CHAPTER SIX
Brawley
Clay remains silent once everyone leaves. He simply looks at Aaron and rolls up his sleeves, then finds a tool to break the zip ties. I do the same, rolling up my sleeves and then waiting patiently.
Aaron doesn’t react. He has been tied up for days, so I guess he knew this moment would eventually come.
Clay drags him up by his shirt, then his fist lands on Aaron’s jaw; his head snaps to the side, and he spits blood onto the floor. Clay hits him again, and Aaron’s knees buckle, making Clay hold him upright.
I observe for a moment, letting Clay get out his anger.
When I get hold of this fucker, I don’t plan to let him make it out of here breathing.
After another two punches to the gut, I step in and Clay lets me—he knows this one is mine.
I slam him into Cipher’s workbench, hard enough that the tools rattle and his head cracks against the wood.
“That is for turning off the cameras.”
I pull him forward and slam him back again.
“That is for drugging her.”
I bring my head forward and it connects with Aaron’s.
“And that’s for stalking her.”
Aaron tries to move his hands up, but I pin them and knee him hard in the stomach. When he folds over, I bring my elbow down on his back, and he drops to the floor. When he tries to get up, I put my boot between his shoulder blades and press him flat to the floor.
Clay crouches in front of him. “Did you really think you could come here, take what’s ours, and get away with it?”
“Fuck you, she is mine.”
Clay laughs bitterly. “That is where you’re wrong. You will know by the time we are done with you that she is very much ours.”
Clay stands and nods at me. I haul Aaron upright so Clay can hit him twice more in the ribs, then when he steps back, I let Aaron drop. He stays down and doesn’t try to get up.
I look down at him and think about how scared Kayla must have been when he put her in the coffin and closed the lid. Then I squat down beside him.
“She is the toughest person I have met, and you spent years trying to break her. Yet she came out the other side, and you are the one who ends here. I want you to think about that,” I taunt.
“Let’s go,” Clay says, and I raise a brow at him.
Aaron doesn’t have much fight left in him.
He is covered in cuts, and gauze has been taped to his shoulder and leg.
He is stripped to his underwear and looks half-dead.
I pull Aaron’s heavy weight from the floor, slinging his arm over my shoulder as Clay takes the other side.
We walk him out of the shed, and I don’t ask Clay where we’re going. I trust he has a plan.
Aaron’s breathing is labored, and there is blood on his face from where Clay hit him. His feet are moving, but if he didn’t walk, we would drag him. We take the path but keep off the main routes.
“There are cameras—someone will see this,” Aaron whines.
Clay’s laugh is rich with malice. “You really think you’re the only one who can manipulate the security systems?”
We half-drag him to the cemetery, and now I know what Clay has planned. It’s brilliant.
“You can’t do this,” Aaron groans. Neither of us answer him, because we can and we will. “People know I’m here. I have people who will notice I’m missing.”
Clay snorts. “You came here under a false name, so as far as anyone here knows, Luca simply moved on. And Aaron got out of prison and hasn’t been seen since.”
Aaron weakly fights us, but we pull him toward the far corner of the cemetery, where the grave he buried Kayla in waits.
When we are close enough, I let go of him, and he sags limply with only Clay to stop him from falling.
I open the lid of the coffin, then Clay shifts closer and drops Aaron inside.
Fear gives Aaron a boost of energy, and he tries to scramble out, but I jump down and bring my fist to his face. It stuns him enough that he falls back, and Clay and I close the lid. This is the fate he chose for Kayla, and karma works in mysterious ways.
Clay picks up the shovel and piles dirt on the coffin.
In the otherwise silent cemetery, Aaron’s muffled screams of apology ring out.
“You don’t deserve it, but know Kayla is going to be fine. We will take good care of her, and she won’t think about you again. I hope that sits with you until you take your last breath.”
Neither Clay nor I speak again while he moves the dirt, and once he is done, he smooths the top down with the shovel. It now looks like all the other prop graves, and in a month the grass will grow over it.
He sets the shovel down. “Go home and deal with Vero. I will clean up the mess.”
“Are you sure?” I ask.
