Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
ANDIE
As soon as the elevator doors open on the main floor, I’m met by Rafe. Like Keane, he’s also dressed in all black, his head covered by a dark beanie. His face is stoic, a day’s growth of stubble enhancing his already Stygian look, those blue eyes harder, icier. Not giving me a second glance, he starts walking, expecting me to follow.
“Can I grab some cereal or something?”
I haven’t eaten anything since yesterday morning. Well, I assume it was yesterday. I don’t know how long I was out before I was rudely woken by Keane’s idea of an alarm clock.
“No.”
“Wrong answer,” I tell him and turn a sharp right into the kitchen. I’m starving and they can wait a damn minute until I’ve had breakfast.
Arms of steel band roughly around my middle, and I’m suddenly flipped over, my back slamming into the tile floor. All the air explodes out of my lungs in one painful burst.
Keane stands over me, fury dripping off him like a snake’s venomous strike. “When you’re given an order, you will obey it.”
Where did he come from? Rubbing my chest to help loosen my seized-up airway, I goggle up at him, wanting to tell him to fuck off but biting my tongue. I can’t ruin my only shot at proving myself and being invited into my father’s inner circle. Once inside, I can start dismantling his empire one brick at a time, taking everything from him until there’s nothing left.
Because I’m stubborn and loathe being told what to do, I refuse to voice my assent. Instead, I give him a small nod. Accepting it, he leaves the room. He did the exact same damn thing minutes ago in the bedroom.
Rafe wordlessly watches as I pick myself up off the floor. Between my sore face, ribs, and arm, my body has taken a beating over the past couple of days. I’m certain the guys will add more bruises and broken bones before the day is done.
Rafe strolls over to a cabinet next to the microwave and grabs a trail bar, tossing it to me.
I catch it and rip that sucker open. “Keane said something about an initiation. Want to clue me in?”
“Eat as we walk. Jax is waiting for us outside.”
Great.
I bite into the chewy oatmeal and raisin breakfast bar, discreetly taking in my new surroundings as I follow Rafe to the back of the house. Other than the kitchen, elevator, and bedrooms on the lower floor, I haven’t been able to explore any other part of the house.
There’s a living room off to the right across from the kitchen with a U-shaped leather sectional. A dark wood floor-to-ceiling bookcase takes up the back wall, and a gas fireplace is inset into the side wall nearest the couch. The mantle surrounding the fireplace is also made of dark wood. A room that looks like a study or an office is adjacent to the living room and has glass-paned, double French doors. There are other rooms with closed doors that prevent me from seeing what’s inside of them. They all have access panels. I wonder if I’ll be able to open them now with the code Keane gave me. Knowing Jax, probably not.
One of the last rooms we pass is a formal dining room with a large, eight-person ornate dining table taking up almost the entirety of the room. Upholstered chairs in deep red fabric surround the table, their color reminding me of the hilt of Jax’s knife. The room is bare of anything else one expects to see in a place where families sit down to eat their evening meal and talk about their day. I thought this house looked homey when I first arrived. Now, all I see is how empty it is. There is no love here. No personal touches or mementos except for the things I found in the guys’ bedrooms. No knickknacks taking up available space on tables or shelves. The main floor is in such an odd contrast when compared to the creepy-as-hell bedroom I’m forced to occupy downstairs, where a framed photograph of my dead brother haunts me as I toss and turn in a bed that is an exact replica of the one I used to sleep in as a teenager.
Rafe stops at a security panel and then pushes open a heavy door that leads out to the backyard. I tip my face up to the warm sun, soaking in its rays. The humidity is high this morning. I haven’t acclimated back to the sweltering Texas climate after living in Switzerland for years. Sweat is already beginning to drip down the divot of my spine.
Being outside for the first time in several days, I breathe in the fresh air, the smell of pine and earth tickling my nose. The manicured lawn is wide and expansive. A thick forest of pines and various deciduous trees—oak, birch, maple, dogwood, and hackberry—surround the property, their view partly obscured by the massive twenty-foot wall enclosing the perimeter. Just another reminder that I’m a prisoner here.
I used to go for long hikes through the forests in Switzerland on the weekends, and I love being outdoors. Other than Tessa, I didn’t have any friends while there and preferred to be alone. Not allowing anyone to get close to you meant that they couldn’t hurt you or betray you. I’d already had enough of both growing up the way I did. The only person I trusted was Kellan, and Tessa was the only friend I allowed in after Rafe. She has probably tried to check in with me by now, which reminds me that Liam has my damn phone and has more than likely hacked into it. He won’t find anything of importance. Just a few inane text messages between me and GirlDownLow. My laptop is the same. I made sure to save my files on a secret cloud server and not on the hard drive.
There’s movement to my left and I see a man patrolling the grounds, semi-automatic in his hand. Where there’s one, there will be more. The men that work for my father are like freaking cockroaches, scurrying around even when you cut off their heads. I don’t think they were here before, so my father must have told them to stay when he left.
I jump when a staccato of gunfire erupts. The house must be completely soundproofed for me not to have heard it before now. Jax is standing on the east side of the yard, legs spread slightly apart, hand single-gripping a Glock as he fires round after round directly into a human-shaped paper target one hundred yards away. I notice each shot either hits the target’s head directly in the center of the forehead or the bullets penetrate the chest in a perfect bull’s eye around the upper left side.
