Chapter 4 #3
Her mouth pops open to fight Kasen, but she sees the deathly look on his face and closes it again.
When her eyes come back to me, I raise a brow.
I want to test her, push her, see what she’s really made of, but this is K’s game.
I’m just here as the brains. “I owed them some rent money, okay? Shit, you two are intense. Can you drop this interrogation act? It’s a bit much. ”
My eyes narrow in on her. Those fuckers did this to her over a little rent money?
My jaw tightens. “Who are they?” I seethe.
Two of them might be at the bottom of the ocean already, but they will have mates, and I need someone to suffer for the hurt I see in her eyes.
She’s broken, and I will personally make sure they pay for ever thinking they could mess with our girl.
She shakes her head. “It’s not important anymore, Slater, they’re hardly going to be chasing me down again, now are they, so you two can get off my case over it.
” She looks between us, desperation slipping under her bitchy facade.
“Look, I’m sorry you got messed up in my shit, okay?
But I didn’t come back here for a reunion.
I have stuff to do, the sooner, the better, then I will be out of your way, and you can go back to ruling over your town or whatever trouble you lot are into these days. ”
Kasen sighs heavily. I can feel how tight his body is with tension; it mirrors my own. This girl has us on edge in a new kind of way, and I already know there is no way he’s going to let her go anywhere now that he finally has her back. “Guess we’re doing this the hard way,” he mutters to me.
I can’t help the evil grin that rises in me. “Hard has always been my favorite.”
“What?” she gasps, looking between us for answers.
Before she has a chance to open her sassy-as-fuck mouth again, I scoop her up in my arms and carry her back to her room, her sweet scent wafting all around me as she tries to fight me off. She smells delicious. Like the summertime, all coconut and sunshine.
“What the fuck are you doing? Put me down, asshole.” She whacks my back and squirms around in my hold, reaching for doorways or anything she can to escape me. Her attempts are futile, of course, I’m twice her size, but I do enjoy the way she fights. I wonder if she fucks the same.
Shoving open the door to her room, I deposit her back on the bed. She stares up at me, her expression wild with rage. She’s so damn pretty like this. “Fuck you, Slater.”
My lips twitch up at the sides. “Take this time alone to remember those names, sunshine,” I sing-song, before turning and locking her in.
Loud bangs come from the other side of the door. “Let me the fuck out, assholes,” she cries as her fist slams into the door repeatedly.
I smirk back at Kasen as we move back into the main living room. “So, this is the plan, you lock her up until she talks?”
“You got a better idea? Those scumbags had every intention of beating her to death last night, and we both know it’s over more than rent money.
One of them said she worked for him. Motherfuckers like that run in packs.
Where there are two, there is a whole fucking club of ‘em, and once they work out their boss is missing, our town becomes their next target, and birdie will be in trouble all over again.”
“What did you say the club name was? I’ll look into them.”
“Southern Breakers.”
“I’ll see what I can find. She’s going to be trouble, you know that, right?”
When I glance back over my shoulder, Kasen looks wounded by my words, but he knows the last thing we need is a problem with some neighboring gang.
We have enough going on with him taking the reins of Throne Developments.
“She’s come home to us. You of all people should be over the moon, you mourned her for fucking years when she disappeared. ”
“Yeah, then I grew up and got over it. She didn’t want to be found, and we had bigger issues to deal with. You’re the one still holding on to shit from the past, brother. She might be a complication we can’t afford.”
“Or the one to bring us back together. You know we haven’t been the same since she left.” He has hope in his eyes, excitement for the first time in so long I can hardly believe it.
I nod, agreeing that we haven’t, but life isn’t the same now.
A girl like her, so sweet, wouldn’t have survived the early days of Throne Developments.
The shit we had to do to get it started, yeah, it made us the men we are, but it stole a part of all our souls as well.
“What if she’s not strong enough to survive? ”
“I’m sure you will make sure she is. Was that a test I walked in on? Or you just couldn’t help yourself?”
I shrug and huff out a laugh. “Both. She’s damaged, K. Like something fucked up has happened to her.”
“You tasted that on her lips?” A short, sharp burst of laughter escapes him.
“Whatever she was caught up in, it was bad, that’s all I know.” I check the time on my phone, seeing it’s nearly twelve o’clock. “She’s a pretty distraction, and you know it. If she wasn’t, you would be down the office already, it’s close to midday.”
He checks his watch then runs a hand through his hair, his obvious insomnia clearly catching up with him.
Maybe with her around, he can start sleeping again.
“Keep an eye on her, make sure she takes her meds and eats. I’ll be back as soon as I can.
” Then he’s gone, leaving me in charge of our hostage.
I move over to the security monitor, bringing up her room.
She’s slumped on the carpeted floor by the bedroom door, her head in her hands, defeated, her pretty silver hair all splayed out over her shoulders like a cape.
She’s so little all balled up, so delicate when I can’t hear her smart mouth snapping back at me.
Is she going to be too broken for us? The boy in me, the kid who was hung up on her, wants to go right back in there, scoop her into his arms, and never let her go.
Promise to take care of her for the rest of her life and never let her be hurt like this again.
But this life has taught me that would all be bullshit.
She hates us, rightfully so, because we hold all the power, and she has just stepped back into a world she doesn’t understand.
The night she left, shit got real and power shifted.
Keller Throne crawled his way out of the gutters and clawed his way to the top through a calculated cocktail of intimidation and subtle coercion, his fucked-up specialty.
It would have been magnificent to watch if we didn’t all lose so much in the process.
A girl I once loved, a brother, my fucking childhood.
We survived, but will she? Who knows. Yet I’m sure we’re already too selfish to let her go.
She might be broken, but so are we, and she might just be the only one who can fix us.
I’m not sure how long I watch her for, but eventually she picks herself up off the floor and moves back to her bed, pulling the covers up and around her body, settling in.
She must be exhausted after all she’s been through.
Before I know what I’m doing, I’m touching the screen, stroking her face.
I already know I’m not going to be able to give her up.
She’s etched under my skin and has been for way too long.
And that kiss might have been a mistake, but it triggered something in my brain that will have me craving her until I can have one more taste.