Clay nods, so I walk out of the cemetery and don’t look back. This moment is one Clay and I will take to our graves. I know he won’t tell Kayla that Aaron is buried here, and neither will I.
The walk back has my anger at Vero surfacing. He cut out his chip, went radio silent, and did something reckless without me.
I can’t believe he cut out his tracker. I told him not to put it in, and he did it anyway, only to remove it when we needed to use it to find him. He let us worry about him for three long days and didn’t check in. I know he did it for her, but it doesn’t make me any less angry.
By the time I get back to the house, I’ve reached a full simmer. I stomp in through the front door to find Vero on the couch, freshly showered, and when I walk inside, he looks up at me.
“Brawley,” he says cautiously, because he knows.
“Don’t,” I snap and look at Kayla. She simply nods and doesn’t argue with me. I look at Ares, and he doesn’t say anything either.
I grab Vero by the back of his neck, and he stands swiftly, walking as I push him forward.
He doesn’t say anything on the way up to our room, even opens the door willingly, though I kick it shut behind us as I release the back of his neck.
He turns and looks at me, opening his mouth, but I quickly close the distance and push him back against the nearest wall.
I slip my fingers into his hair—it has grown enough that I can get a decent hold—and pull his head back so I can get a good look at him. He looks tired.
“You cut out your fucking tracker,” I growl.
“I did.”
“You were gone three fucking days,” I snarl.
“I had to.”
“I didn’t know if you were alive.” My grip tightens, and he exhales. “Do you understand what that was like? After everything that just happened to her, to then be without you?”
“I’m sorry,” he says, and I can hear the sincerity in his voice.
“I know you are,” I say, pushing him to his knees. “And you’re about to show me just how much.”
He drops with zero resistance, staring up at me with those damn puppy-dog eyes. I reach down and take his face in my hands and tip it up. “You scared me, and you scared Kayla.”
I keep my grip in his hair, and he opens his mouth for me.
I thrust inside, not caring that he gags around me—that makes it better.
His hands grip my thighs, and the sounds he makes have me growing harder.
I look down at him, and he is already gazing up at me, and fuck if that doesn’t make it tough to be mad at him.
Vero always looks at me as if I am the most important person in the room, and that undoes me every time.
“Do you know what it felt like, you being gone for days, when I didn’t know where you were?” I growl and thrust deep into his throat. “I checked the stupid fucking app over and over even though I knew it would show nothing.”
His hands move on my thighs, and I pull back enough to let him breathe, showing that his eyes are rimmed red and his lips are swollen. I press my thumb under his chin. “You went and did something reckless without me. Why?”
“For her,” he rasps.
“I know it was for her.” I press my thumb harder. “That is the only reason you are still in one piece. You don’t get to do something that stupid and not come back to me. We are supposed to be in this together.”
His eyes go glassy, and I know he understands that what he did was reckless. It’s not something I want him to do when his walls come down and he feels everything at once.
“Look at me,” I snap, and he blinks his eyes open. “You are the most infuriating person I have ever known in my life.”
I pull him up by his hair until he is standing, then I back him against a wall, pinning him there with my body.
“And you are so fucking good, do you know that? Even when you do the most idiotic thing I can imagine, I know you do it with good intentions.” I press my forehead against his, and he exhales.
“I’ve never met anyone like you, and I don’t think I ever will again.
You’re one of a kind and you’re mine.” I lean in closer.
“But don’t ever do that again,” I say against his mouth.
“Okay,” he whispers.
“That isn’t good enough.”
“I won’t. I promise,” he says, kissing along my jaw.
I grab the back of his neck, and he curls his hands in my shirt.
“You and her. The two of you in one day. Not knowing if she was okay and then you straight after? I can’t handle it.”
“I will always come back to you.”
But I push him harder against the wall. “You don’t know that.”
“I’m here now.”
“I know you are.”
He looks wrecked—beautiful and mine. Something in my chest finally loosens as I bring my hand up to cup his face, and he laughs softly against my palm.
“Fuck, you undo me,” I mutter.
He smiles even though he looks tired. “Yeah.”
“Every time.” I press my mouth to his. “But don’t let it go to your head.”
“Too late.” He smirks at me.
“You’re mine—that is non-negotiable. You don’t get to remove that, cut it out, or leave me behind. Where you go, I follow.”
