22. Chapter 22 - Rion
Chapter 22
M y fists clenched and unclenched as I tried to calm my body down. To have known what her lips felt like, her lustful noises, the softness of the skin between her thighs, then to have to watch another man covet what was ours? Yep, this was way worse than obsessing over her from afar.
That, I could tell myself was a fantasy, but now that I’d had the reality, I could never go back.
When I read what coffee shop Ravi was going to meet her at, I immediately hacked into their security system. Thirty minutes before they were planning to meet, their whole system was up and at my fingertips.
I had been having uneasy feelings since Roux took care of that issue at the house, and then there’d been the incidents at the library and the mall. She was either a magnet for trouble, or someone had caught on to how much she meant to us and was putting her or us to the test. No matter what, I didn't like it.
With a hot cup of coffee in hand, I watched the shop’s security feed for thirty minutes, cataloging who was coming in and out, and went through the employee roster, including monitoring their socials. I wanted to be prepared for anything.
As soon as she stepped through the door, my whole world halted. She was perfection personified. My eyes traveled to my locked drawer, and a soothing wave rippled from my heart. Yes, and now she’s mine, ours. We won’t lose this chance again.
My eyes stayed glued to the screen to pick up when she breathed or tucked her hair behind her ear. Her absolute cuteness knew no bounds; she practically floated in line. I regretted that cuteness a second later when the barista gave her a set of eyes that made my blood boil.
Grabbing my phone, I pressed Ravi’s speed dial and heard the click of an answer. I barked, “Get there now. Some filthy dog is trying to smell our woman. Exterminate him.”
Ravi growled, “Almost there… and while I want to do what you said, I won’t be able to do that and talk to Rin. Send Roux when he goes on break.”
Nodding to myself, I replied, “Done. Call me when you guys are finished.”
The next second, Ravi walked into the coffee shop, and I was able to breathe again. He wouldn't let that ooze-riddled maggot defile our woman with his touch. By the time I hung up and settled back for a show, Roux came into my room.
“Have they met up yet?”
I gave a sharp shake of my head, eyes closed. He sat down on my bed, and my insides pinched. That was the bed Rin and I’d shared. Turning back to the monitor, I reminded myself we’d never been picky about our rooms and spaces before… until she showed back up in our lives.
While we might have agreed that we would share her, that she would be all of ours, that didn't prevent the ugly feelings of jealousy and possession that I seemed to have when Layrin was involved.
I’d shared everything with my brothers, even our damn woman. Could I not have some small scrap of space that was just mine? Some part of her that was only for me?
“Get off the bed,” I snapped, knowing that I was going to need to figure out how to handle all of that better, but I had time. Rin was going to be with us forever.
His eyes drilled into my back while I watched him through the monitor. He rose up and crossed his arms, clearly irritated, but he was going to need to get used to it. If Ravi had her clothes in his room, then no one got to be on my bed but Rin and me.
Roux stomped up, pointing at the monitor. “Where the fuck are they going? I thought they were going to talk in the shop.”
Clicking around, I zoomed in and followed them as far as I could, but they were indeed leaving the grounds. “Text him.”
Roux yanked out his phone and typed away. I tried to find another camera that would give me a good shot of them, but they were in a dead zone. Ravi knew fucking better than that. He must be distracted.
His phone buzzed, then Roux called out, “He said they’re coming here. Her request.” The side of his mouth tipped up as he read the text over again. He was finally on board. About fucking time.
Letting out an exhale, it felt like all the pieces were coming into place. There were a few bumps in the road, but it wasn't enough to veer us off course. We just needed to keep this up, be her shield and make sure that we gained just a bit more power before we got her submitted as an Externus . Once she was approved, we could spend the rest of our lives together. Simple.
My phone rang. Looking down, I saw it was Ravi, so I opened the phone. “What do you need me to do to get the place ready for Rin?”
“Shit. Fucking shit. Rin. Rin!” Jumping out of my chair, I clutched the phone. My mind was running with a million different scenarios, none of them good.
“Ravi?”
“Oh gods. Okay. I think she just passed out. That might actually work in our favor.” Ravi wasn’t making any sense, and I was having a hard time keeping myself in a calm combat mode since Rin had apparently passed out.
“Ravi, tell me what’s going on, now!”
Roux crowded over me, so I turned the phone on speaker mode. Ravi’s heavy breathing was the only thing I heard for three seconds before he said something that made my stomach drop.
“A black sedan tried to ram into her while she was waiting for me on the curb. I barely made it in time to get her out of the way.” He took another shaky breath. “She’s in the car with me now, heading to our place. The second I got her into the car, she passed out.”
