Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
ANDIE
Drying off, I find a comb in the vanity drawer and glide it through my long hair. The new, darker honey color is different from my original blonde, but I find that it’s growing on me. I take a large, fluffy towel roll from a shelf and wrap it around my torso before opening the bathroom door.
Rafe’s eyes watch me as I walk out of the steamed-filled room. At his intense blue gaze, flutters erupt in my stomach like thousands of butterflies taking flight. It’s a look I remember well, and the fact that it still causes a reaction in me, makes me angry.
“Where’s Keane?” I ask, going to the dresser in search of clothes, anything.
I flip over the photo of Kellan, laying it flat, so I don’t have to see the eyes of my dead brother. They haunt me enough in my dreams. Opening the top drawer, my hands shake when I find one of Kellan’s old high school hoodies. Picking it up, I cradle it to my body and press it to my nose. I swear it still smells like him.
“Jesus, Andie,” Rafe says, coming over when he sees the mottled colors of my abused skin.
“You know full well I’ve had worse,” I say, dismissing his concern, but the flaring of his eyes doesn’t go unnoticed. “Now, if you don’t mind…”
“We need to talk.”
“And you can’t wait five minutes for me to get dressed?”
“Andie.”
“It’s Alexandria ,” I snap. He lost the right to call me Andie when he broke my heart.
When I won’t turn around, Rafe stalks off into the bathroom. I take that second to pull the hoodie over my head. I circle the towel around my waist, securing it in place by tucking the end under itself, and grimace as my ribs protest when I pull the cotton material too tight. I open the other two drawers, hoping to find some sweatpants or something to cover my lower half, but there’s nothing. Fantastic.
Rafe comes back, a first aid kit in his hand. He stops at the side of the bed and waits. Like two prizefighters sizing each other up, we engage in a standoff of glares. The asshole is still absolutely gorgeous. The years have only matured his looks from boyish to panty-melting deadly. Rafe was always beautiful to me. As a young girl, I was fascinated by his golden bronze skin covered in intricate tattoos, his thick coal-black hair, and his blue eyes that seemed to glow like polar ice.
“Come sit down. Let me tend to your cuts.”
“I can do it myself,” I reply. His eyes narrow on me, and I know he’ll stand there forever just to prove a point. “Leave the kit on the bed.”
“Can you stop being a bitch for two seconds?”
I hiss out, “ Vete a la mierda .”
My Spanish is very rusty, so I either told him to fuck off or go away with the shit. Whatever. He should get the message either way.
His lips twitch. “ Te he echado mucho de menos, mi dulce rosa .”
He’s speaking the words rapidly, and I can’t keep up. I do recognize rosa. It means either pink or rose. He used to call me his sweet rose.
The door to the room opens and Keane walks in like he owns the place, looking freshly showered. And for some reason, the scent of his spicy body wash and his still damp hair ramps up my irritation.
“This room is fucking creepy,” I comment, needing something else to focus on other than these two men who are stirring up old emotions from so long ago. Emotions and memories that include Kellan.
“Sorry it’s not up to your standards,” Keane dryly replies, walking over to me and shoving me down to sit on the bed.
I make a small protest at being manhandled, but of course, he ignores me. He thrusts some clothes at me, which I refuse to take, and they fall in my lap. Then he picks up the medical kit and opens it, taking out an alcohol wipe and a packet of antibiotic ointment. I try to grab the items from him, and the jackass actually smacks my hand away.
“Good to know you still act like an asshat,” I tell him.
Wrenching my face up, Keane dabs at my cut lip with the alcohol, and I suck in a breath at the sting.
“And you still act like a spoiled little brat.” He says this while applying ointment to the cut. Quickly checking over the rest of my face, Keane hands me another ice pack. “Are you injured anywhere else?”
“No,” I say, just as Rafe says, “Her entire chest was black and blue.”
My eyes slice his way and kill him a thousand times. I jump when Keane’s rough hands start prodding and squeezing me around my rib cage. His fingers cease their exploration just shy of the undersides of my breasts, but that doesn’t stop my heart from thundering like a wild animal. He slows his movements and lifts his eyes to mine. Something dark passes over them that has my heart rate kicking up even higher.
“No broken ribs,” Keane announces, and as soon as his hands leave my body, I can breathe again. “And for the record, I hate what you’ve done to your hair.”