Once again, an invisible fist clenches my heart as I think about Kellan and how this was his life. It wasn’t a life at all. It was a death sentence from birth. There is no happy-ever-after when you live under my father’s rule. Only ruination and pain. I look at Rafe and then at Jax, and I remember how they used to laugh and joke with Kellan when we were younger. But those times weren’t real either, were they? My father already had his claws dug deep into each of them, grooming and molding them into remorseless killers.
My attention jerks back to Jax when I notice the silence of gunfire. At some point during the last few minutes, Keane came outside. All three men are now surrounding me and every muscle and nerve ending in my body goes on high alert. Whatever they have planned, I’m not going to like it. I follow Keane as he circles around me.
“You shouldn’t have come back, princess.”
Rolling my eyes, I quip, “You keep telling me that, yet here I am.” I twist slightly to keep him in my sights, not trusting him.
“You think you have what it takes to fill Kellan’s shoes?” he sneers, and I want to spit in his face. He said the same bullshit to me before, knowing how deeply it would wound.
Before I can answer with a scathing remark about how he could never take Kellan's place, and then add another eye roll and a ‘kiss my ass’ for good measure, Keane kicks out at my knee, and my left leg buckles underneath me. I drop hard to the ground in a kneeling position, and pain explodes up my right leg. Gritting my teeth, I force myself to stand back up, refusing to give him the satisfaction that my knee is now throbbing like a bitch. Keane tries to swipe my injured leg out from under me, but I see him move just in time, and I’m able to get out of reach quickly enough.
“What does Declan Levine want with you?”
My head snaps to the side where Jax is standing, not having moved from his original position. I feel like they are playing with me. They’re the cats, and I’m the cornered mouse.
“What the hell are you talking about?” I ask him.
The men who held me mentioned the name Levine and how he ordered that I wasn’t supposed to be harmed, even though the bigger guy was enjoying beating the shit out of me at the time. Does Liam work for Declan? Declan is my father’s biggest adversary. The two of them have been fighting over the control of the city for as long as I can remember.
Just as Keane lashes out with his fist, I’m able to smash my open palm against his forearm, sending his fist sideways and away from me.
“Nice try.” My breathing is labored as adrenaline pumps through my blood. I flick my gaze to Jax and Rafe. It’s only a matter of time before they make a move.
“Answer my question, Andie,” Keane coldly bites out.
I’m so focused on him, I don’t see Jax until it’s too late. His knife slices across my bare arm.
“ Motherfuc —” I execute a roundhouse kick, catching Jax on the chin and sending him flying backward.
Planting my feet solidly on the ground, I crouch in a fighting stance, shuffling smoothly in a three-sixty so I’m not taken by surprise again. I don’t want another knife wound.
“Where’d you learn how to fight like that?” Keane asks next.
To these three men, I was the shy, gangly sister of their best friend. I have always wondered what Rafe saw in me to pursue me like he did. Perhaps I was forbidden fruit and he thought of me as a challenge. Maybe it was a pure power play on his part—sleep with the daughter of the don. Or perhaps, Rafe was one of those guys who liked to brag about being the first to pop a girl’s cherry. I was far from a virgin, however, when we finally got together.
I wipe two fingers through the blood that is dripping down my arm and smear it across my face like war paint.
“Why don't you take me on yourself, and I might tell you.”
Rafe issues a quiet “ fuck ” behind me. I’m still waiting for him to join the party and lash out at me.
Keane lunges, but I know it’s meant as a distraction because I can sense Jax coming from my other side.
I drop down and kick upward, my sneaker-clad foot making contact with his balls, and he collapses to the ground like a stone, a painful groan emitting from his mouth.
I stand over his prone body. He’s rolling from side to side, his hands cupping his junk. I lick the blood off my arm, then spit it on him.
“You have to do better than that, gilipollas ,” I sneer, using the Spanish word for asshole when I turn my head and look at my ex. I may not know how to speak the language, but I did pick up a few words here and there.
Jax reaches over for his glasses where they are lying next to him on the grass. If looks could kill, I’d be a mess of guts and bones on the ground. I may come to regret what I just did.
“Oh, we will,” Keane says, just as Rafe wrenches my arms behind my back, and Keane grabs my legs.
I thrash and struggle against their hold as they carry me, cursing their names seven ways to Sunday.
“Let me know when you’re ready to answer my questions,” Keane says just as they unceremoniously drop me into a fifteen-foot earthen pit dug into the ground that I never noticed when I came out here.
I land on my hip in the soggy mud that coats the bottom. At least it helped soften my fall. I glare up the long column I’m now trapped in and see Keane’s smiling face looking down at me. He gives me a small wave of the fingers before disappearing.
“Keane! Get me out of here!” I yell up at him. I’m met with his fading laughter.
My head drops and my shoulders hunch. I hate feeling trapped.
“Fuck it all,” I grumble, then groan in frustration when I see the blood dripping down my arm. Knowing my luck, the cut will get infected. Being stuck in this filthy hole for who knows how long almost guarantees it.
I rip a strip of fabric from my shirt and tie it around my arm, then look around at my five-foot diameter prison. Only those psychos would have this in the backyard. How many people have they thrown down here to torture or have left to starve to death? I could probably climb my way out by making hand and footholds in the soft dirt as I go. I wish the sides were made of stone—then I could rock climb out.
A flash of light has me looking up again just as a fat drop of rain hits me on the nose, a loud crack of thunder follows overhead. Within seconds, the heavens open up above me and rain pummels down on my head like I’m standing under Niagara Falls.
Fucking fantastic .