Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
GABE
I still felt her.
Even now, standing outside in the cold, early morning air pressing against my skin, I still feel the way she burned against me.
The way she looked at me with those big, doe eyes screaming with desperation and those swollen lips, parted with the promise of a plea. The way she ached for me…the way she ached for more.
And I almost took it from her.
I raked a hand through my hair, my jaw tight, my pulse a slow, steady drumbeat of violence beneath my skin. Violence I almost turned on my brother.
Get a fucking grip here.
They’re your family.
But she was my family too, wasn’t she? And that was the issue. She was my family too and yet I didn’t see her like that—no—I saw her as something more.
My phone vibrated against my leg. I reached into my pocket, pressing the button instinctively and lifting it to my ear. Only one person would be calling me at this time of the night.
Before I could speak, Silas’s voice exploded through the speaker. “Where the fuck are they? Theo’s not answering his phone, and neither is Jude!”
I exhaled slowly, but it did nothing to cool the fire that rose inside me. Because I knew exactly what Jude had been doing the last time I saw him…our goddamn sister.
I closed my eyes as the image of that returned. The echoed sound of her grunting as she came apart against his fingers, the way she’d begged?—
I shoved the memory down violently. Now wasn’t the time.
“I have no idea where Theo is, asleep I imagine. His car’s still here, but Jude…you could say he’s been preoccupied.”
Silas let out a sharp, ragged breath, filled with rage and something darker underneath it. “The warehouse is gone. Fucking destroyed and so is Sloane. They fucking tortured him.”
An icy chill swept through me. “And you’re only just calling?” A low, guttural sound came through the speaker. One filled with pain. “Silas? Are you hurt?”
“Nothing I can’t handle, little brother,” he moaned. “I’m heading back now. But you need to lock that house the fuck down. Call who you have to. I want every inch of that place under guard. They aren’t done, Gabe. They aren’t anywhere near fucking done.”
That cold, realisation hit deeper. Because he wasn’t done telling me everything.
“What else?” I demanded.
My eldest brother didn’t answer right away. But it was the sound of his screeching tires and the sharp inhale through his nose. Then, finally, his voice came low, cold, and deadly. “They left us a fucking message.”
I felt it then.
That slow, creeping sickness curling into my gut. “What kind of message?”
His voice was sharper this time. “Sloane’s body hanging from the fucking rafters. Kieran and I walked right into an ambush.”
My stomach dropped.
For a second, the world around me tilted, the words not making sense. I knew Sloane. He was one of our best guys…had been one of our best guys. Dad’s right hand man, the only one he truly trusted. “Is he alive?”
Silence.
Too long.
Then—
“He’s alive,” Silas bit out. “For now at least.”
Fuck .
The relief I should’ve felt never came. Because if they left Kieran and my brother alive, it sure as hell wasn’t out of mercy.
“The note.” I muttered. “What was it?”
“Fucking stabbed in the middle of his goddamn chest.” Silas snarled, then there was a heartbeat of silence before— “They’re coming for her. For our goddamn sister.”
The world around me swayed. I lifted my gaze, scanning the shadows stretching out along the property, finding monsters when before there were none. “Coming for her, why?”
My brother didn’t answer.
Not because he didn’t want to.
But because he didn’t need to.
We all knew. The lies trapped inside her head. The things she couldn’t admit, even to herself. It was all there, every single lie she refused to admit…and every single desire that kept us tethered to her.
The moment I ended the call with Silas, a cold determination settled over me. The weight of our circumstances pressed heavily on my shoulders, but beneath it forbidden hunger gnawed at my resolve.
I dialed the head of our security team, my voice steady as it was answered on the second ring. “We have a situation unfolding here. We need a full lockdown protocol in place.”
“Understood, sir,” the slurred voice of Harley came through loud and clear.
I hung up the call, scanned the rustling trees at the edge of the property and turned, heading back inside.
“What the fuck?” Jude’s voice drifted along the hall. “Silas, yeah…I just saw the messages. What’s going?—”
So now he wanted to be part of the family? I strode past him standing in the middle of the hallway with a stupid fucking look on his face and headed for Theo’s room.
Movement came from the hallway of our rooms. She shifted like a shadow, her wide haunting eyes fixed on me. I could tell she’d been crying.
Fuck .
“Gabe?”
I winced at the sound of her voice, and kept on walking until I stopped at Theo’s closed bedroom door, then shoved down the handle and barged in.
My brother lay sprawled across the bed, unconscious, his breathing deep and even. His phone lay discarded on the floor, the screen illuminated with multiple missed calls from Silas.
“Gabe, talk to me.” Our sister’s voice was barely above a whisper. “What’s happening?”
My jaw tightened, no matter how hurt I was feeling, it needed to take a backseat—for now.
“Hey,” I kicked the side of Theo’s bed.
He responded with a heavy snore. That pissed me the fuck off. I strode closer, whipped my hand back and smacked him across the head. “I said, hey!”
Dark eyes cracked open, seething anger poured from between the slits. “Hit me like that again and you’ll be eating through a straw for a fucking week.”
“Oh yeah?” I grabbed a fist full of his hair and shoved his head to the side. “Don’t answer your goddamn phone when our brother is fighting for his fucking life and you’ll be the one eating through a goddamn straw.”
He blinked, then pushed upwards, those dark eyes wider with the realisation. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
Then he looked down at his phone.
I saw the moment realisation hit. He scowled, reached out and snatched up his cell and stared at the missed calls from our brother.
“Don’t bother calling back.” I muttered and turned around. “I’ve already handled it.”
Angelica stepped in front of me. The silence stretched between us, thick and suffocating. The air in Theo's room was stale, thick with sweat and sex, the weight of something unspoken that clawed its way to the surface.
I tore my gaze from her.
I had to.
Because seeing her like this—branded by my brothers—made something inside me twist too tight.
I forced a breath through my teeth and dragged a hand down my face.
“Someone wanna tell me what the fuck is going on?” Theo growled.
The slick sound of sheets shifted as he pulled himself upright.
“They hit the warehouse.” Jude answered. “Sloane’s…Sloane’s?—”
“Dead.” I answered for him, staring at our sister. “Sloane is dead and our brother and Kieran were the next on the list.”
“The goddamn cartel?” Theo stood, then stumbled forward.
Jude just stared at me. “That’s what Silas is saying. But that’s not all. There was a message…one left embedded in Sloane’s chest.”
“What fucking message?” Theo snarled.
There he was, the real brother. The one not buried under a mountain of cocaine and alcohol.
“Did you know?” The words slipped from my lips.
Her brow furrowed, confusion flared before panic set in.
I took a step closer, feeling the full weight of my brother’s stares. “Did you…know?”
“Know what?” She whispered.
“That they were coming for you.” I answered.
Silence.
A sharp, uneasy, deafening silence.
Angelica shook her head slowly. “No,” she whispered. But something about the way she said it—too soft, too uncertain—made my stomach clench.
Theo stepped closer, glancing from me to her. “Jesus fucking Christ.”
She shook her head, the confusion fading fast now, leaving only fear and terror behind. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I didn’t believe her.
Neither did Theo.
Neither did Jude.
“Oh yeah?” Theo stepped closer, lashing out to grab the back of her neck and pulled her closer. “Maybe we don’t believe you, little liar. Maybe we don’t believe a goddamn word you say.”
The sound of tires screeching against the gravel cut through the silence. It was barely a second later that headlights slashed across Theo’s darkened window, white-hot and blinding, casting harsh, cutting shadows against the walls.
Silas.
He was home.
And if I thought the cartel was the biggest problem we had?
I was about to be very fucking wrong.