I should’ve taken her somewhere private. Somewhere it was just us. But I’d just had a scare. I thought she was running away because of something Isadora had said, and I’d been cursing myself for not telling her that I’d moved on from Isadora, forkeeping such an important piece of information from her just because I didn’t want her to run. And then she got down on her knees and fucking called me sir and I…
Jesuswhen she called me that, so easily, so naturally, so fuckingsubmissivelyand softly, I thought it all made sense. My life, the beats of my heart, the universe. It made sense that the sky with stars is a mirror image of her freckled skin. That a strawberry, sweet and tart, just like her, borrows its color from her hair. It made sense that she’d be the one to make my heart skip a beat every time she danced. It made sense. All of it.
Now I know, the reason I am the way I am—crazy protective, obsessive—is because of her. And the reason she is the way she is—so smart and brave—is because of me.
“Hey, I get it. I lose my head with Fae too,” Reed says with emotions flickering over his features and I’d love to give him a hard time for it because that’s our sister he’s talking about but I don’t want to. Because I can finally relate.
“I can’t think straight when it comes to my Firefly either,” Ledger adds.
Stellan nods. “I have done things for Dora that I never in a million years imagined doing.”
“It’s because they change you,” Conrad finally chimes in, looking me directly in the eye and for the first time in a long time, I see understanding, solidarity like we’re finally on the same page. “They make you see things you never could before. For whatever reason. It’s because they show you you can be better. For them. They change you in a way that…”
I fill in the blank. “You’re reborn.”
“Yeah.”
For the first time ever, I breathe in a sigh of relief, of peace. A breath laced with no guilt whatsoever because I’m happy. I’m finally fucking happy for my siblings. I don’t feel irritation or restlessness. I don’t want to get away from them. I want to standtogether with them and see our family grow. See each other grow into different roles in life, with different people.
The moment breaks when a cell phone rings. Reed’s. Fucking finally. I hope this is the phone call we’ve been waiting for or I’m going to be really fucking pissed. My brothers told me I needed this, we all needed this before doing anything else on the agenda. So yeah, this better be the call or I’m not going to be happy.
We all watch him stand up straight and slide the phone out of his pocket. He accepts the call. “Hello.”
And then we watch him listen and I don’t like using this expression but I’m going to because it’s the truth, but we all do it with bated breath. A few seconds later, we see his mouth stretching into his patent cocky grin. “You’re shitting me.”
My heart slams in my chest as he hangs up and looks me in the eyes. “You’re not going to believe this but we got them.”
By them, he means her bitch mother and my asshole father. I promised her I’d take care of her if and when things came to a head. So this is me taking care of her. This is me making sure our parents never bother us again.
I have a long list of wrongs I need to make right, the biggest one being apologizing for hurting her again last night, but it will happen once I’ve fixed everything else I told her I would. And then I’m going after her to win her back.
Chapter Thirty-Three
THE WRECKING THORN
The housewe’re all staring at is dilapidated.
The lawn is more like a jungle. The driveway is more like a dirt path. The shingles on the roof are broken and falling apart and there’s a hole in the front window. I thought her old apartment was bad but this is a disaster. But then what else can you expect from a house when it’s in such a shitty part of town. This one’s even shittier than where she used to live. And the anger burns like acid in my veins at the thought of her living here. The thought of her living here with a baseball bat hidden under her bed.
But I keep my cool. For now. I walk up the driveway with my brothers behind and yes, I’m including Reed in them again. If I already didn’t consider him my brother, I would start that now because he’s the one who’s making this happen.
Before Reed became a part of our family and owned a garage that remodels and restores vintage cars, he used to work for his father. His father is a big deal in Bardstown, a rich asshole with tons of influence and backhanded dealings. And you don’thave backhanded dealings without private investigators and all sorts of shady characters on your payroll, people who can dig all sorts of unsavory things about you. Since I wanted a permanent solution for our problems, namely our parents, I asked him to enlist someone on his father’s payroll and look into them.
Turns out, there was a lot to look into. Not only are they swimming in debt with loan sharks beating down at their doors, there’s something even more vile in their background that’s making it almost impossible to not charge into their home and tear my father limb from limb. It wouldn’t even take much, not with his pedo drunk ass.
I knock at the door or more like bang on it until it snaps open and I see her mother at the threshold, fuming. As soon as she sees it’s me and my brothers, her face twists with anger and she opens her mouth to, I’m sure, run it in a way that’ll only piss me off. So I don’t give her a chance. I push past her and enter the house.
Which isn’t much better on the inside than it was on the outside. Dirty dishes litter the floor and sit in a stack on the table. Dirty laundry is scattered everywhere including the couch where I’m assuming she was parked on because there’s a half-smoked cigarette in the ashtray on the arm, with TV running in front of it. It makes me want to pick up that bowl with crusty milk in it and throw it through the screen.
This is how she lived, didn’t she? Before she got out of the hellhole. No, she pulled herself out of there. She pulled herself and her sister out. She gave Snow the best life she could all the while wanting nothing for herself. Not one thing. No, that’s not true. She wanted something. She wanted me. She wanted me to want her back and I was the jackass who never saw it. Who never understood.
Focus.
I turn around and to her growing anger, one by one, my brothers file in. They walk in further, eyeing the space like I did and come to stand slightly behind me. Even Conrad. A silent message that I’m in charge here but they’re close if I need them. Fuck, I love my brothers. I love my family and I’m going to fucking take this bitch down.
“Who said you could come into my house?” she snaps at us but mostly at me because she gets it. She got it that night when I threw her out of our house. She knows there’s something between me and her daughter. Well, after that video the whole fucking world knows but she knows whatever it is, it’s here to stay.I’mhere to stay. And stand between her and her daughter. Both of them actually. Because she isn’t touching Snow either.
“You came into our home uninvited,” I remind her.
