16. Cash
Cash
Ipick myself up from the floor and retaliate, throwing a punch back at Knox.
He catches my fist, drives it back toward me, but I play on the momentum and pin him to the wall.
Knox has his moments, but he normally takes his anger out when he hunts.
It comes out of nowhere sometimes. He still carries over aggression from his time in the military.
But that’s no fucking excuse.
“What the hell?” I keep him pinned against the wall. Sure, he weighs more than me, but his moves are predictable, which is why I duck my head just in time before he delivers his next punch.
Eli enters the main room and pulls me away.
“He’s the problem,” I say. “He came at me throwing punches for no reason.”
“Just like you’re coming at Sienna?” says Knox. His pupils refocus and land on me.
It’s hilarious how pissed he looks.
“I think it’s safe to say we’re all coming for Sienna.”
Eli glares at me.
“No,” barks Knox. He steps forward and presses his chest into mine. “You know exactly what you’re doing. If you cared about her at all, you’d leave her alone and stop assuming things about her life.”
“Assuming is very different from knowing the facts,” I counter, throwing my arms over my chest. “Sienna knows exactly who she is.”
“Sienna was about to take off again,” says Knox.
I clench my jaw and hope that Knox is too bothered about his own feelings to see mine.
“She what?” Eli steps in. “She was going to leave?”
I shrug. “I mean… it was always the plan. You know that.”
Both Knox and Eli shoot daggers at me with their eyes.
“Sienna needs to be as far away from us as possible.”
“No,” counters Knox. “You need to stay far away from her.”
My stomach knots up as I think about our last interaction.
I know you’re famous because you ruined somebody else’s life to get there.
You hit the nail right on the head.
The knot grows tighter in my gut. Sienna admitted I was right, which is the last thing I expected from her. She must be feeling guilty about something.
Eli flops down onto the couch, running a hand through his hair. “So, just to get this straight—we all like Sienna?”
“Some more than others,” grumbles Knox, pushing himself off the wall to join Eli on the couch. They sit at opposite ends.
“You were watching her do Pilates?” Knox is back at it again, his eyes full of poison. “For how long?”
“Why does it matter?”
Knox tightens his jaw and looks away, addressing Eli instead. “And you walked in on her?”
“Masturbating… yep,” clarifies Eli.
“Save the fucking details, unless you want to be thrown back into that wall.” The sound of Knox’s snapping knuckles fills the room as he rounds them into a fist.
“Henry is asleep,” says Eli. “I’d like it to stay that way.”
“Then be more careful about what you say.”
We fall silent, the crackling fire the only noise. We all watch the flames, waiting for someone to say something.
Since Eli is being quieter than usual, I decide to speak first. “What difference does it make if we all want to fuck her? We share everything else up here. We may as well?—”
“I do not share my women,” replies Cash tersely.
“You can’t want to fuck her that much if you’re always giving her shit,” says Eli.
“I don’t have to like someone to fuck them.”
Knox comes out of his chair and rips me from the couch. He slams me back into the wall and curls his hands around my neck. All I can do is laugh.
“Jesus. You must really like her.”
“Shut. Up.”
“No, really. You don’t even tackle deer with this much force.”
“Enough.” Eli tears us apart and stands between us.
“Alright there, Mr. Referee,” I sneer.
Knox glares at Eli like he’s his next victim.
I put my hands up in the air in frustration.
“I thought I knew you two pretty well. Are we seriously letting a woman come between us? She’ll be gone soon, and we’ll never see her again.
We may as well suck it up and acknowledge that we all have feelings.
We’ll do what needs to be done and move past this. ”
“What do you mean by that?” Knox crosses his arms over his chest. He looks like he wants to throttle me to death.
“We fuck her. Alternate depending on the night.”
“I’m pretty sure we’re running out of nights.”
Knox looks away, a half dozen muscles flexing in his jaw.
And then his eyes widen. “Shit.”
Eli and I turn our heads in his direction and see Sienna at the door. Her cheeks are as red as a tomato, and her beautiful lips are parted, struggling for breath after eavesdropping on our conversation for god knows how long.