In Too Deep

7. Chapter Seven

~Cara~

Kian’s flat couldn’t be any more different from the place Marco and I called home. Low ceilings seemed to press down upon us, scuffs covered the walls and floors, and the furniture had seen better days. A slightly musty smell filled the air; not unpleasant, exactly, but not the scent of a place that got cleaned daily either. We walked straight into the living area with no entrance hall at all, and the kitchen took up one wall of the same room. A couch and an armchair divided up the room, facing a TV on the far wall with a window to the side. Posters of famous rock concerts from years gone by supplied a bit of colour on the walls.

“It’s not much,” Kian admitted, placing his guitar down against the wall in a haphazard way which explained at least some of the scuffs. “Probably not what you’re used to.”

Even though the same thought has just crossed my mind, I didn’t want him to think of me as some kind of upper-class snob, especially not when he hadn’t even been intending to ask me over that night. I felt so foolish after I realized that I assumed too much, but after the crush of people in the pub, I really wanted to be able to talk to him properly, one-on-one, just as we had at the charity. When he made it clear that the only reason he hadn’t intended to invite me in had to do with making me comfortable, not because he didn’t want to spend time with me, I quickly assured him that I’d be happy to go.

And when it came down to it, I did feel comfortable with him. Our relationship may not have been conventional to that point, but technically, this could be called our third date, after our dinner in the park and the day at Little Hands. I read enough and watched enough TV that I knew what a third date usually meant, and Marco’s comments earlier that night only reinforced my suspicions about where things might be heading.

Even if nothing physical happened that night, I still wanted to find out more about him, and that would be more likely to happen in private rather than in another noisy pub. We’d talked quite a lot about me, but what did I really know about him? He played the guitar and had five brothers; it didn’t paint a very complete picture.

So, when he looked around his flat sheepishly, I tried to reassure him that it didn’t disappoint me in any way. “It’s cozy,” I said instead, taking my shoes off at the door when he did the same.

Kian chuckled. “That’s what estate agents say when a place is tiny.”

I hadn’t meant it that way, but that word did fit too. “I’m guessing you don’t host your whole family in here.”

His laughter grew louder. “No, and I can’t imagine trying. It’s just me. Here, I’ll take that, you go have a seat.”

He took the light jacket from my hands and gestured towards the couch in front of us. While I went to sit, he headed over to the kitchen.

“Can I get you another drink? Alcohol, fizzy drinks, water, whatever you like.”

“I’ll have whatever you’re having.” That seemed the safest choice since I didn’t know what to ask for.

“How about some tea?” he suggested. “I’ve got decaf so it won’t keep you up all night.”

“Perfect.”

He flipped the kettle on and set about pulling cups and tea bags out of his cupboard while I continued to look around. A few photos in plain wooden frames decorated the flat surfaces, but they all depicted places rather than people. A gaming console sat under the TV and an exercise bike had been pushed up against the wall along with a keyboard. Nothing particularly surprised me but everything felt interesting and new.

“How long have you lived here?” I asked as he continued to move around the kitchen area. That seemed like a good question to get us started talking about him.

“Just over six months. It’s almost starting to feel like home, even if it doesn’t look like it.” He flashed me a self-deprecating smile as he poured the boiling water into the cups.

“Where did you live before that?” I held out my hands to take the cup from him as he brought it over, wincing as pain shot through my right hand when I tried to tighten my grip.

“Is it too hot?” Kian asked, his face tightening.

“No, no, it’s fine. My hand just hurts sometimes. It’s not your fault.” I placed the cup down on the coffee table in front of me to flex my hand out. “Sometimes I forget and try to use it like I used to.”

“Fuck, Cara.” Kian took a seat next to me with his own cup, his kind eyes looking at me over the rim as he took a sip. “Is there nothing else they can do?”

I shook my head, noticing how the conversation had shifted back to me again. “No, but I don’t want to talk about it right now. You were going to tell me about where you were living before this.”

His blue eyes twinkled in amusement. “Was I?”

“Yes.” I kept my response short and firm, smiling back at him but unwilling to be put off, and thankfully, Kian gave in.

“I was in Liverpool. I’d been there for a few years after leaving Dublin, but things changed and I needed a change too. London’s a good place to start over. You can lose yourself in a place this big.”

“Lose yourself?” I repeated curiously. “Why would you want to lose yourself?”

