Chapter 11
OPPORTUNIST
* * *
Bursting through the door of the private medical suite, I locked eyes with my brother while Sid looked over his hand, confirming Sloane’s story.
“You’re going to need surgery for this one,” Sid said with a sigh.
Daniel’s eyes narrowed at me. “You see what your new bitch guard did to me? I want her dead, Darren. I’ve had enough of the female disrespect in this house.”
Ignoring his comment, I stormed over to him and slammed my fist under his chin in a brutal uppercut, knocking him right off the medical bench and onto the floor.
Sid backed away clumsily, bloody gauze and medical equipment flying into the air as I marched past him for my target.
“What the fuck, Darren!” Daniel shouted as he attempted to scramble up from the floor.
My foot stomped down hard onto his chest, pinning him in place while he grunted and groaned in pain.
Leaning down, I put all of my weight onto my foot and pulled Jaden’s knife out from inside my suit jacket.
Flipping it open, I buried the blade deep into his shoulder, his growl of pain barely making a dent in my thirst for blood.
But it was a start.
“Did you touch my wife?”
“What?! Get the fuck off me!” he spat angrily.
“Did. You. Touch. My. Wife?”
“Fuck you and your stupid whore of a wife! She deserves worse!”
Seeing nothing but red, I twisted the knife deeper into his shoulder.
“Since you’re so keen on marking up what’s mine, maybe I should have all of Katherine’s hair shaved off so she can’t try to hide her facial burns anymore and you’ll actually have to look at them,” I seethed down at him, my voice firm with venom.
“Or maybe I should just kill her and your daughter so you can start fresh with a younger, unscarred wife and get the son you’ve always wanted?
Is that what you’d prefer? Or do you not like the idea of me making decisions for your family like you do mine? ”
Daniel continued to struggle beneath me, his torn, bleeding hand grasping at my leg and getting his blood all over my pants.
With nearly all of my weight on his chest, he could barely expand his lungs to take a single breath, and each attempt was accompanied by the sharp sting of the blade still piercing through him.
“Answer me!” I roared down at him, lifting the weight of my foot by only a centimeter.
“No,” he croaked, blood leaking from his shoulder down his neck and soaking his shirt.
“I didn’t fucking think so. Like it or not, Daniel, this is my kingdom you’re living in, and you will respect my reign. That includes my wife. Do you understand?”
Daniel groaned and gurgled his words as he tried to pry my weight from his chest.
“So that Russian bitch can shoot your own brother and that’s totally fine with you! There’s a fucking hole in my hand, Darren!”
“A hole that you earned for attempting to attack my pregnant wife!” I snarled in response. “You’re lucky that’s all Sloane did.”
And he was fucking lucky. Because I was still weighing whether or not I should continue and break every bone in his fucking body.
Daniel sucked in several heavy breaths through his bloody teeth before he finally spoke again.
“I wasn’t trying to attack her—”
“Oh, no? Then what the fuck were you going to do, huh? Shake her fucking hand?”
He groaned louder as I placed more pressure into the knife in his shoulder. “No, but maybe if you’d teach your wife some damn manners, I wouldn’t feel the need to do it myself!”
My fist instantly connected with his face, splitting his lip in half and splattering more blood across the floor.
“I don’t give a fuck what she’s done. She’s mine to discipline, not yours!
” I roared down at him, trying my hardest not to completely severe his arm from his shoulder.
“If you ever touch my wife again, or even look at her the wrong way, not only will you lose the entire limb, but you will be on your own, Daniel. I won’t be there to protect you from Matt anymore. ”
Daniel scoffed loudly at my threat, then groaned with anguish as I ripped the knife out of his shoulder and stood back. He took in several gasps of air before his eyes turned to me with hellfire raging behind them.
“I don’t need you to protect me from Matt, Darren,” he spat. “But our family is at war. We’re supposed to show a united front!”
“You mean the war that you started? The war that cost me a once trusted friend, over a dozen allies, and tens of millions of dollars? That war? The same war that has now escalated so far out of hand that it might actually bankrupt Triguard?” I snarled at him.
“Or maybe you’re also including the first war our youngest brother started?
Because he too couldn’t seem to curb his own ego and think rationally before he did something stupid that I would have to clean up!
