Chapter Seven – Kieran
I hated to say it, but I couldn’t get to Fang’s fast enough.
If I thought the world was too out of control right now, I could only imagine how Laina was feeling.
My sister was back in the city, and not only that, but she was pregnant.
Fucking pregnant. It was almost insane enough that I wanted to laugh and assume it was fake.
Knowing my sister, it was fifty-fifty.
To think, if she would have just left Laina well enough alone—if she would have let her return to her life after I kept her those two years, none of this would be an issue.
We could all be one big, happy family. But no, she had to keep going after Laina, and she had to go after me to punish me for going against her.
Tessa might’ve been blood, she might’ve been a sister in name to me, but never again would I listen to her.
Never again would I be her attack dog. I was not at her beck and call anymore.
No, the only person who held my leash was Laina, and if Laina wanted me to finish this once and for all… I would.
Our dad had taught us that loyalty mattered.
Yes, I’d gone against her, but to be fair, all she’d said was Laina had to disappear.
She didn’t specifically instruct me on how that had to happen, so I’d taken advantage of the blurry directions and did what I did.
What Tessa should have realized was that, even back then, Laina was mine, and in being mine, she’d become family to me.
Laina was my family now. Tessa no longer had that grace, and sooner or later she’d face my wrath for it.
I made it to Fang’s, pulling into the alley and parking behind Mike’s vehicle. I flew out of it, heading straight for the door while I messaged Laina I was here. The door was locked, unsurprisingly, so I had to wait a bit. If I had to guess, the others were upstairs, already discussing the plan.
Fucking Tessa. Really, I should’ve known she would try something eventually.
My sister was never the type to sit back and accept the hand she was dealt.
No, she always tried to cheat, to get a do-over, to charm the dealer to her side so she could win in unconventional ways.
Her goal had always been to rise up the ranks in society; we were born nobodies, and since our father worked so much when we were young, we learned how to make it on our own at a very early age.
To some people, that would be a good thing. Learning how to make something of yourself when you came from nothing. I was sure Tessa thought she was the definition of inspiration, but to come back to the city saying she was pregnant? How cliched. Couldn’t she think of anything better?
A minute or so later, I heard the door before me unlock, and seconds after that Fang opened it, giving me a creepy smile as he greeted me, “Kieran. It’s been a while.
I wish this was under better circumstances.
” When he spoke, I got flashes of his metal fangs that were much sharper than any natural teeth could ever be.
Yeah, the guy was weird. I didn’t know why Laina liked him so much, why she had to latch onto him from the beginning, but I’d come to the conclusion that I couldn’t really judge her.
I latched onto her in much the same way, though I liked to think I hid it better than she did.
I hid it for years, until I gave her the key and she mutilated herself in the attempt to tell a story to the world.
“If the circumstances were better,” I paused as I stepped inside, “I wouldn’t be here.”
“True enough.” He pulled the door shut and bolted it, and we headed up the stairs together. “You know, everything with your sister aside, I do think Laina is dying to have us together.” Though he said it so easily, like he was talking about the weather, I knew exactly what he was getting at.
Laina didn’t want her boyfriends to be separate.
She wanted us together. She wanted us to have her together.
Group activities. Personally, I didn’t think I’d be able to do it.
I mean, sure, Fang and Mike had proven themselves worthy of her—they’d saved her life when I was injured and couldn’t—but that night when she snuck out and went to the party was still alive and vibrant in my head.
That college boy she was going to hook up with. How intensely furious I became once I saw them together. How that anger made me break the boundaries I’d set for myself and made me take what was mine.
Would I get just as pissed watching Mike and Fang with her? Probably. Maybe.
“Right now we have other things to deal with,” I muttered. Thank God for that. Me? I was more than okay with continuing on as we had been: the three of us seeing Laina on our own time, in the privacy of our own places, not having to share in the slightest.
Then again, it wasn’t as if I’d had her in that way, either, so who the hell was I trying to kid? Sylvester kept me busy at all hours of the day. This was just an emergency that took priority. It’s like that asshole didn’t want me to spend much time with Laina.
“We do,” Fang said as we rounded the top flight of stairs. “But we won’t always. Just think about it. It would make her extremely happy to have us get along, I think.”
As much as I wanted to argue with him, I couldn’t, so I didn’t say another word as I followed him into his open-concept top-floor apartment.
Hell, maybe he owned the place. I didn’t know much about him, even after all this time.
Never cared enough to ask Laina questions about her other boyfriends because of that friend I called jealousy.
Laina and Mike were sitting side by side on the leather couch in the living room area, no amount of space in between them—meaning, she was practically on his lap. Mostly. Sort of.
Okay, when I walked around the couch I saw they were sitting side by side, but with the way she leaned her cheek against his arm, she might as well have been on his lap.
Laina straightened out when she saw me, a look of relief filling her features as she sighed and said, “Thank God you’re here. Now we can figure out what the hell we’re going to do.” Fang went to sit on the couch’s arm, but I couldn’t sit.
Oh, no. I paced like I was an anxious ball of flesh and bone.
Hey, that was exactly what I was right now, actually.