His face twisted into an uncomfortable grimace. “It’s not really a light story and we’re supposed to be having a good time tonight. I could tell you about all the scrapes my brothers and I used to get into instead if you really want me to hear more about my past.”

I did want to hear those stories, but I wanted the unhappy stuff too. I wanted to know all about him. “I shared my sad story with you,” I reminded him. “I can handle it.”

“I never thought you couldn’t.” Kian sighed as he placed his tea down on the coffee table, turning to face me fully. “You told me that you lost your parents when you were young so you know what it’s like to lose someone.”

I had mentioned my parents briefly when I tried to explain why Marco insisted on his restrictive measures, but I didn’t even realize Kian had picked up on it. I should have known better; he seemed to remember everything I said.

“Someone you loved died?” That seemed to be what he meant but I wanted to be sure.

He nodded in confirmation, the corners of his mouth sagging at the memory. “My best friend. We grew up together, did everything together. We even went into the same profession and ended up working together. I was the best man at his wedding, and he would have been mine if I got married. People used to joke that you’d never see one of us without the other.”

I’d never been that close to anyone, other than Marco. As my brother, he didn’t really count.

Kian said almost the same thing in his next breath. “I love my brothers, but he was more than that to me. He was the one I went to when I needed to get away from my family. No matter what was going on in my life, he’d be there to back me up. He was the brother I chose and the best man I ever knew.”

He glanced away from me, looking back over at his cup of tea even though he didn’t pick it up, and I suspected he just wanted to hide his emotion. I almost felt like tearing up just listening to him talk about this man, someone I’d never met and never would. I could practically feel the pain of his loss.

“What happened to him?” I asked in a voice barely louder than a whisper. There were plenty of ways people could die and though none were easy, some were better than others. Getting a chance to say goodbye could make a big difference.

Kian’s eyes came back to me, full of regret. “He was trying to help somebody. That’s what he did nearly every day of his life; it’s who he was, but this time, he got in the middle of something he didn’t understand. He was murdered for getting in the wrong person’s way.”

My hand flew to my mouth as I gasped, not having expected that answer at all. I thought perhaps there had been a car accident, like my parents, or an illness; not murder.

“He was shot?” I blurted the words out without thinking them through. My knowledge of the ways someone might be murdered were pretty limited, and I jumped to that conclusion without any other details when it probably could have been any number of things, but Kian nodded in confirmation.

“In the back of the head. He didn’t suffer, at least, but that’s small consolation to his wife and his daughter and any of us who knew him.”

His daughter must have been pretty young if Kian’s friend was his age, and the idea of a little girl growing up without her father brought tears to my eyes. “So, the police caught the person who did it?”

The way he’d talked about getting in the ‘wrong person’s’ way made it sound like he knew the identity of that person, but Kian shook his head. “No. They know who did it but there’s not enough evidence to make it stick. The person responsible is still a free man.”

“I’m so sorry, Kian.” Leaning forward, I placed my hand on his knee tentatively, in support. When I told him my story, the physical connection between us helped me, and I wanted to give that back to him even if I wasn’t sure how. In a way, our stories were similar: senseless moments that didn’t need to happen, accidents of fate that changed lives forever. I could understand that much, even if I didn’t know exactly how it felt to lose a best friend.

“It’s the ‘what ifs’ that drive me crazy,” he admitted, placing his hand on top of mine, the combined warmth of his hand above me and his leg below soothing and comfortable. “What if he hadn’t been there? What if I’d gone instead? What if we’d known about the situation ahead of time? What if he’d been stopped at a red light on the way? So many tiny things that could have changed it all, but nothing ever will.”

“You can’t fixate on those things.” I had certainly learned that myself. How many times had I berated myself for reaching back under the bike for the doll? What if the girl hadn’t dropped it? What if someone else had got there first instead? Those questions were never-ending and ultimately pointless. “You have to look forward.”

He nodded in agreement. “I’m trying to. That’s why I’m here. I need to get some closure and put this behind me.”

Despite his words, the pain in his voice still sounded so raw and real that I couldn’t help myself. I leaned forward further, my arms wrapping around his waist as I leaned my head against his chest.

Kian hesitated for a moment, his body tensing beneath my touch, but eventually, his arms folded around me too. It felt good to be the one providing the comfort for once rather than being the pitied party.

