What is the end goal? Ezra signed.
“Yeah,” Henrik said. “Death or prison?”
“Neither,” a masculine voice said from the top of the stairs, hidden from view.
But I didn’t need to see him to know who had spoken.
Lucian Morelli had been the worst kind of bully to me after what I’d done to Carter. It wasn’t the same as Leo’s reaction, which was one of hurt and betrayal. There was something different about my eldest brother, colder and less prone to empathy. I’d wondered over the years if he could have been on the psychopathy spectrum and that question was rekindled when he finally appeared on the stairs, pinning me with his black gaze. Those eyes were as cold and soulless as twin black holes, sucking up every ounce of confidence I’d shored up in the years since I’d lived with him.
For a brief, painful moment, I was an overlarge, ungainly teen again watching as my brothers laughingly locked the door to the media room so I couldn’t join their antics each night after dinner. It hadn’t really mattered, not when Bryant gave me extra homework and a variety self-defence and weapons training every evening, but it was still one among many countless hurts he’d instigated over the years.
Behind Lucian came Leo.
He walked with a nearly imperceptible stiffness, his shoulders carefully square in a way that most people probably couldn’t notice. Otherwise, he was still the formidable, fierce-faced man that had earned the moniker ‘Beast of Bishop’s Landing.’
It hurt to look at him, and it had since I was twelve years old. I might have betrayed Carter and my sibling bond when Bryant forced me to take a belt to him, but it was Leo who had betrayed me. He had been our protector, the brother who always found ways to get the rest of us away from Bryant’s wrath, but he’d been nowhere in sight that day or the days following. Some trip for school he’d been happy to escape to.
In fact, by the time I saw him again, the cold front had already settled in between my brothers and sisters and myself. I was already being homeschooled so I wouldn’t embarrass the family with my scar, already being trained in ways the others never would to see out Bryant’s wicked deeds. I even ate separately from them every night but Sunday when we had our requisite Sunday dinners.
That restless, gnawing energy inside me that had begun the moment I left Bianca at the Compound roared with new life.
Carter trailed behind both, but he stepped in front of them when I started to stalk forward with my fists clenched.
“Now, Tiernan, just wait a second––” he appeased, holding up his hands like dual white flags.
I ignored them.
Morellis weren’t known for their mercy.
Leo was closest, so it was him I went to first. To my surprise, he just watched me as I surged toward him then didn’t so much as lift a finger in defense when I reared back and socked him in the jaw.
His head snapped up and to the side, breath exploding from his lips.
I shook out my hand because the asshole had an iron jaw.
He worked his mouth, the hinge of his mandible creaking as he turned his head back around to pin me with his angry gaze.
“Feel better now?”
I glowered at him. “Not even fucking close.”
Leo nodded slightly, opening his arms in invitation. “You want to do this properly, brother mine? Just know, the first punch was free. If you come at me again, I’m hitting back.”
“Leo,” Lucian said blandly, but it was enough to still us both. “There is no need to lower yourself to Tiernan’s childish antics.”
“Fuck you.” I bared my teeth at my older brother, the man who should have loved and protected me but instead became my biggest tormentor. “How dare you set foot in this house. Get out before I rip your goddamn throat out.”
A small part of me was shocked I felt so hostile. For years, I’d just wanted their praise and acceptance. I’d never dreamed of them visiting Lion Court, because the idea had been so outlandish. Now that they were here, it felt like a violation of my haven. Sure, it was a haunted mansion filled with eccentric, artistic debris, and a crew of scarred survivors, but it was mine.
No one had the right to enter these walls and disrespect me or mine.
Lucian just blinked at me, boredom filling every inch of his face.
“Get. The. Fuck. Out,” I growled, shoving him with my good hand. “Why are you even here?”
“Carter texted us,” he said, blandly, checking his phone as if I was utterly unimportant. “He said you wanted to reconcile. Is that not true?”
“You think I’ll just get over the shit you did to me?” The words shot out of me like blood from a bullet wound.
Another lazy blink as he lifted his inscrutable gaze to me. “I didn’t do anything.”
A bitter, barking laugh. “Okay, you want to follow that logic, asshole, we can do that. You did nothing. You ignored me. Shunned me. Set the example for everyone else to do the same. You think Leo and Carter would’ve done that without you? You think the girls––” My voice fucking cracked, but I surged on. “You think Eva and Sophia would have done that? Daphne? Lizzy?””
“So you were left out,” Lucian shrugged. “Worse things have happened to better people.”
Through the roar of blood in my ears, I saw Carter adjust uncomfortably and heard Leo murmur something to Lucian about backing off.
“Left out?” I mocked. “Yeah, I was left the fuck out of the bond you all share, forced out because Bryant beat me until I agreed to beat Carter. One time, I buckled to the pressure and hurt one of our family. One fucking time. But you hurt me every day after that. I didn’t get it before, I didn’t get it until last week when our dad put a bullet through me for disobeying him, but emotional neglect and abuse is still abuse. You want to pretend you didn’t take part in that, you’re fucking delusional. Now, get the fuck out of my house, Lucian. The next time I see you, you better fucking run, because I’m a grownass man and I won’t be bullied ever again.”
My chest was heaving by the time I finished. I wasn’t used to speaking so much, so passionately, and it had taken more out of me than the hour-long boxing session I’d just had.
In the silence that followed, Walcott started slow-clapping.
Henrik and Ezra followed until the sharp rap of hands meeting filled the air.
Giddy, relieved laughter bubbled in my too-tight throat.
These men were my men.
I didn’t need these assholes because we shared half of the same blood.
“That was a good speech,” Carter said, stepping forward to clap me on the shoulder with a genuine smile. “Didn’t think you had it in you.”
I shrugged off his hand. “You don’t know me. We made a deal to work together, but I’m rethinking it. Why the fuck did you bring these two here?”
Carter’s playfulness transformed swiftly, easily into a soothing a smile. “Because they want to reconcile with you as much as I do.”
I glared at Lucian, who only raised a cool brow, and then at Leo who winced slightly.
“You weren’t the only one hurt, little brother,” Leo told me, his eyes stale with old pain. “Bryant’s given all of us a lifetime of pain. You don’t want to be bullied anymore? Thank fuck, because neither do we. We’re moving on without him. Together.”