I self-consciously reach up and touch my darker locks that are partially dry now. My natural color is light champagne blonde.
“I like it,” Rafe comments.
I’m about to clap back with, “ From what I saw the other night, I’d have thought your preference would be busty blondes with scarlet-tinted lips. ” But I don’t.
Instead, I give Keane a shrug of the shoulders and tell him, “Not here to impress you, so I don’t give a shit what you think.”
For some reason, that causes his lips to twitch like Rafe’s did a moment ago. I must be amusing today.
Feeling tired and wanting nothing more than to roll over and go to sleep, I look around the room.
“Keane, why am I here? And why does this room look like my old room?” I pick up the stuffed unicorn and throw it like the brat Keane accused me of being. It lands with a sad plop in the corner. “And how did you know where I was? You said my father sent you, but how did he even know I was here?”
That’s the big question I want answered. I was so careful to keep myself hidden. I planned everything meticulously, but my father found out, nonetheless. How?
“Come upstairs and eat.” Keane walks away without another word. I think I may have growled at his retreating back.
“Looks like I’m your escort,” Rafe says, holding out his hand for me to take.
I jump off the bed to get some distance from him. I hate feeling confined and cornered, knowing I can’t come and go as I please. I lived in a gilded prison most of my life under my father’s watchful eye, and I hated it. Even though the boarding school I attended in Switzerland was just another cage of sorts, I had more freedom there and could leave campus whenever I wanted. And now, basically as soon as I place a pinkie toe on American soil, I’m trapped again.
“Lead the way,” I tell him.
The hallway is no longer cloaked in darkness. Recessed overhead lighting brightens the corridor to reveal walls painted a matte black.
“What do these other doors lead to?” I ask Rafe as we walk.
“The other bedrooms. That one is mine.” He points to the second room down from the bedroom I’m staying in. “That’s Keane’s, and that one is where Jax sleeps, which he never does.”
Jax used to suffer from insomnia. I guess he still does. It’ll add another wrench to my plans of snooping around at night.
“Whose room is across from mine?”
Rafe does the security protocol to open the elevator doors and repeats them once we step inside. “That one was Kellan’s,” he murmurs, and damn the tears that start to build behind my eyes when he says my brother’s name.
The lift starts moving and nothing more is said.
In the brief seconds it takes us to rise to the main floor, I go over everything I know so far. My father knows I’m here. Liam kidnapped me and, it seems, has always known who I am. Which means that our chance bump-and-meet at the nightclub in Geneva wasn’t coincidental or random at all.
All my carefully thought-out plans are now in the shitter. I’ll have to readjust, reevaluate, and formulate a new one. Work inside the system, which could be a major plus. What better way to destroy the enemy than from within? I’ll become the Trojan horse they never saw coming.
The elevator doors whoosh open, and I am immediately greeted with the wonderful aroma of coffee. Walking into the kitchen, I actually stumble on my feet when I see Jax at the stove. He’s wearing an apron. Why I find that sexy as hell is beyond my comprehension. I need to have my head examined.
“Sit and eat before you pass out,” Keane commands per usual.
The guy doesn’t know how to ask politely, but I guess he’s used to giving orders and having them followed.
I pull out a barstool at the counter island and sit down. A mug of coffee is pushed my way and I gratefully take it.
“Do you have?—”
“Already in there,” Jax grunts, lifting bacon from the frying pan and placing each strip on a paper towel to soak up the excess oil.
I take a sip of the hot brew and sure enough, it’s sweetened just how I like it.
“Are you guys going to tell me?—”
“Eat,” Keane says.
This time I do literally growl out loud. “Will everyone stop fucking interrupting me all the damn time? It’s annoying as hell.”
“Eat,” Keane says again, taking the proffered plate from Jax and dropping it in front of me.
I look down at the meal and my mouth waters. I haven’t eaten since the night at the bar, and the bacon, scrambled eggs, and toast greeting me have my stomach cheering. Breakfast is a meal you can eat any time of the day. One of my favorite things to make for dinner is homemade Belgium waffles and sausage links.
As I spear some eggs, I ignore the heavy looks I’m getting from each of them. Within a minute, I have inhaled every bite of food on my plate. Feeling better and more alert, I lean my elbows on the quartz countertop and hold my coffee with both hands.