In that moment, it felt so natural that even though I’d never done it before, even though I didn’t know exactly what I was doing, I found myself raising my head anyway, bringing myself to Kian’s eye level, our faces only inches apart. Neither of us spoke as the world narrowed around us. His blue eyes looked into mine, deep and soulful and wounded, and before I could second guess myself, I pressed my lips against his in my very first kiss.

~Kian~

Cara’s kiss felt entirely unexpected and completely natural at the same time. Out of the blue but inevitable. Unquestionably wrong and utterly right.

I had meant to keep things light that night, chatting about music or the neighbourhood or whatever else crossed our minds while throwing in a few questions about Marco, but in the same way she opened up to me faster and deeper than I expected her to, I suddenly found myself talking about the most personal thing of all.

Maybe I did it to remind myself who she was and why we were there. Maybe I did it because Matt had been on my mind a lot lately and I had no one else to talk to about it. Maybe I did it because those brown eyes of her drew me in, making me feel both safe and protective of her at the same time.

I couldn’t be sure and it left me feeling off balance, questioning my own motives as well as hers. She had listened empathetically, her eyes even filling with tears at one point, but doubts still lingered in the back of my head.

How did she know Matt had been shot? Shootings weren’t commonplace in London. Less than 50 people a year in the whole of the UK died by shooting. Stabbings were by far the most common method of homicide, and beatings or strangulation were both more common than firearms. Intentional motor accidents were also in the same range. Why had she jumped to Matt being shot? That seemed like the kind of assumption someone might make if they knew how things were usually done in the world that Matt had stumbled into.

Or did her question simply betray her na?veté, imagining life to be like what she saw on movies or TV?

Just how involved was Cara in her brother’s world? Did she know what introducing me to Marco would mean? Did she know about Matt? How much of the innocence and sweetness she projected was an act, and how much of it was for real? Just when I started to think I might understand, she said or did something that threw me off.

How much of what I saw in her eyes was the truth, and how much did I see because I wanted to see it?

Those thoughts and many, many more all swum around my head in the moments that we held each other, her offering support through her embrace when words could never be enough, but when her lips brushed against mine, tentatively but longingly, everything else faded away.

I could almost imagine a world where Cara and Kian could have met without their lives having intertwined before, where we hadn’t known loss or pain, and how we might have connected based on the things in common we seemed to share. In her kiss, I could not only see that world but taste it too, the subtlest hint on my tongue of hope and passion and affection.

That, however, was not the world we lived in, and before either of us could get carried away, I gently pushed her back, my hand cupping her face. “Thank you for listening. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to take advantage of your sympathy.”

Cara blinked at me in surprise as I took responsibility for the kiss, even though she had clearly been the one who kissed me. I did it so that, hopefully, she wouldn’t take it as a rejection when I refused to take it any further.

“Don’t let your tea go cold,” I added, grabbing my own cup from the table to put some distance between us.

Still looking unsure, Cara followed suit, picking up her cup in a loose grip. We both took a long sip, neither of us entirely certain what to do next, for completely different reasons. The steam from the drink warmed my face as I held the cup against my lips longer than necessary, trying to regroup.

“Other than the crowd tonight, how did you like the set?” I finally asked, steering us back to the safer topic of music.

Cara also lowered her cup, placing it back on the table. It didn’t look at all comfortable in her hands. “You were great. You’ve certainly got range.”

I chuckled in agreement. “I’ve always had pretty eclectic tastes, and I taught myself to play what I liked.”

“You taught yourself? You didn’t take lessons?”

“We couldn’t afford anything like that,” I told her truthfully. “Six boys in the family, remember? I was lucky that one of my uncles had a guitar he didn’t play much anymore and he let me pinch it.”

“Where does your knowledge of classical music come from, then?”

The memory was a bittersweet one, considering what we’d just been talking about. “My friend, the one I just told you about, had a gran who loved it. She used to listen to the classical stations on the radio and when we’d go over, she’d quiz us. I always had an ear for it and she’d give us both treats if we got them right, so my friend encouraged me to spend time studying for it before we visited. I swear we spent more time doing that than we did studying for school.”

Cara smiled softly as she listened to my explanation. “Part of me wonders how good your playing would be if you’d have a more formal education in it, but the other part thinks you were luckier this way, doing it just because you loved it.”

“You love it too,” I pointed out. People didn’t get to the level she’d been at without having some passion for playing.

