That’s true. There isn’t an inch of me that was burned. My hair was singed a bit but it’s just hair and besides, I need a haircut anyway.
“Sonofabitch?” I quirk my eyebrow.
“We’ve recently realized we can use that one on each other with reckless abandon due to recent events,” Liam says with a shrug.
He’s trying to be casual about it all, but I can see the whole Courtney thing is affecting him. After all, when your mother hurts you, that hurt sinks really deep. And when a father sells his daughter to some underground prostitution/trafficking ring, the scars and injury are forever.
So what business do I have with entertaining a future with Julian when my tomorrow isn’t even guaranteed?
“I haven’t heard anything about Nathan. What’s happening?” I whisper, fear knocking at the doors of my still fractured mind.
“Trust me, the silence is deliberate,” Liam says, his voice now arctic and hard. “I’m pretty sure Dad has something in store for his step-brother.”
If this was about seven months ago, hell, two years ago, I would have followed up on that sketchy comment, but I’m different now. Nothing’s the same anymore, so I just shake it off to fortify my heart against the pain of what my own father did to me.
“If my name has been kept out of the news, what’s this ongoing investigation on the Matthews about?”
“Yes, well, apparently the devil’s been busy on that too.”
I already know which devil he’s talking about, but I need to be sure.
“You mean this is all Julian’s doing?”
“Well of-fucking-course, Mia! My brother and I share the same view when it comes to revenge.”
View. As in singular.
There’s something dangerous about lone rules with no follow up, no reiteration of any explanation. So when I ask him what he means, Liam looks down at me, holds my gaze and then, “That it has to be profound and thorough.”
A shiver runs down my spine. I don’t doubt it but that must be dangerous, isn’t it?
“He’s doing this all alone?”
“Nah, this time, the devil has two heads,” Liam says, looking annoyed now.
“I’m going to guess here and say you mean Cole.”
“Well of course, cupcake, which other two assholes can put together an elaborate plan years before to fuck up some asshole by preserving the body of a strangled three-month old poor baby only to bury it in the backyard of the inbreds that fathered that baby and killed it.”
“Oh my God,” I gasp. “A strangled baby?”
“Feeling disgusted huh?” Liam bites out. “You know that sister of theirs, the one who used to stalk Julian?” I nod, feeling horrified. Who kills a baby? I saw the miracle of life myself, how could anyone… “Yeah well, it turns out Sean and Shane took turns raping their own sister. She got pregnant. They killed the baby. She lost her mind, tried stalking Julian some more and then killed herself.”
Jesus Christ.
My heart starts pounding faster, harder, much more painfully.
The horrors of that warehouse echo in my head and just like that, there’s no doubt in my mind. If there’s anyone perverted and so damn depraved enough to do that, it’s those imbeciles.
“You okay?”
“Where is Julian?” I mutter, my heart pounding dangerously hard in my chest. Liam looks down at his wristwatch, then looks up at me with a full-blow, dazzling smile.
“Well, that only took you ten minutes.”
“Excuse me?”
“It took you ten minutes to ask about him. Fuck, that’s going to hurt his fucking ego.” He throws his head back and laughs. I roll my eyes.
“I didn’t know you were counting.”
“Of course, I was. I’m under strict instructions.”
Strict instructions? I know better than to ask who from, so I just stare at him, my lips pressed together firmly to stop the question from spilling out and giving this bastard the satisfaction.
“You’re really not going to ask, are you?” I don’t say a word. “Just FYI, you look constipated.”
Urgh!
“I’m just not desperate enough to know,” I snap.
At that, he throws his head back and laughs some more.
“Fuck, cupcake, you have no idea how much I’ve fucking missed you. No one puts Julian in check like you do but fuck, I wonder if this will change your mind.”
With that, he opens the door, steps out, then he comes back in pushing in cart… a cart with a teapot cups, some kind of candy, Get Well Soon balloons hanging off the side and a large teddy bear holding a bouquet of the most beautiful red and white roses I’ve ever seen.
My jaw tumbles to the floor.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Mia
“What is all this?” I whisper, staring wide-eyed at the cart that literally takes most of the room.
“A delivery,” Liam says with a smirk. “I don’t know what happened between the two of you, but I’ve never seen my brother more focused and silently angry like he is right now. I mean, look at all this shit. I guess he’s tapping into his romantic side.”
“What romantic side?” I mutter. Liam bursts out laughing.
“This romantic side,” he says, gasping for breath. “It exists you know.”
Uh… sweets, colorful balloons, a teddy bear? “This is too much.”
It’s too much in a way that doesn’t overwhelm me into a swooning mess, no. It’s too much in the… what the fuck is this shit, side.
It’s like the cart was picked by someone with nothing but random guesses of what romance is and pilled it all up on fucking wheels with no regard of who it’s going to. There’s no thought to it. No finesse, it’s just… generic and so fucking common, I can’t help but frown.
Is this what girls want when they say they want romance? Is this what I wanted?
“I did warn him, the jerk, but he didn’t listen to me,” Liam says with a shrug, then he starts fussing around the cart. “I mean, he could’ve at least started gently, with one rose then tomorrow, two roses and a box of chocolates and so forth and so on, you know? The jerk has no romance in his broken repertoire.”
I stare at the cart then at him, feeling dumbfounded and lost.
Julian is many things but he’s not random. He doesn’t do anything on a whim and for fuck’s sake, didn’t he say he can’t give me all this because it’s a waste of time? Is this his way of proving a fucking point to me?
“Is that how you do it?” I mutter, staring at the balloons. When Julian was in here, he never once said something close to get well soon. Hell, I never said that either. “Bit by bit, wooing your girls? Wooing Roxy? I honestly thought it was Kendra?”
“I don’t want to talk about that,” he snaps, looking over his shoulder at me. “We agreed.”
“Ah look at that! So there is a twisted, messy something that happened between you and the heartless twin bitches?”
“Mia…”
“Oh Liam, honey, my Mr. All-Knowing, don’t tell me you fucked them both?” I say with a mock gasp. “At the same time? Hot damn. But I didn’t think Roxy would be into that’s hit. I got the sense that seriously hates you, like really hates you.”