Vibrating menace and destruction, Roux glared at the phone like this was all its fault. He spat, “Who the fuck was it, Ravi? Just get me a name, a descriptor, anything , and I will hunt them down like the fucking dogs they are. I will slit their throat—”
Ravi’s voice found its even edge as he said, “I don't know. Black sedan, no plates, and blackout windows.”
Roux and I looked at each other, all of us knowing what that meant. Foedus or…
Roux finished my thought. “Uncle.” He turned away, running a hand through his hair and tugging on the ends as he bellowed. Ravi was cursing up a storm, but I just sat down, gripping my legs while I slowly inhaled. We needed to keep our heads on straight. We needed to take care of Rin first, then we could plan.
“Is she hurt?” Roux stopped pacing, waiting for Ravi’s answer to my question.
“I don’t think so.” His hesitation made my blood pump in my ears. “I didn't see any blood, but you know that doesn’t mean anything. We should examine her at the house.”
He was right. The hospitals and cops had strategically placed Foedus employees to take care of incidents like this.
Ravi’s voice lowered. “Should we take her down to the basement?”
Roux scoffed, a cynical smile on his hopeless face. “The basement ? Are you planning on telling her everything? We all know she’s not ready for that. She’s not in deep enough yet.”
I knew he was right. She was getting there slowly. Starting to get attached, starting to like us more and more. It was all great progress and much faster than I had anticipated, but she wasn't fully there yet. Once we let her into this world, there would be no return. We needed more time. We needed her to be so in love with us that she didn't care about the unsavory stuff we did.
“Roux is right. Not yet. It's not the right time yet, so we’ll go down, get some supplies, and meet you upstairs in Roux’s room.” His face snapped to mine in question.
“Your room is the only one ready to use. All the basic needs are there for minor wounds and recovery.” His eyes widened before he flicked his gaze to my closet, then back at me, with an expectant look.
I didn't have time for his stupid insecurities. “Once she started to come over, didn’t you put that all away and lock it up?” He gave a slight nod, opening his mouth to counter, but I beat him to it. “If you need to take something out for her, then do it now. Make sure it's locked up tight.”
A pulsing pain shot through the sides of my head, and I lifted two fingers to massage it as I mumbled, more to myself, “If you don't think she’s ready for the basement, she is a hundred percent not ready for your closet.”
His mouth pinched as he exhaled from his nose, reminding me of an angry bull, before he stomped off. “How far away are you?”
“Five minutes.”
Sighing, I got up and went downstairs. “Meet you outside.”
I had to see her. My mind, my body, were unable to do anything else until I got my eyes on her and could see for myself that she wasn't harmed. Then my brothers and I had a lot of work to do.
As I opened the passenger door, my breathing stopped. Even in this state, she was gorgeous. The sunlight caught on her hair, turning those chestnut locks into burnt copper. I could stare at her hair for hours and still come up with different shades and colors.
Crouching down, I looked her over, trying to keep it professional even when my eyes snagged on the creamy column of her neck. My fingers shook with the need to explore her, but I kept myself in check, only touching her when necessary. Ravi had gotten out of the car and was already at my back. “Looks like she doesn't have any damage other than the scapes and bumps from falling to the side.”
“Yeah, but we still need to give her a better check. I slammed into her so hard.” Pain and regret filled his voice, but I wouldn't let my brother do that.
“It's better if she has some scrapes and bruises from that instead of being hit by a car.”
With the utmost care, I picked her up, softly cradling her in my arms. My brother stood there, his whole body clenched up so tight, shaking with fury, he looked like he could snap in two.
“You did the right thing. You saved her life. Don’t regret that.”
My normally fun-loving, silly brother stared back at me with a twisted look, the wrathful oblivion in his eyes needing its pound of flesh. “They tried to kill her. They. Tried. To. Kill . Her.”
I’d never seen him this way before, raw and ruined, so far lost in his anger he wasn't able to bring himself back. I looked down at our angel in my arms, and I knew that while she was the reason for these feelings, she was also the only one who could soothe them.
Lifting her up, I pushed her into him, causing his arms to gentle themselves so he could cradle her. All those dangerous feelings melted away from him as I said, “Take her to Roux’s room.” Not taking his eyes off her, he nodded, gazing at her with the reverence of a religious cultist.
She was our guiding center, our shrine, our altar to worship, and someone had just tried to take her from us. My fists clenched as I watched him take her into the house. They don't know how devout her worshipers are, but they will .
Going after them, I jogged up the stairs and to the right. With the door to Roux's room propped open, I could see he had the room set up for her. Fresh sheets, clean room, and his homemade trolley with everything you could need for minor injuries.
Ravi knelt beside her, combing her hair with his hands while murmuring all the promises he hadn’t spoken to her yet. Roux reached around him, cleaning up the scrapes and blood before putting on some healing cream and bandaged her scrapes.
