I think I could become addicted to it. Gleeful. Obsessed. Aching for more. All those men needed to die, and my fingertips buzzed with the urge to get out there and hunt each one of them down. “Theo,” I muttered, turning my body to face his more, so I didn’t have to speak up. “I’m sorry for running. But… I think it needed to happen.”
He shook his head, confused at my words. But that excitement was there, under his surface. Just like me, he was trying to suppress it. I was desperate to get him alone, to talk and touch and plan and make each other feel good. Celebrate.
My voice low, I glanced at Connor and the driver, currently bickering about something, and said, “I liked it. Killing him.” I didn’t need to hold back with Theo. I saw it in his expression as well as I knew it in my soul. “It… it was healing, Theo.”
He nodded, and for a long time he stared at me, studied my face, letting his eyes roam over every inch of me, from my wide gaze to my lip bitten between my teeth. I hated not knowing what he was thinking. But I needn’t have worried.
Theo’s eyes crackled with energy. “Then let’s heal you some more.”
Connor’s apartment seemed different now. Colder, somehow. Connor left us there, muttering to himself and cursing our very existence, but demanding we stay put. Wait for his signal to do literally anything other than fester. He was going to use his connections, he said, fix our fuck up. He glared at us like we made him sick, like he was afraid.
I watched him move around the space with a squeeze over my heart, leaning against the wall because I knew if I sat on the sofa I would never make it to the bed. There was a lot he wasn’t telling us, but his heart seemed in the right place. I glanced at Theo, who was watching our uncle with a scowl on his face and his arms crossed, standing by the wall nearest the door, almost like he was guarding it. There was so much unspoken, so much unresolved. Between all of us, family and business, secrets and lies.
Before Connor left, he came up close to me, staring at me hard before kissing me on the forehead and telling me to get some sleep. Things were about to become even rougher, so rest up.
It was as soon as the door closed behind him and Theo clicked over the lock that my body finally gave out and gave in, collapsing to the carpet. Theo was right there, turning and catching me with a grunt, scooping me into his arms with ease and carrying me through the hall to the bed.
“I need to wash…” I murmured, not fighting him at all as he laid me down on top of the sheets and, without word, climbed in beside me. He hushed me, squeezing me to him, cocooning me in his warmth, and I just… cried. The floodgates sure as hell opened, and my body purged all the emotions of the last few hours. Despite the bravado, the way my body and mind hummed with newfound energy to destroy, I was done in.
I’d come so close to ending it all, one split-second decision from falling onto those tracks with that man. Something, somewhere, deep within me stopped it. But only just. Tears flowed from me, a release of emotion, the death of the girl I used to be.
I grieved. For the girl I was before. For the person I was evolving into. That death? It would have been sweet. But killing the man who’d helped torture me was sweet too, if I was on the path to death anyway, may as well go out with as much of a bang as possible.
So I cried, clung to my brother, took strength from his warmth, and grieved what I was becoming.
“Violet, talk to me, please. Tell me what’s going on in there. Every little thought. Every bit of darkness. You won’t scare me away. I promise.” Theo stroked my cheek, waiting patiently for my brain to process everything. He must have been scared too, the look on his face when he crouched down in front of me on that platform, tipped my face up… it was one of deep anguish. Along with the grief, shame erupted. I hadn’t trusted him; I’d run from him rather than trust who he’d shown me to be. And now I’d shown him the monster inside myself.
“I’m sorry,” I muttered. “I… I should never have believed what you were saying. I’m not sure I ever did, really.” My face screwed up, and I huffed, unable to resist burrowing myself into Theo some more. I breathed him in. Even though his comforting scent was mixed with the metallic tang of blood, he was still there, that spicy warmth that made me shiver and sigh. Our legs tangled, and his hands stroked down my spine, soothing me. This bed would be ruined, stained forever with the remnants of the bastard who’d tried to drag me back to my husband, but neither of us cared. We just needed to be as entangled as possible. That realization we’d both shared, the moment I knew what I needed to become and he witnessed it, weighed heavy between us.
“Nah, not waking you up was the wrong move,” he said, his hand tangling up in my hair, holding me close to him. “I just couldn’t face telling you our plan. You don’t understand how much it fucking sucked to say those words. I felt sick.”
“What was it exactly?” I asked. What I’d heard didn’t make sense. But then my brain had slipped into some bizarre auto-protect that had me running before I’d even processed anything. I was just so tired.
He sighed, but I only held him tighter. I could take it. “Pretend to give you back, get in front of Rafe and shoot him right between the eyes.”
“Simple, huh?”
“The most.”
I kissed Theo’s chest, clawed my fingertips into his shirt. Nothing was ever close enough. I wanted to burrow myself inside him, live in his skin and exist in a bubble for only us. Nothing else. No one else. Anyone who came near could meet the pointy end of a knife.
“After,” he started, kissing my temple. “Or before… Connor planned to put you into a kind of witness protection program. He’s got it all sorted. I thought it was the best thing. I was going to make you go, maybe come with you to keep you safe.” He sighed. “I… I still think it might be best. We can just disappear until they’ve done the hard bit. Once they have him, we can reappear and tell all our secrets.” His face turned down in a frown. “That was the plan before…”
“Not all of them,” I replied on instinct, letting the idea of running wash over me. “Not all our secrets.” Before, yes, I would have taken it. Wouldn’t have cared about anything else. But now? After the taste of destruction I’d had? I couldn’t leave, walk away and let those men live.
“No,” he agreed. “Not all of them.” His hand drifted to my ass, and he heaved me up so I was face to face with him, nose to nose. My leg fell over his thigh, and I shuffled in closer until I could feel his erection pressing in against my body. My skin hummed with need, my belly aching for him.
I smiled weakly and kissed him, licking into his mouth, eating up his answering moan. Kissing him was fortifying, even in the darkest moments.
“Theo, I don’t want to hide away,” I admitted between kisses.
He bit my bottom lip, forcing me to stop talking for a moment. His hands drifted down to my waist, where he held me almost too tight, his fingertips digging into the groove there. His breathing picked up with mine as his hips thrust against me, showcasing how turned on he was, his hard length making me groan.
“I don’t want to hide, I want to hurt him. All of them,” I said, my bottom lip still in between his teeth, determined for him to hear. To understand.
His fingers drifted down my hip and lower until he was cupping my wanting pussy. It throbbed, already wet and aching for my brother. Energy crackled between us, had been zapping back and forth since our eyes locked on that station platform.
“Me too,” he responded, pressing his fingertips up so they grazed against my entrance, the thin fabric of my clothing doing nothing to hide my dampness from him. He released my lip. “Let’s kill them all, beautiful.”