“I did by the end,” she corrected. “Plenty of times when I was young, I would have rather gone out to play with other kids or had a more normal life. I played because I was lonely and the piano was always there for me. In the end, I grew to love it, a bit like Stockholm Syndrome, maybe.”

She offered me a smile to let me know she only half meant that, and she shifted the subject back to me.

“I loved the original song that you played tonight. When did you… uh, when did you write it?”

As soon as the question was out of her mouth, she reached for her cup of tea again, looking for a distraction, and I could guess why. She wanted to know if the song had been inspired by her.

Of course it had.

“Actually, that’s a brand new one. I started writing it last week.”

I left the words there, open to interpretation, and Cara peered up at me as she took a sip of her tea. “I’ve been writing too. I’ve got this program on my computer that lets me write through dictation and singing the notes so I don’t have to use my hands.”

“That sounds pretty cool.” I’d never heard of anything like that before, but it didn’t surprise me it existed. People were endlessly inventive. “I’d love to hear some of your compositions sometime.”

Cara sighed. “I’d love your opinion, actually, but it won’t be easy to share it with you. I can’t send anything from my computer, for security reasons, and Marco doesn’t really let people come over either.”

Since she brought Marco up, I used the opportunity to offer my opinion on him if not her music. “Why do you let him run your life that way, Cara? I get that he’s protective, and I know what it’s like to lose someone you care about, obviously. But from what you’ve told me, these restrictions are unreasonable. You’re not a little girl anymore; you’re a grown woman who can look after herself. Why do you put up with it?”

Her answer might give me more of the information I wanted most when it came to her: did she know the reason for all the extra security measures that Marco insisted on or was she truly in the dark?

“Honestly, as long as I kept busy with my music, it didn’t bother me that much. I didn’t have anything to go out for anyway. After the accident, I guess it felt safer at home. It’s only really recently that it’s started to feel restrictive.”

Her gaze met mine for just a second before she looked away, but I got the message: my presence in her life had changed her perspective.

“Why is it necessary, though?” I pressed. “I’ve known rich people before and they didn’t have so much…”

I trailed off as a loud popping sound came from outside the window of my flat, followed quickly by another one. My heart beat immediately kicked up a notch as I sprang to my feet and moved to the window. That shouldn’t be what it sounded like, but I had to be certain.

“What was that?” Cara asked with wide eyes, but I held my hand out as I crept closer to the window.

“Stay there. It’s probably just someone setting off fireworks, but I’ll take a look.”

I brought up the fireworks to reassure her, but I didn’t really believe that myself. To the trained ear, fireworks sounded different; they crackled where a gunshot was crisp, and what I heard sounded pretty crisp.

My window looked out from the second floor onto the street where the entrance to the building was, and though I hadn’t checked when we came in, I assumed Paul and Jussi would be taking turns patrolling the street, one of them on the door at all times. That was what I would do in their position, but when I looked out, I couldn’t see either of them.

At least not until I saw movement a little further down the street, and what looked like a pair of legs in suit pants being dragged behind a car.

“Shit,” I muttered, adrenaline kicking in as my heart beat even faster. That didn’t look good at all. If someone had taken out Marco’s men, it wouldn’t be an accident. They must be after Cara and they must know where we were. It wouldn’t take them long to find us.

We had to move fast.

“What’s going on?” Cara asked, getting to her feet, and I quickly moved in front of her, placing my body between the window and her, taking her hand so she would focus on me.

“I need you to stay calm and do what I say. Can you do that for me, Cara?”

“What? Why? What’s happening?”

Her questions were all understandable, but we didn’t have time for them. “I’m not entirely sure, but there’s a chance there’s someone out there trying to find you. I need you to go into the bathroom and call Marco. Tell him where you are and that I said there might be danger. I’ll come and join you in just a minute. I know this sounds insane, but trust me, please.”

Her big brown eyes looked up at me in fear and uncertainty, but despite all of that, she nodded. “I can do that.”

“Good.” After making sure she got in there safely and had her phone out, I quickly made my way to my bedroom. Cleverly built into my side table, in a place so well concealed that Marco’s men hadn’t been able to find it, was my own handgun, and I pulled it out and tucked it into the back of my jeans as I placed a call to 999.