Looking on while my brothers took care of our girl, I knew what we had to do. It was the only way to make sure this didn’t happen again. The only way we could effectively keep her safe. Everything else could be adjusted, changed, but we could never get a new Layrin Smith. She was our north star, our light in the dark. The only one to tame our darkness.
“I think she should move in with us.” The whole room went so quiet you could hear a pin drop.
Ravi slid his hand into her limp one, clutching it like a lifeline. Roux was still cleaning up her wounds, but he paused to say, “If we do that, everything will need to be moved up. We’ll need to tell her everything soon, and like I said before, I don’t think she’s there yet.”
Opening my mouth to argue, I was beaten to the punch by Ravi’s deadpan voice, which sounded loud and clear. “I don't care. I don’t give a flying fuck about her being ready or telling her everything. It will be on us to make that happen, but her safety is priority one.” After bending over to kiss her hand, he stood up and continued. “You weren’t there. They almost got her. I. Can’t. Live. Without. Her.”
His words rang true to my feelings, and I knew both of us were ready to say fuck it as long as she was out of danger’s grasp. Roux was the only one that needed convincing, and I had half a mind to tell him that I would just figure it all out later. I made my best plans on the fly.
Roux lifted her shirt, and Ravi gasped. Tears in his eyes, he began to whisper apologies over and over. My teeth clenched at the large arm-like bruise around her torso. Putting a hand on Ravi’s shoulder, I croaked, “It's not your fault. You saved her.”
His tears sprinkled the floor as he shook his head, and I knew that if I didn't say something now, point his anger at someone else, he would do something drastic to punish himself. “It's not your fault.” My fingers dug into his shoulder as my vocal cords fiercely growled, “It's their fault.”
“We know, but which they?” Roux asked.
Standing taller, it felt like my bones solidified into steel. “It will always be they against us. The four of us in this room are the only us I will ever acknowledge. Everyone else is a they and their, for it doesn't matter. Whoever it is, it's their fault . They came after us, so we'll go after them. End of discussion.”
Ravi looked up, his eyes like stone. Roux nodded, his lips set in a firm line as he finished cleaning Rin up. “So, are we in agreement?”
“Yes. Rin needs to be safe.” Ravi glanced back to her, lightly touching her blue and purple mark.
“Agreed,” Roux answered, which meant a lot. He never said anything unless he meant it.
“Good. Then the next step is to call Cinzia.”
“What?! Why would we need to talk to the Ricci?”
“Fuck that. Then we’ll show our hand to the Riccis!”
Putting my hands up, I glared at them. They still didn’t understand that while we had made this decision, we still needed to think steps ahead. “We need to call her and convince her to not come after us when we pick up Rin’s stuff from her dorm.”
“Stuff? She doesn't need any stuff. We’ll buy her all the stuff she needs,” Ravi rattled off like a crazy person.
“He’s right. Let's just burn it all and have her start over. It’s not much anyway.” Roux shrugged then folded his arms in a firm stance.
Idiots. Both of them.
Speaking quietly and slowly so they understood, I explained, “We’ve decided Rin will be moving in with us, something that we will be forcing on her. Now, you're trying to say that you want to burn everything she owns and make an enemy of the only other friend she has?” I crossed my arms and watched their faces deflate. “Yes. Good plan. Let’s just put shackles on her as well so she’ll spend the rest of her time planning how to get away from us.”
I sighed, trying to get my emotions in check. “Remember what we’ve been taught. The only way to make someone loyal to you is out of fear or love. Money, objects, advancement, none of those things truly stand the test of time, but fear and love do. Must I remind you that we agreed we don't want her to fear us, that fear is counterproductive to our goal, so we must make her love us.”
Glancing down at her still from, my heart panged. I wished I could hold her, whispering to her how amazing she was and how she had gained three loyal dark shadows at her side so that she never had to fear again.
Roux stepped forward. “But she’s a Ricci. She won’t trust us.”
Exhaling, I admitted something I’d hypothesized for a while. “I don’t think she trusts us, but I do think she knows we could keep her safe. I also have the feeling that Cinzia has a different outlook on Rin. She’s had plenty of opportunities to make her a spy, to brainwash her, or even kill her if that were the goal, but she hasn't taken any of them. I think Cinzia truly cares for Rin. I heard through the grapevine that she’s been arguing with her family more and more.”
Now that I thought about it, I remembered seeing Cinzia’s name on the monitor duty sheets at the last Foedus meeting. For Riccis, that was a punishment. I just didn't know what offense had been committed.
Opening my Foedus phone, I clicked on her contact. It was picked up on the first ring. “Let me guess, you need to call in a real hacker for the Tremun job ‘cuz you just can’t hack it. Am I right?”
