have made the best decision for all of the women involved.”
I just slowly nodded. I didn’t trust my words, nor my actions. Anger still bled through my veins, but worry for Anna trumped all of it.
And when Cap finally tore away from the chaos, marching down the hallway toward Ariel, who waited for him, I turned toward Anna’s bedroom door.
“Don’t even think about it,” she muttered from behind it.
I placed my hand against the solid wood. “I’m sorry, Anna. But you have to understand, you are worth protecting, too. Even if you don’t believe it.”
Nothing could have prepared me for the fact that I heard the locks on her door unlock.
Was she about to slug me? I could see that.
Right in the fucking gut. But nothing could have prepared me for the way she whipped that bedroom door open, staring up at me with defiant blue eyes swimming with tears.
“Oh, Anna,” I murmured as I reached out with my bloodied fist, ready to cup her cheek.
I paused, however.
I wasn’t sure if she wanted me to touch her.
“I can take care of myself,” she said softly, without a bite of fight in her voice.
I took a chance and allowed my hand to cup her cheek. It practically spanned the length of her face. She was so delicate. So beautiful. So vital to me.
The revelation stole my breath away.
“I know you can,” I said as I smoothed my thumb along her pudgy little cheek. “But you guys should have been honest with us. We have a lot at stake here.”
“I know,” she whispered.
And as I watched her face gravitate toward mine, I bent toward her.
Slowly.
Surely.
With shivering bones that vibrated at the same wavelength as her cute little giggle that always echoed off the corners of my mind at night when no one was around.
Before those pillowy soft lips of hers found me.