Chapter 1
Chapter One
KEELAN
I tightened my arm around Logan’s neck when he began to resist after my little brothers helped Shiloh escape through her bedroom window. I had Logan on the floor between my legs in a rear choke hold. He tried to twist to the side, and I quickly hooked my legs over his thighs, locking him down. He then threw himself backward into my chest. I rolled with the impact, squeezing even tighter around his neck as I did. “Keep it up and I’ll fucking choke you out,” I growled. With murderous rage pumping through my veins, I wished he would, just so I’d have the pleasure of feeling this fucker go limp in my arms. The fear that had slammed into me when Shi had called me for help, then hearing her screaming for it as I’d run into her house…I added pressure around his neck.
“Keelan,” Knox said as he took a step closer from where he stood in the doorway to Shiloh’s room.
Shi had said Logan had drugged her. How could he do that to her—to his niece who had been through so much?
Logan smacked my arm. “I give,” he forced out with what little breath he had left.
I didn’t care how badly he wanted to protect her.
It was wrong.
He’d hurt her.
He’d hurt my girlfriend and for that, something dark inside me urged me to cut the weak tether holding me back from adding that last bit of pressure around his neck needed to knock him out.
“Keelan!” Knox barked, successfully distracting me from my rage and granting me a moment of clarity. Logan was Shi’s only remaining family. It didn’t matter how badly I wanted to kick his ass. He’d hurt Shi and how Logan was dealt with was up to her. I had to respect that.
For Shi, I dropped my arm from around his neck and shoved him off me.
He rolled away, gasping for air. I got to my feet as Creed ran into the room. He glanced at Logan, his expression hardening into a glare, and before I could ask, he said, “Colt took her somewhere safe.”
I met Knox’s already waiting stare. He tilted his head. “Let’s go.”
The three of us were making our way down the hall when Logan yelled out, “Wait!”
None of us did.
We entered the living room, heading for the front door when the fed walked through it. Ian, I was pretty sure his name was. Like when we had first met him at the hospital after Jacob had attacked Shi, he was wearing a suit, only the one he was wearing now was charcoal-colored.
He eyed me and my brothers in an assessing way before his eyes drifted behind us as Logan stepped out from the hall. Whatever he took from staring at us, he let out a sigh. “It appears I’m too late.”
Logan cleared and rubbed at his throat. “I told you I’d handle this.”
“Taking your niece against her will isn’t handling anything,” Ian said in a voice that he managed to make light despite how messed-up the situation was. “It’s abduction, and last time I checked, that was a felony.”
“So is drugging someone,” Creed said in Logan’s direction.
Ian looked from Creed to Logan and his demeanor stiffened. “You tried to drug her?”
“He did drug her,” Creed snapped as he fisted his hands at his sides. “She couldn’t walk and was fighting to stay conscious when we helped her get away from this fucker.”
Knox put his hand on Creed’s shoulder as if he was worried Creed was moments away from going after Logan. Not that I blamed my baby brother for wanting to pick a fight with Shi’s uncle, but it was a fight he wouldn’t win.
“Christ, Logan,” Ian said as he ran his fingers through his hair.
“Her location is compromised. She isn’t safe here,” Logan snarled.
“Regardless, legally she’s an adult,” Ian said. “You can’t make her leave if she doesn’t want to.”
“She didn’t compromise her safety by telling us,” Creed argued. “And she’s a hell of a lot safer here than she’d be with the dick who drugged her because he didn’t get his way.”
The hard look Logan gave Creed made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. “What if you break up?” Logan questioned. “What if this strange relationship between the five of you ends horribly? How do I know one of you won’t compromise her safety to get back at her?”
“I’d say you don’t know us very well, because we’d never do that even if things did end badly, but you won’t even give us a chance,” Creed said and straightened his shoulders. “I love Shiloh. I know that won’t sway you, but I’m telling you anyway so I can look back at this moment and know I tried. I tried to reason with you for her.”
Seeing Logan stare at Creed with contempt, I could confidently say he was unswayed. “I think children should stay out of adult conversations. Clearly, comprehending the risk Shiloh has put herself in is too much for your young brain to handle.”
Fists turning white, Creed tried to step toward Logan. Knox yanked him back and put himself between Shi’s uncle and our youngest brother. Knox was taller and had at least twenty pounds of muscle more than Logan. However, if shit went sideways and they brawled it out, I wasn’t completely confident Knox could win. All my brothers knew a little bit of martial arts from what I’d taught them over the years, but none of them were as skilled as Shi, and Logan had taught Shi everything she knew.
“You want to have an adult conversation, then let’s have a conversation,” Knox said in a voice that dared Logan to say otherwise. “We should go over why you decided that it’d be okay to drug your niece. You know, for the young mind to comprehend it clearly.”
Creed glanced at me with wide eyes. We both knew Knox was about to tear into Logan and he’d do it calmly and brutally.