“Why am I here?”
Keane props a hip against the island and Jax picks up his tablet, as if he’s about to take notes like a secretary who jots down meeting minutes.
“You first,” Keane says.
“I was kidnapped, but clearly you figured that out already,” I quip, taking another swallow of much-needed caffeine.
“Why did you come home? Why now? Was living the life of a pampered princess not doing it for you anymore?”
My light indigo eyes flash with anger. “What the hell are you talking about?”
There has never been a time in my life I was ever a pampered princess. I had to endure and survive the cruelty of my father. Everything in my life, I’ve had to fight and scrape for. Okay, well, not so much true this past year with the millions Kellan set up for me, but they don’t need to know that.
Keane cocks his head at me, waiting. A lock of dark brown hair falls over his forehead, and I still my hand from reaching out and pushing it back into place. Things never used to be this tense between the four of us. I grew up around these guys. My gaze briefly goes to Rafe. But that was before. I quickly glance at Keane, then Jax.
These men will pay their pound of flesh for what happened to my brother.
Jax decides to speak up and say the one thing he shouldn’t. “You couldn’t even be bothered to come to Kellan’s funeral. I find it interesting that you decide to come back now. You’re up to something.”
Every nerve ending in my body goes on high alert, but I school my features, so he can’t see how close to the mark he is.
“Don’t you dare say his name. And you know jack shit,” I seethe, slamming my mug on the counter, spilling its contents.
I was absolutely gutted the day Kellan was buried. And it was my father who prevented me from attending Kellan’s funeral service.
Jax’s calculating green eyes pin me to my seat. “I know that your brother, our brother, was killed, and you didn’t have the decency to?—”
I’m out of my seat and literally hurdling the counter island before he finishes that sentence. His eyes go wide just as I slam into him, the tablet in his hand flying across the room as I tackle him to the floor. Rafe and Keane shout something, but I’m too far gone in my rage to comprehend what it is.
My hands wrap around Jax’s neck as I straddle him, my knees pressing down on his arms. I bare my teeth in a snarl as my fingers dig into his throat, wanting to strangle the life out of him.
Someone pulls on my shoulders, but I tighten the grip of my thighs on either side of Jax’s waist. A smile slowly spreads across his face as I start to squeeze, cutting off his oxygen. His reaction takes me off guard, distracting me, and suddenly I’m being flipped over. This time Jax is on top of me, pinning my arms down to the travertine tile. But what’s most shocking is the hardness I feel pressing against my stomach. The sick asshole is turned on. Without my consent, my body reacts, and my hips arch upward. Jax’s smile deepens.
“Get off me.”
He gives me a shake of the head. Switching his restraining grip and using one hand to handcuff both of mine, he moves his other hand down, curving it around my neck.
Bending over me, he whispers, “Turnabout is fair game, baby.”
His scarred fingertips press into the tender flesh of my neck until I start to see spots.
“Jax, stop,” Keane tells him.
“Get off her right fucking now before I remove you myself,” Rafe threatens.
Jax’s grip tightens even more as his lips curve in a wicked grin. And as morbid as it sounds, I close my eyes and allow my body to become boneless. If this is how I meet Kellan in the afterlife, so be it. I’ve already come to terms with the fact that my plan and my life both have short expiration dates. There’s a saying I once heard. “In death I live.”
The clenching around my throat lessens, and I open my eyes to see Jax’s troubled gaze staring down at me with a mixture of fascination and curiosity. For a second, I ponder what he sees when he looks at me. Does my face hold the same emptiness that exists within him? Because that’s how I feel. Cold and empty and just gone.
Keane yanks Jax off me and shoves him back, getting in his face.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
“Are you okay?” Rafe quietly asks me as he helps me off the floor.
I’m feeling raw and exposed, so no, I’m not alright.
“We can finish whatever inquisition you have planned for me later. I’m tired and would like to go back to my room.”
“I’ll take her,” Rafe offers, cupping my elbow and leading me out of the kitchen.
As soon as we exit the room, I pull my arm free from his hold, that one innocuous touch sending me on a spiral back to long ago when Rafe’s hands would touch me everywhere, and I would beg for more.
“You must have a death wish going after Jax like that,” he tells me.
If he only knew how right he was.