“I heard gunshots outside my window,” I told the operator, giving her the address as I dragged my heaviest piece of furniture over to my front door, barricading it as well as I could. “I’m hanging up now, but please, tell the officers to be careful.”

Without waiting for any further questions, I disconnected the call and joined Cara in the bathroom, closing and locking the door behind me, hoping that I had this all wrong. If I didn’t, we had to hope that either Marco or the police would get there soon.

~Cara~

Not two minutes after calling my brother paranoid for all of his rules, Kian told me that someone might be after me and to call Marco for help. What the hell was I supposed to make of that?

It didn’t sound like a joke, not with the way his body tensed when we heard the noise from outside that sounded suspiciously like gunshots, nor the way his jaw set when he looked out the window. I had no idea what he saw, but based on his instructions to me afterwards, it couldn’t have been good.

At least I had plenty of practice with following orders, so I did as Kian said, heading to the bathroom and calling Marco, trying to ignore the rapid thumping of my heart. I never bothered my brother when he was out and I still didn’t know what I would say to him if he asked any follow-up questions. But since Kian told me to do it, I did it anyway, trusting him as he’d asked me to.

“Cara?” Marco sounded breathless as he picked up my call, like he was in the middle of something. “Are you alright?”

Why would that be the first question he asked? Maybe because I never phoned him this way. I was getting paranoid too.

“I’m okay but Kian told me to call you. We’re at his flat and we heard noises outside. He said to tell you there might be danger.”

It went quiet on Marco’s end, nothing but background noise, someone talking and the sound of traffic. “I’m already on my way,” he finally said. “Lock yourselves in until I get there.”

We were already doing that, apparently. How did both Marco and Kian know what to do in a situation like this? Had I missed a course on this somewhere?

“Do you need the address?” I asked. I hadn’t actually said where we were, but I supposed my bodyguards might have been keeping him updated.

His answer seemed to confirm that. “No, I’ve got it. I’ll see you soon.”

He hung up just as Kian joined me in the bathroom, locking the door behind him. The small window in the room had frosted glass, making it impossible to see outside, and with the two of us standing in there along with the narrow bathtub, the toilet and the pedestal sink, extra space was at a premium.

“You can have the seat,” he told me, gesturing towards the toilet with a grimace. “I’ll take the floor.”

Without waiting for my agreement, he sat with his back to the door, bracing his legs against the wall and the pedestal of the sink, as if he really thought someone might try to force their way in. My heart kept up its steady drumming as I closed the toilet lid and sat down, trying to keep my hands from shaking.

“What’s going on? What’s happening out there?”

“I don’t know.” He slid his hand across the back of his neck, his fingers digging into the sides of it. “Maybe I’m overreacting. I hope I am, but after what happened with my friend, I don’t want to take any chances.”

I could understand that, sort of, but something else he’d said didn’t make sense to me. “Why would you think someone’s after me?”

His fingers tightened even further, the tips of them turning white from the pressure even as he offered me a smile. “I guess Marco’s rubbing off on me. You’re the only person I know who travels with bodyguards, and when I looked outside, I couldn’t see them. I’m probably jumping to conclusions, but I’ve called the police just to be sure. I won’t let anyone hurt you and I’m sorry if I scared you. This night really hasn’t turned out the way I expected it to.”

He could say that again, and since he was obviously making an effort to lighten the mood, I did my best to contribute. “You mean you don’t lock all your dates up in the bathroom with you?”

His smile turned more genuine, his fingers relaxing a little. “Not the first time they come over. That’s more of a month-long anniversary thing.”

“If that’s a month, what happens at a year?”

“Trust me, you’re not ready to hear about that yet.” His smile remained, but he also turned his head towards the door, pressing his ear against it to listen for any sounds from the other side.

I wanted to keep the teasing going, the distraction helping to calm my nerves, so I blurted out the next thing that popped into my head. “Well, I really hope no one’s coming for me, because if I die without having a proper kiss, I’ll be really pissed off.”

Rather than laughing, Kian’s eyebrows furrowed as he turned back towards me, looking up at me in confusion. “What do you mean?”

Damn it. Did I just offend him? I had no idea why he apologized to me for the kiss before, since I thought I started it, but he had been kind about it and I didn’t want him to think I was putting him down now. “I just mean that kiss earlier was kind of… tame. Nice, but tame. It would suck if I never got to have a better one.”

