CHAPTER THIRTEEN
DEX
“You let her go?” Falcon snarled in my face. Bella made soft sounds of protest at his side, but he pushed her back into Rose’s arms. “Bedroom. Keep her occupied. Now , Rose,” he growled.
Rose made an uncomfortable, but very Italian noise and towed a protesting Bella away, gesturing frantically to me behind Falcon’s back.
I didn’t speak finger Italian or mafia talk, but I figured that was hand language for fix this shit right now or so help me God .
“She didn’t want to stay, Falcon. What was I supposed to do, tie her to the bed?”
Both Nelson and Falcon paused for a moment, considering the options.
I barked a laugh. “Let’s consider the legal ramifications of that statement before you answer, and what just got us in shit with her.”
“Mafia.” Falcon raised the gun usually attached to him at some point.
“Lord.” Nelson hefted the wallet that had gotten him out of more than a few scrapes, most on the other side of legal.
I glared at both of them. “We do not keep women who don’t want to be here because we want them more than they do.”
In Falcon’s bedroom, Bella moaned loudly.
Falcon smirked. “Case in point?”
I glowered at him. “Not what I meant.”
“Isn’t it?” He sauntered forward. “Maybe she needs more orgasms. A pleasured woman is a happy woman.”
“She had plenty of orgasms, thank you,” I spat.
“She was still walking.”
I closed my eyes. “You’re missing the fucking point. She left because we broke her rules.”
“She should be playing by yours.”
I turned my back on Falcon, willing myself not to slam my fist in his face and break my other pinky. By the time I hit four in my reverse count from ten back to one, my breathing had evened. I turned back around.
“Zin wanted to tell me her secrets. She didn’t want to know that we had snooped on her and found out on our own.”
“You are a bit shit at keeping secrets,” Nelson put in.
I ground my teeth. “Not. The. Fucking. Point.”
Bella moaned again.
Falcon smiled, leaning back against the wall to scratch his shoulder blades. “The perfect soundtrack.”
“Doesn’t it bother you, him giving her that much pleasure?” I changed tack. “What if she falls for him, instead of you?”
Falcon laughed at me. “Are you that insecure? We love—” he paused to draw a sloppy air triangle, “—each other. Not once would they cheat on me, nor me on them. That's the sort of loyalty you can’t buy, Dex. I give them parts of me that no one else gets. My love. My secrets. My heart. In return, they offer me theirs. I keep that safe and protect them. Yes, even if it means from themselves. Right now, Rose can’t be in this conversation because he’d probably try to kill you. Bella would cry and try to save everyone. Or maybe it would be a bloodbath. I haven't quite worked my little brat out yet.” He smiled. “But when I go back in there, he’ll pull his cock out of her ass, hold her open for me, and kiss her while I screw them both into the floor until it shakes. What part of that is missing between you and Zin?”
I stared at him and swallowed. “The part where I let her leave because she’s fucking miserable with me.”
“No, my friend.” He reached across and squeezed my shoulder hard enough to hurt. “You let her go because you were scared of hurting her more. She left because she’s scared of being compressed. But there is no place safer for her than with you, and she is happier with you than she is any other time.”
A lump lodged in my throat. “And you fucking well know this how, you little stalker?” I snapped, hating how right he sounded, how logical, when my brain told me to let her go and let her make her own decisions.
“Because she came to you last night on her own.”
I stared at him.
Nelson cheered.
“Go find her. I have a brat to fuck. I suggest you leave, too.” Falcon cast a spare glance at Nelson. “It will get loud in here soon.”
“And I’m out.” Nelson darted into his room, the towel dangling off the end of his hard on, baring his pasty buttocks for the room to see.
Falcon snorted, while I covered my eyes. “Ahh, fine. You’ve convinced me.”
“Good. She won’t have gone far.” He nodded, a pleased smile on his face.
I watched him, my heart clenching. “Are you like him?” I asked softly.
“Who?” Falcon turned back to me, his hands drifting to his phone.
“Your father.”
He stilled. “More than I would like.”
I nodded. “Mine didn’t remember my name. She doesn’t know hers. Consider yourself lucky you have family at all.”
He nodded, bowing his head over his phone at the same time as all three of ours lit up.
I frowned, grabbing mine off the edge of the sofa where I’d left the device when I followed Zon out of my room. The picture that came up made no sense at all at first as I struggled to comprehend what I saw.
“ Dex,” Nelson bellowed, charging naked and still pasty as fuck from his room as it finally clicked in what I was seeing.