“Shiloh told you that she didn’t want to be relocated, which you refused to accept because you think you know better. Fine, I’ll humor that. You were her guardian for a year, and I’m sure that in the year you watched over her as she drank and smoked and ran herself into the ground rather than face her grief, you gained some extensive knowledge and experience on what it is to be a parent.” Knox’s words were like verbal assaults, each knocking Logan down a peg and leaving us all stunned. “Because of her unwillingness to leave and the fact that you trained her to protect herself so well so she could live on her own without you around to protect her all this time, you knew you couldn’t force her. Am I right so far?” Knox didn’t wait for Logan to answer. “So you decided to drug her without sparing a single fuck that she had been drugged and almost raped less than a month ago, or that men have repeatedly come into her life and tried to strip away her consent. But you figured you’re allowed to do that, right? You’re protecting her because she can’t do it herself? Did I get all that correct?”
Logan’s clenched jaw and lack of response was answer enough.
I could sense the anger pouring off of Knox, but he only let a tiny bit show with a shake of his head. “You can’t have it both ways,” he said. “You can’t leave her behind, deeming her capable of protecting herself if X showed up, and then return and treat her as if she’s not.”
Logan and Knox fell into a stare-off, both glaring at one another until Knox finished with, “Unless you never really thought that, which begs the question…why did you leave her alone in the first place?”
I had to hand it to my brother. He was a perceptive bastard, especially when it came to Shi.
“Shi will never be safe as long as X is out there,” Logan gritted as if that justified leaving his niece, who’d been spiraling and needed someone to be there for her.
“We understand the danger X is to Shi,” I said, though I knew my words were a waste of breath. It was obvious his vision was tunneled from desperation. Nothing I or anyone could say would reach or reason with him. But that didn’t negate the fact that we did understand, at least the best we could.
When Shi had admitted she was in witness protection because there was a man out there who had stalked her for years, murdered her family, and almost killed her, too, we had been shocked. Of course, at the time, the twins had already been halfway, if not all the way in love with Shi and had said it hadn’t changed anything for them. I wished I could have said the same, that my growing feelings for Shi or how she had become a part of our family made the danger of X showing up not matter. But that hadn’t been the case for Knox and me. I supposed we were more jaded—too experienced with loss to throw caution to the wind when it came to our family. So Knox and I had made sure all four of us talked about it extensively…the implications of her being in our lives.
As we’d gotten more information from Shi later that same day so as to not rush her, because we understood how difficult it was to talk about the night her family had been murdered, we’d researched X as much as we could. We had found Maryland news articles that reported what had happened that night. They hadn’t given much detail. Just that X had broken into their home while she and her family had been out of the house, nailed every window and door shut on the first floor, apart from the front door, then waited for the family to return and butchered them throughout the night. Strangely, everything we had read about that night had no mention of Shi. It was as if she hadn’t existed, and we assumed that it had to do with her being in WITSEC. Then we had learned X was connected to the murders of multiple young women that had happened in the past year. Young brunette girls around Shi’s age.
With the research, the twins had seemed to take the implications more seriously. It still hadn’t changed their minds about being with Shi, but Knox and I had seen the momentary consideration flash in their eyes of what if. Seeing that and knowing all four of us were on the same page, it had made it easier for me to accept that we could keep her around and I could allow myself to embrace the feelings I had for her without guilt. Surprisingly, Knox, who had been the most difficult about Shi coming into our lives, hadn’t protested to her staying, either.
Proving my assumption about him correct, Logan scoffed, “You don’t understand shit.”
Knox glanced at me then, and with that look, I could tell he had come to the same conclusion as well. Dragging Creed with us, we headed for the door. There was no point in arguing with someone who refused to listen. We may not have lost people we loved in a violent way, the way he and Shi had, but we understood loss and we knew what it looked like when someone was being ruled by their grief and fear.
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” Logan snapped.
Ian, surprisingly, stepped out of the way so we could walk through the front door. Not trusting either of them, I purposely walked out of the house last.
Logan grabbed my arm. “You’re not going anywhere until you tell me where my niece is.”
I didn’t yank free from his grasp. Instead, I leveled my gaze with his. “Get your hand off me.”
His grip tightened. “Where is she?”
Out of respect for Shi, I hadn’t choked him out. However, that didn’t mean I wouldn’t defend myself. I brought the elbow of my free arm down on his arm, forcing him to release me.
Logan fisted my shirt next. I threw my arm over his and clamped his wrist between my inner, upper arm and ribs. Twisting to the side, I hyperextended his arm. With his free hand, he threw a punch, but I blocked it.
“You got skill,” he forced out as he managed to get his arm free. “I’ll make you a deal.” He took a step back, rolling his shoulder. “Let’s spar right now. If you can beat me, she can stay.”
“Keelan,” Knox said. His tone was a warning: don’t even humor Logan if I wasn’t confident I could win.
From the short interactions I’d had with him, I could tell he wouldn’t fight fair. I couldn’t really hold that against him because we’d both be fighting for Shi.
I widened my stance. “Deal.”
Right as the word left my mouth, Logan lunged for me.