Seems the two of you had that in common. ”
Daniel’s jaw was clenched so tight I thought he might actually crack it. “I couldn’t have known it would escalate this far. I was only trying to avenge our brother!”
Rage burned in my chest at his deflection for accountability.
“What do you mean, you couldn’t have known?
” I bellowed. “You knew what would happen if someone killed Regina. You just didn’t care when you pulled the trigger.
You let your emotions control your judgment without considering the consequences, and now look where they’ve landed us! ”
Thick silence followed, Daniel’s chest heaving up and down from the exertion as he glared back at me with hate in his eyes. Apparently, he didn’t like having to face one of his greatest mistakes ever made.
“Don’t act like you’re so innocent in this, Darren,” he sneered back as he struggled to his feet, the blood from his hand dripping onto the floor.
“Your failure to apprehend Jaden’s ex has been a significant contribution to this war.
I’m not the only one who has fucked up here thanks to their own ego. ”
I felt my entire body tense from the vibrating lava sludging through my veins. This motherfucker really couldn’t see the large stack of dominos he’d kicked over when he pulled that trigger.
“Jason is an ant that has been able to sneak in and out of the cracks thanks to his wealthy and resourceful benefactor,” I growled.
“A benefactor we just learned he was working with barely a few weeks ago, one he would never have known of if a certain someone hadn’t given him cause to try to destroy us! ”
It could have been three against one, with far more money and resources than Jason could have ever imagined. But instead, it was two on two, and with Daniel’s rationality compromised, it was basically two against one.
It was a good thing I was a very big one.
“Yeah, well maybe if you’d stop coddling your wife, she’d give us the keys to help bring Jason down, and therefore Matt. But you’re still too much of a pussy to confront her.”
This again.
I shook my head at him, disappointed in the man my brother had fallen to. What was once a mostly competent partner I could trust and rely on was now a wild and careless teenager with raging hormones to match.
“Careful, Daniel, your brain damage is really starting to show,” I sneered.
A low growl rumbled up his throat as he took another step toward me, an ill-advised move on his part.
“Fuck you, Darren. At least I have an excuse!” he retorted, tapping at his head with a half-hearted chuckle.
“What the fuck is yours, huh? Who gave you that split lip you’re wearing?
I’ll bet it was your wife since no one else would dare take a swing at you except for her.
She’s always hated you since day one and knows you’ll let her get away with it.
But its gotta be even worse now since you killed her dog, and on her own fucking birthday, no less.
Bravo, by the way, it was seriously about fucking time you put that thing down.
” I rolled my eyes at his petty complaints.
Daniel couldn’t understand my love for Jaden’s fire, and I didn’t need him to.
I just needed him to accept it and mind his own fucking business.
“But at this point, Jaden can’t hate you anymore than she already does, so you might as well keep pushing her until she actually gives you something useful to help bring her ex down and finally end this war. ”
Irritation scorched the back of my throat as I tried to rein in my barely controlled fury. “For fuck’s sake, Daniel, I’ve already explained to you why I don’t want Jaden involved or aware of the depth of Jason’s involvement. I won’t explain it again.”
She already knows too much as it is.
Daniel rolled his eyes as he threw his uninjured hand into the air.
“Why do you even care about hiding anything anymore when she’s already hidden plenty of shit from you!
How long had she known about mom’s letter before telling us, huh?
She held onto that massive destructive secret for years and you think there’s nothing else she could be hiding that might be useful?
! Are you kidding me? She fucking hid Kayla, Darren!
Helped her escape and LIED to you about it!
You can’t possibly be this blind by pussy! ”
“Shut the fuck up, Daniel!” I roared, damn near ready to rip his fucking head off.
He may have been right about Jaden hiding shit from me, but that didn’t mean I needed to involve her in our business.
“You don’t know Jaden like I do. She’s a lot smarter than you give her credit for and is far more manipulative than Regina could have ever hoped to be.
She’s an opportunist to her core and I will not feed that beast to satisfy your irrational need to interrogate her for information I don’t even need. ”
Daniel scoffed, the corner of his mouth lifting into a snarl. “And you think I’m the liability here. You can’t even trust your own wife to be honest with you, let alone have your best interests in mind. She’s still too busy trying to figure out how to kill you.”