Zin, with a twin standing over her, one with his pale hand extended around her throat, the other kneeling with his head positioned between her spread legs where she was tied between them, her mouth held open, eyes wide and terrified.
Falcon knocked my hand away, breaking the hideous vision. “It’s not real.”
“What?” I stared up at him, but all I could see was the head bent between her open legs.
His hand connected sharply with my cheek, the pain waking me up. “It’s not real. I promise you. They’ve pinned her somewhere, set up the angle, and he’s inches from her. He hasn’t fucking touched her.”
“You know that how?” I stared desperately into my housemate’s tense face.
Falcon held my gaze, not once flinching from whatever he read in my expression—the worry, the fear, the anger.
“Because they know you’ll kill them if they do.”
“The fuck is this.” I threw the picture under Beau’s nose. “We were done.”
He shrugged. “Were we? I don’t remember negotiating those terms.”
Falcon made one of those Italian noises Rose was so fond of at my back from where he leaned against the entrance to the formal dining room in the Kingsman house. “Start remembering. Otherwise you’ll have a new exit hole in the back of your head.” He loaded his handgun in front of Beau, ignoring the two other Kingsman frat boys who also drew similar weapons.
“You won’t get a shot off,” Beau said quietly, his head tipped to one side.
Falcon stopped what he was doing to look straight at Beau. “Do you trust their aim? Because I will not miss.”
Beau inclined his head, and the Kingsman boys lowered their guns, though I noted they didn’t put them away. I felt distinctly underdressed without one but I'd also been sans location for Zin when I left our dorm and Beau was the first person I thought of with additional resources before I called in my own mini army.
“I remember you saying you’d throw fights for me,” Beau said in his hoity as fuck voice.
I smiled, with teeth. “I remember an expiry date of ten weeks. We passed that while I was off with cracked ribs thanks to one of your opponents. You didn’t set that caveat, and so we are clean. Would you like a visual reminder? We have video evidence and backup,” I added quietly.
Beau watched me. “Cute,” he remarked and picked up the glass of cognac he’d been drinking when we first invaded his lair. “The twins don’t answer to me. You’d be better off heading to their home and seeing if they’re there.”
A growl built in my throat, but a tap at my heel from Falcon shut me up. This was the shit he was good at. I had zero patience for Beau's posturing.
“Sure. We could do that. Or we could take something of yours with us as a trade. Say…” Falcon made a show of looking around. “Sylvie?”
Beau flinched. “If you touch her?—”
“I’ll what, kill you?” I used air quotes because I knew it would piss him off further. “Motherfucker, I’m already there. So let’s find my girl and you can have yours back.”
A muscle twitched in Beau’s jaw. He flipped his phone and pressed call.
I waited.
Falcon cleaned his gun.
And on the other end of Beau’s girlfriend's line, Nelson picked up. His British accent came through loud and clear.
“Hello there, my boy. I have something of yours.”
“You have a short fucking lifespan, is what you have,” Beau growled.
“Now, let’s be nice. Sylvie, say hello to your lord and master,” Nelson prompted.
“Hello, Nelson,” I could hear the eye roll in her voice, but also the laughter.
“She’s in no danger,” Falcon said softly. “Where are you, Sylvie?”
“At Madame Kernester’s Teahouse, about six blocks from campus. Don’t come and get me, Beau. I'm fine. Do what you have to. But we are coming back, and we are getting a tea collection. Maybe some teapots.”
Beau glared daggers at me. “We are not getting a teapot collection.”
“Oh that one is pretty, Nelson. Yes, please,” Sylvie gushed.
I couldn’t tell if she was genuinely excited or if she was playing it up, but watching Beau turn purple was fun, personally.
“I’d say your girl doesn’t get spoiled often enough if a Lord of Nothingness can make her day. Right, pet?” I swore Nelson tweaked her nose.
It seemed like everyone else in the room heard the contact in his voice too.
“Don’t fucking touch her,” Beau snapped.
“It’s fine, Beau. I’m fine. Nelson might be a bit broke after this shopping trip, but it’s fine.”
“Not likely, pet.”
“She used the f word,” I muttered.
“I’ll find a word to use for you.” Beau’s glare shifted to me.
I offered him a shit eating grin, imagining it wasn’t often that he met more than one person who outclassed him on the financial front, and in this room he had two, if Nelson counted alongside Falcon. Not everyone wore their wealth in obsequious fashion the way he did.
“Now, tell me where we will find the twins.”