My throat closed. "I know, Con. I know."
Our eyes clashed, and the years skipped away. My stomach churned as I remembered Kid’s face back then, so way back in the past when he’d been young and innocent, before that had been defiled. Christ, that was when I’d been young, not so innocent, not so pure, but I hadn’t killed yet.
Father McKenna was the start of a slippery slope, but for all my sins, his was probably the worst in the eyes of God, and yet, I’d never atone for it. If it sent me straight into the Devil’s clutches, I’d go. A thousand times over, I’d go.
For Kid.
For what had been done to him.
To my baby bro.
He’d always be that. No matter his age or mine, he’d always be Kid, and would always be someone I’d die for.
"You wanna taze some assholes?" I rasped.
"I’m down for that," he said softly.
So we did, after grabbing the semi-frozen bastards who thought they could hurt my woman, we headed to the one room in his apartment that was soundproofed—his bedroom—to do the deed.
There really was nothing like brotherly bonding over torture.
Twenty-Six
Savannah
"You nervous?"
"No," I muttered with a huff, peeking into the mirror to check my make-up.
It had taken a while to conceal the rainbow of bruises on my jawline, never mind the hickeys Aidan had given me. I wasn’t complaining, but they made me a little nervous.
Who wanted to meet the parents for the first time with their throat looking like something Dracula had been gnawing on?
It was all fun behind the bedroom door, but for Christmas dinner? Nope.
"Why do you keep messing with the hem of your jacket then?"
I heard the amusement in his voice, and rolled my eyes. "I’m about to meet a hero."
Aidan shook his head. "Fucking Isardo."
My lips curved. "Hey, if it wasn’t for him and years’ worth of therapy, we’d never have met."
He smirked at the road, and I had to drool a little at how the veins and muscles in his forearms were in stark relief as he commanded the wheel of his Range Rover. I already knew this was a secured version, because it drove heavy as if it were a tank.
"What did you really do with Wintersen?" I asked, curious because he’d raised the subject of Isardo.
As we pulled up at a stop light, he shot me a look. "What do you think?"
There was such disdain in his voice I had to laugh.
"Guess that was a bit of a ‘duh.’"
He shrugged. "Least I could do."
"Funny how you’ve swept through my life like you pick up trash for a living, but you always stuck to the sidelines, never coming forward, so I didn’t have a chance of seeing you in the full light of day, did I?"
"For your own safety."
"I’d have preferred you."
"You say that now," he intoned quietly as he set off again.
"No, I know that now. I knew it back then. The last few nights gave me a taste of mob life, sure, but Aidan, I’ve always been in danger. There’s no difference. One of my father’s psycho fans is just as likely to torture and rape me as much as one of your enemies—"
"Jesus, Savannah!" He slammed on the brakes, making me grateful no one was behind us in traffic. "Don’t even fucking talk like that!"
Touched, I turned to him with a soft smile. "I didn’t mean to freak you out."
"No? Well, you did."
"Thought nothing scared you," I mocked, deciding that if the bear wouldn’t poke me, then I could poke him.
His hands tightened on the wheel. "I don’t want you even thinking shit like that."
"Thought it for long enough. I think we all accepted it after one of the twins got kidnapped. You know how fans are about my father and the rest of noxxious."
"I do," he grumbled, and his tension flooded the car, intoxicating me with how much he cared. "Conor’s not exactly stable where they’re concerned."
My smile widened. "Didn’t realize any of him was stable."
Aidan laughed a little. "Don’t make me laugh."
"I’m only teasing. He reminds me of Einstein."
"If Einstein had any idea what a computer was."
"Well, he would have. The Antikythera mechanism was discovered in the nineteen hundreds."
He blinked at me. "The anti-what?"
"The first analogue computer." I wafted a hand. "Never mind."
His grin made an appearance and, like always, on the few occasions I’d seen him smile, it felt like I’d won an award. That was, I saw, the moment you knew how much someone meant to you... when their smile felt like a Pulitzer.
"We almost there?" I asked.
"Yeah."
"I feel like a kid going to Disney," I admitted.
"It’s really not that impressive."
"I’m about to go to the Five Points’ mothership, Aidan," I groused. "This is about as impressive as it gets."
"You keep it up, I’ll start to think you’re only in this for my father."
I snickered. "You keep on thinking that." I fidgeted with my suit jacket. "I really should have worn black like you warned me."
"I was only teasing. It’s not a funeral," he scoffed. "You look hot."
The low rumble in his voice had me squirming in my suit. "That was my intention." I cast him a look. "I didn’t forget about what was supposed to happen in that elevator last night."
"You mean before we were hijacked?" was his droll retort.
"Yes, I mean before then. I have a very fertile imagination," I told him with a pout. "I was looking forward to applying lipstick to your dick. It was going to be the prettiest in the city."
He snorted out another laugh, then did something that made my pussy clench. There was nothing complicated about the move, nothing intense either—Aidan just rested his hand on my thigh, then squeezed. Gently.
But it stayed there.
His hand stayed there.
Oh, my God, it didn’t move.
His fingers were tipped in, tilted up toward the apex of my thighs, and it was hot. So hot. So much like a brand that I knew I needed to have sex soon again because apparently, I’d been sex deprived before.
"I can deal with having the prettiest cock in the city," he told me.
"Won’t be a score against your masculinity?"
He grinned at me, and that grin told me that he was entirely unaware about how his simple claiming affected me. "Maybe if I applied it myself. But I think it can handle it if you were the one who put it on for me."
His eyes were twinkling and my heart just plopped in my chest.
Love, I could confirm, made you stupid.
Seriously.
I had a Masters in Journalism and Mass Communication. I was a seasoned reporter, had broken countless stories, had been a news anchor on the most watched morning show in the nation, and was now going to be the face of the New World Sparrows’ end of days.
Things were about to go Revelations on their asses, and I was going to be the face of that, so, no, Aidan had no right to tangle my ovaries in a bunch. Seriously.