“We could do what I wanted to do originally,” I offered as I paced around the coffee table before the couch. I didn’t need to say it for her and the others to know what I meant. They could rack their brains and remember I wanted a much more permanent solution way back when.
We’d tried this Laina’s way, and that clearly backfired. It took a while for it to backfire, but it backfired all the same. Now, we were back at square one.
“I’m not saying no,” she said as she lightly ran her fingers over the metal ones on her left hand, “but we need to figure out if she really is pregnant, first. If she is, we can’t just kill her. I’m okay with killing her, but not if she’s actually going to have a baby.”
“And what if she is pregnant, and the baby in her isn’t even your father’s?” I asked, bringing up another possibility, one I thought of during my drive here.
Fang weighed the option. “It is possible. It does seem awfully fishy she’d make her return five months later. The day you confronted her and forced her out, she could’ve met with someone and gotten pregnant.”
“Isn’t there a test they could do?” she asked, glancing at each of us.
With a slight frown, Mike was the one who answered, “I think a doctor could only do it if she agreed to it—and I don’t think she’d ever agree to getting a paternity test done, not if abstaining means she keeps the upper hand.”
Her reply came swiftly: “I could make my dad ask for one. If he’s smart, he will.” Then she wavered. “Although, I don’t know. The moment he found out, he spiraled. He… he said he wanted to be a part of this kid’s life, no matter what.”
Fang mused, “Admirable, I suppose.”
“Sure,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “It’s totally admirable to want to co-parent with the woman who tried to have your daughter killed and is psycho enough to try to have her own brother assassinated on television.”
I ran a hand through my hair. “Do we even know for a fact she’s pregnant? It might be one big lie just to get herself reinserted in this city.”
“No,” Laina told me. “Either she’s forwarding the papers or her doctor is going to contact my dad.
I figure, once that happens, we’ll snoop and find out what we can.
If it turns out to be legitimate, then… then I don’t know.
Then we’re fucked, and not in the fun way.
” When she said that, Mike grabbed her hand and squeezed it, the gesture comforting.
And, what would you know? I was so worked up about my sister that the jealousy in me didn’t even register the action.
“But if she’s not,” I said, “if it’s some lie, then…”
Laina had a retort ready, and even though I half expected her to come swinging with something violent, hearing her say it aloud did do something to me: “Then I’ll use my claws on her.”
The idea that she’d be the one to take vengeance was something I should’ve thought about, but I was so hardwired to want to fix the problem immediately I didn’t give the thought the chance to form.
But Laina using her claws on Tessa? Yeah, you know what? I’d be down for that. I’d be in the front row with fucking popcorn and those little boxes of candy they sold at the movie theater for ridiculous prices.
Tessa deserved it. She fucking deserved it. The things she tried to have done were unforgivable. Vance might have been able to overlook her wrongdoings in the name of his future child with her, but no baby born from my sister’s womb would make me feel anything other than pure rage toward her.
“Sylvester probably knows someone in the hospital,” Mike said. “He could probably pull some strings. We need to find out who her doctor is.”
Laina leaned back and stared at the ceiling, a cute frown tugging at her lips. “Right now it’s a waiting game, then. Sucks. I hate not being able to do something about this.”
“Five months is a long time,” I said, stopping my pacing as the others looked toward me.
“A pregnancy, real or not, can’t be the only thing.
If I know her—and I like to think I do, since I was her attack dog for damn near my whole life—she has something else planned.
Something big. Something we’re not going to expect. ”
“Like what?” Fang asked as he cocked his head.
“I don’t know,” I shot back. “That’s why we’re not going to expect it.”
“Oh, right.” The silver-toothed weirdo glanced at Laina. “Well, if you do use your claws on her, I could always encase her skull in silver like I do for my brother and his kills. You could start your own trophy room.”
Wow. That’s even weirder. I was glad I had no idea who the hell his brother was. He sounded like an intense guy, and knowing Laina, she’d probably fall head over heels for him the moment she landed those pretty pink eyes on him.
If there was one thing I didn’t need, other than my sister coming back, it was a fourth guy in the picture. Yeah, I think I’d lose my mind if Laina wanted yet another boyfriend.
I moved around the coffee table and sat on it, facing Laina.
Once she met my stare, I told her, “We’re going to figure this out together.
I won’t let Tessa hurt you.” Seeing Mike and Fang, and the looks of concern on their faces when it came to her, made me correct that statement. “We won’t let Tessa hurt you.”
She gave me a gentle smile, and then she glanced at Mike and Fang, who nodded along with me. “I know. I just… I wish she never came back, but it’s kind of nice having you three in the same room again.”
I pretended not to notice the way Fang sent a pointed look in my direction, as if reminding me of what he said earlier: she’d love to have us together.
She’d love to fuck us together. As much as I was dying to have her again—because don’t get me wrong, I was dying for her—I didn’t want our first time in this long to be a shared experience with the others.
No, I’d have her all to myself. Maybe with my mask, in the middle of nowhere, just like she said.
As for sharing? Well, maybe I could wrangle my jealousy in, for her. I wouldn’t say whether or not I’d actually enjoy the experience, but if she turned those big, entrancing eyes my way and asked me to bend her over while one of the others made use of other parts of her body…
Maybe I could handle it. Maybe.