“Always,” he says.
“Now we are going to finish what we started, then you can tell me everything.”
He nods and I smash my mouth to his, taking what I need from him. Vero kisses me while I walk him backward until his legs hit the bed. He goes down, pulling me with him, and I move my knee between his. My anger is gone, and I’m simply relieved he is okay and here with me again.
Pulling back from the kiss, he watches me, his hair still disheveled from my earlier grip on it.
“Take off your shirt.” I don’t have to ask twice. He shimmies off his shirt and throws it on the floor as I do the same.
I love looking at him, running my hand down his chest and stomach, and he shivers.
His body responds to my touch, and it never gets old.
Leaning down, I nip at his neck, and he tilts his head back, making a sound that makes me want to eat him.
I work my way down his lean muscles, licking and kissing.
He arches up, and I press him flat against the sheets with one hand on his sternum.
“Stay still,” I growl.
He tries, terribly I might add, but that’s just him. Vero is never able to stay still even for a second. I take my time, working my mouth over every part of him.
He helps me get his sweats down and kicks them aside, but the second I touch his skin, he slips his hand beneath my pants and starts pulling them down.
“I need you,” he whispers.
I press my thumb into the crease of his hip. “You’re going to let me do this my way.”
He nods, and I move my mouth lower until I reach the inside of his thigh. His whole body goes tense, and he shakes as his legs clamp together in a vice grip.
With a laugh, I sit up and look at him, figuring I have tortured him enough.
Settling myself between his legs, I wrap my hand around my cock, and he watches me warily, then reaches over and grabs the lube off the bedside table, opening the cap and squirting it right where I need it.
I work it over my cock with a salacious groan.
When I press into him I go slowly, needing to savor how it feels, how Vero’s head tips back and he whispers my name.
I still for a moment once I’m all the way in, then drop my head to his shoulder.
His body knows mine, the same way mine knows his; we fit together as if we were sculpted this way. I press my mouth to his neck and suck, leaving my mark. I’m feeling very territorial and need this moment, this sign to show the world he is mine.
“You feel perfect,” I say, and he whines in response as I pull back and thrust inside again, showing him how much he means to me. “Look at you taking my cock.”
His gaze locks with mine, and he stares into my soul. When Kayla said he’d healed a part of her soul, I knew exactly what she meant. He heals me in ways I never knew were possible; Vero completes me.
I pick up the pace, and his hands tighten on my back. Vero is vocal, not that it’s a secret what we were doing. But if it were, everyone would know. Every sound he makes tells me exactly what I need to know.
“That’s it, fuck, I love sinking my cock into you.” He shudders beneath me as I thrust in hard and bottom out. “The way your body responds to me, fuck I love it so much.”
“Brawley . . . Fuck, fuck me, please keep fucking me.”
“I’ve got you.”
As I thrust in hard, his whole body arches off the bed, so I wrap my hand around the back of his neck and pull him up for a kiss.
I press my lips to his and rotate my hips, causing him to come apart beneath me, digging his fingernails into my back.
I work him through it, as he shakes and releases a strangled cry.
He goes slack under me, but I only give him ten seconds before I pull out and flip him over onto his stomach, then push back inside him. I grab his hips and fuck him hard as he writhes beneath me until I lose all control, until I come grunting his name.
I move us back onto our sides, leaving my cock inside him, while wrapping my arm tight around his waist.
“Now tell me everything,” I say, then listen intently as he recalls everything he did over the three days he was gone.
“I can’t believe you let Cave cut out your chip,” I finally say.
“Me neither. He had his chance to kill me and didn’t take it, so maybe he isn’t as bad as I thought.”
“It was stupid.”
“I panicked. She was in that coffin, and I needed to do something. I planned to kill Cave until I realized it wasn’t his fault.”
“It could have ended badly.”
“Yeah, but I knew if you found me, you would stop me. I had to do this for her.”
I get it, I would have done the same thing, minus cutting out the tracker from my neck because that is the most ridiculous thing he has ever done.
When he tries to talk again, I put my hand over his mouth and shush him.
Right now, I need him to fall asleep while feeling my cock inside him to remind him he is mine.