Kian blinked a couple of times, his face getting tighter as he tried to figure out what I meant. “Hang on. Are you saying that was the only kiss you’ve ever had?”

Oh. That was what tripped him up. I supposed that probably did sound pretty pathetic to someone like him, and my cheeks burned in embarrassment as I looked down at my hands laying uselessly in my lap. “I told you Marco’s protective. I haven’t really spent a lot of time around other people.”

He didn’t say anything and eventually, I couldn’t stop myself from glancing up at him to try to guess what he might be thinking. I expected to see pity in his eyes or more of the same confusion as before, or maybe just plain distaste at how utterly inexperienced I was, but the way he stared at me looked much closer to regret.

“Are you for real, Cara Russo?” I thought he whispered.

Before I could answer, or even find out if that was actually what he said, loud noises sounded outside the door, like someone banging on the main apartment door. A yelp of surprise burst out of me and Kian quickly placed his index finger against his lips.

“Keep very quiet,” he said, his voice calm and low. With a steady hand, far steadier than mine at the moment, he reached behind his back and pulled out something black and…

I gasped again, in spite of myself, my heart pounding even more than it had before. “Is that a real gun?”

I whispered the words as quietly as I could, but I had to say them, my eyes widening in shock at the sight of it. I’d never seen one in real life before. Why would Kian have one?

“I won’t let anyone hurt you,” he repeated as he did something to the gun, presumably to make it ready to fire. He looked comfortable with it in his hand, like he’d held one many times before, and I could barely make sense of any of this. “I promise, Cara, that’s not going to be the only kiss you ever have.”

From outside the door, we could hear the scraping of wood on wood, something heavy being moved across the floor, and Kian’s nostrils flared even as his hand remained steady.

“Get in the bathtub,” he ordered in a whisper. “Keep your head down.”

Trembling, I did as he said, getting in on my hands and knees and putting my head down against the enamel, the surface cool against my forehead. Why would anyone be after me? Why did Marco not even sound surprised about it? Why did Kian have a gun?

Why, why, why.

With every thud of my heart and the icy chill spreading through my veins, the question repeated and multiplied, making me wonder if I had completely lost my mind since nothing made any sense to me anymore.

The pounding on the bathroom door made me jump even as I kept my head down.

“Fuck off!” Kian shouted through the door, his voice harsher than I’d ever heard it before, his accent sounding even stronger than usual. “I don’t know who the fuck you are or what you want but you won’t find it here. I’ve already called the police. Get out of here while you still can.”

“We just want the girl.” The voice that came back from the other side was heavily accented, though I couldn’t tell what type of accent. And what did he mean by ‘we’? How many of them were there? “Give her to us and you go.”

“Yeah, right,” Kian muttered under his breath before replying to the man. “I’m armed, so if you try to break in here, I will shoot. Walk away, now.”

The man said something in another language, and a moment later, something slammed into the door, hard. Kian grunted as his body jarred with the impact and I couldn’t help peering up over the edge of the tub to see if he was okay. Thankfully, the door held steady and so had he. He didn’t look afraid so much as angry, and I ducked my head back down before I could distract him.

“Come on,” I heard Kian groan as the door banged and vibrated into him again. Someone must be physically throwing themselves at it. “Where the fuck are they?”

Did he mean the police? I wasn’t sure, but no sooner had he asked the question than more shouts rang out from the other side of the door, followed by another gunshot, this one much louder and closer, and I covered my ears with my hands as the sounds of fighting continued to carry through the door.

Finally, things seemed to quiet down and someone knocked on the bathroom door again, much less forcefully but still with urgency. “Kian? Cara? It’s Marco. It’s safe to come out. Are you alright?”

I had no idea how he got there so fast, but at that point, I didn’t care. I got to my feet as Kian did the same, grimacing as he put weight on his legs, and once he’d unlocked the door and peered outside, making sure that it was, in fact, safe, he stepped aside so my brother could enter.

Marco burst into the tiny bathroom, his strong arms wrapping around me and his desperate expression melting into relief at the sight of me. “Are you hurt?” he murmured as he hugged me, and I shook my head.

“No. Kian took care of me.”

Marco turned to look at Kian, still standing by the door with his gun in his hand, watching the both of us warily, and my brother’s expression instantly turned more guarded too.

“Well,” Marco said, looking between the two of us and the gun in Kian’s hand. “It looks like we’ve got some things to talk about.”