Closing my eyes, I recalled that I was doing this for Rin. I needed to make nice with her stupid friend. “Hello, Cinzia Ricci.”
“You know you sound like a bond villain when you say my full name, right? Just say Cin or Zia like everyone else does.”
Her exasperated tone grated on my nerves, but I pressed on.
“That wasn’t what I was calling to discuss with you.” I took a deep breath. “Layrin was almost run over today by a black sedan with no plates and blackout windows.”
Her sharp intake was followed with “Fucking shit! Fucking hell and shit in a handbag. Who was it? Tell me you got a name or a glance at the fucker’s face? Maybe a family symbol? Anything?! I want to skin whoever—”
Tuning out, I let her ramble on since this confirmed what I’d thought. She really cared for Rin and was probably our only ally within Foedus as far as our girl was concerned.
“No. In fact, I was only able to get her out of the way on time since we were going to have coffee on campus. You can check the security camera to confirm.”
“I’m looking at it now. You were at the Bean Machine at 8:10 AM.” Her immediate response came as expected, but I still rolled my eyes. Of course she would be on it like a little psycho with a bone.
“As you can see, they timed the attack while in a dead zone, so I wasn't able to get anything.”
“Shit. I can’t even catch any indicators of when they left campus.”
I didn't want to say that I had already looked that up as well since that might anger her.
“Layrin will need more protection while we figure out who’s behind this, so I’ve decided to have her move in with me.”
The line went dead for a full ten seconds before Cinzia exploded. “Oh, fuck that, you asshole! You can’t just make those kinds of decisions. I know you’re the Prince of Foedus, but that doesn't give you the right to boss Lay around!” I cringed at her choice of nickname, but I didn't want to use the one we’d given Rin and risk her adopting it too. Rin was only to be used by us.
“So, are you proposing to take her to Alpha Sigma Xi?” I spat, knowing she would have nothing to come back at me with. “There’s no way you could think that dinky dorm is going to keep either of you safe, which means you’d use your family connections to keep her safe, right?” Her hesitation was palpable, and a salacious smile creeped up my face.
“Oh, so you don't completely trust her around your family? You don't think Luca would refuse to give her up if Foedus is behind this? You think Elio and you could take down your whole family if your mother disagrees with you?”
Her breathing sped up, and I could practically hear her crunching her phone in her hand. It was time to put the final nail in the coffin. “Do you really think the youngest Ricci can control the whole house to protect one innocent girl?”
“Fuck!” she screamed, and I knew I had her.
She took a turn I knew she would since threats were her MO. “If she tells me you fucking touched a hair on her head, I will fucking kill you. I will find this magical house that you’ve hidden from satellites and cameras, rain down fire on the whole place, and smoke you the fuck out in order to find her. Do you hear me? You can’t stay hidden forever.”
“Now, Cinzia, I can promise you in blood that neither I, nor anyone working for me, will harm Layrin in any way. We will not do anything to her that she does not ask for or want. She will be living like a princess while she recovers from her minor injuries, and I will escort her to and from school in the future. She will, of course, be able to contact you whenever she wants with her phone.”
She grumbled about how much of a bastard I was, and I couldn't help but chuckle. God, did it feel good to put a Ricci in their place.
“Can you and I declare a temporary truce while we protect Layrin from dangerous outside forces?”
She took a beat before groaning. “I really hate that I’m saying this, but fine. You and I will have a truce, for now , but I’m telling you this is separate from having Ricci support. It's just me.”
I nodded like she could see me. “And Elio?”
An exaggerated huff sounded from the other end. “Yeah, you're going to have to broker that on your own. Elio’s a loose cannon, and his position in the family is not… the most stable.”
“Oh yes, he’s the bastard child of your uncle, right? The famous Italian Casanova charmed an Irish singer, and out came Elio.” I tutted. “I’d think your family would care more about skill than silly things like names and bloodlines.”
She cruelly laughed. “You would think.” Then she changed subjects. “What about your uncle?”
“He’s out of the country and shouldn’t be back for a while. Plus, I’m the head of the Ambros family, not him.”
She puffed again. “You and he are co-heads until the naming ceremony.”
“Which is next month,” I growled, not liking that she knew so much.
“If you live that long. Word on the streets is that he’s looking to kick you down a peg or two.”
“How about you worry about your family, and I’ll worry about mine, eh?” When she didn't say anything, I took that as confirmation. With our business concluded, I added in a show of good faith, “I’ll keep you updated on her progress, and as soon as she’s up from her nap, I’ll have her call you. Acceptable?”
“Yes, you damn robot. Fuck. I never thought I would be in league with Ambros .”
“And yet here we are,” I teased before I clicked the end button. We had a lot to plan before Rin woke up, and I wanted everything to be perfect.