He had made this our home when he brought us here and I wouldn’t be kept from trying to eke out some comfort in the haunted halls.
I froze in what seemed like the music room, a massive harp and piano gleaming in the light from the beveled windows, because I heard another kind of music.
Brando’s laughter.
My heart unstuck from the web of fear caught between my ribs and began to race. I hurried after the noise, finding myself at the yawning mouth of a staircase descending into the stone-walled basement. A shiver tripped up my spine at the ominous sight, but I didn’t hesitate to run down the stairs, worried about my brother.
I blinked when I emerged into the light at the bottom of the stairs.
A massive room laid with black mats sprawled out in front of me, filled with endless fitness equipment and a small boxing ring. My eyes snagged on Brando’s bright hair where he leaned against the ropes to the ring, shouting his approval as two men boxed within.
One of them was Ezra, his great, hulking body tensed to fight as he faced off with his opponent.
Tiernan.
My mouth went dry as I gaped at the man I was supposed to think of as some kind of father figure. He was barechested, his torso gleaming with a thin sheen of sweat that made him seem like a golden statue come to life. The long hair over the crown of his head was wet and dangling across his brow, catching in his eyelashes as he ducked a powerful punch, then sprung up to deliver his own hit to Ezra’s low left side. There were black boxing gloves on his hands, and black shorts slung precariously low on his narrow hips, revealing the top of his shorn pubic hair and a glimpse of that unknown tattoo.
My God, it should be criminal for such an asshole to be so outrageously sexy.
“Brando, what are you doing down here?” I demanded as I unstuck my feet and went to my little brother, gently untangling his hands from the ropes.
He frowned up at me. “Not now, Anca. Ezra and Tiernanny are fighting and I’ve got money on the match!”
“Excuse me?” I blinked, shocked that Brando even knew what putting money on a match meant.
He grinned at me and held up a fistful of crisp twenty-dollar bills. “Tiernan said it’s my allowance, so I can do what I want with it. I put ten dollars on him ’cause Henrik said Ezra was gonna win.”
I looked up and over at the man who was lifting weights in the corner of the room. He looked like a real-life Mr. Clean, his bald head shining under the lights, muscles bulging as he curled some impossible weight.
“Get him!” Brando yelled in excitement, leaning into the rope so heavily, he almost fell through.
I carted him upright, my eyes swinging back to the action in the ring. Tiernan’s face was a stone edifice, utterly impassible but for the burning eyes that tracked every movement Ezra made and calculated the best plan of attack. I watched as he let Ezra come at him, swinging punch after brutal punch that Tiernan was forced to duck or block. It was hard not to wince, thinking that it was only a matter of time before one of those heavy blows landed.
It seemed clear he was outmatched by the bigger man.
But then, a tiny, curling little grin claimed that scarred mouth, and a second later, Tiernan sprung into action.
My mouth dropped open and my breath arrested in my lungs as I watched him finally attack his opponent. He flew around the ring, weaving and lunging gracefully, so light on his feet he seemed to float even while his arms lashed out powerfully to deliver hit after hit against Ezra, most of them landing despite the other man’s attempts to block him. Regardless of my hatred for him, it was impossible not to note how glorious he was like that, spinning and darting violently, sinuously around the ring, so formidable, so self-assured. The entire time, that little, menacing grin furled the left side of his mouth.
Joy.
That’s what it was.
The first time I’d seen it truly expressed on Tiernan’s face.
That, even more than the gorgeousness of his lean, corded muscles flexing under all that golden, tattooed skin held me utterly in thrall.
It ended quickly, Tiernan’s leg darting out to trip Ezra’s weight into an unsteady stagger and then the punishing move, taking the large man to his back on the ground. Tiernan pinned his arms to the floor with his knees and cocked his right arm back to finish him off.
“Stop!” I cried out, unable to bear watching the kind, gentle man who’d saved Brando and me from the CPS agent get knocked out.
Tiernan paused, his chest heaving, sweat dripping off the tip of his strong nose, the ends of his wet hair. I could see his muscles quivering with the effort to harness his momentum. Finally, he turned his head so that those blazing pale eyes found mine.
“Afraid of a little violence, little girl?” he asked, cocking one eyebrow.
“Afraid the wrong man is winning,” I countered, raising my own brow haughtily.
Henrik’s laughter floated over to us, but I was too mired in Tiernan’s sticky gaze to look over at him as he spoke.
“If the right man always won, Tiernan would be dead already,” he joked, arriving at Brando’s side.
“Technically, Tiernan won,” Brando argued with him, holding out his empty palm. “Cough it up, mister.”
Henrik laughed again, and even Tiernan’s lips twitched, but he still stared at me as if he could burn a hole through my skull.
“You shouldn’t fight in front of a seven-year-old,” I admonished. “You’ll give him the wrong idea.”
Tiernan gave me one last lingering look, then sprung up from the ground, tore off his right glove with his teeth, and then offered his hand to help Ezra up.
“Violence is a natural part of life,” he lectured me, his tone bored and condescending. “It is better to be armed for war than to be naïve enough to think adversity will never reach you.”
“We’ve done nothing to warrant adversity,” I argued.
A short, gruff bark of laughter. “No one is wholly innocent, little thing. Least of all you.”
“Tiernan’s going to teach me how to fight like Iron Man,” Brando told me, tugging on my hand so I’d watch him put his little fists up. “No one will make fun of me for peeing my pants sometimes, ever again.”
“We don’t fight people with violence,” I reminded him, furious that Tiernan’s influence was already corrupting my sweet little guy. “We fight them with grace. We condemn them by rising above their primitive behavior.”
“Violence is considerably more fun,” Tiernan told Brando with a wink that made him laugh. “And lasting.”
“Aggression is a dumb man’s way of expressing the words he wishes he could say,” I countered, feeling my own aggression mount. “Of course, someone like you wouldn’t understand that.”
Something dark moved across Tiernan’s face, something black and vicious that made me shiver with regret. I wished fervently I could take the words back but he was already moving toward me, lifting the rope to create a gap.
“Get in here,” he ordered.
I glared at him, lifting my chin in stubborn reaction. “What? Taking my locket wasn’t enough, you’re going to beat me up, now?”
“Get. In. Here,” he ground out between his teeth, a muscle jumping in the square cut of his jaw. “Now.”
Fear clutched at my heart, but I shook it off, deciding Tiernan wouldn’t hurt me in front of witnesses and my little brother. I ducked beneath the rope and stepped over the bottom one, entering the ring in my baggy old Picasso tee and sleep shorts. Ezra moved to the corner, giving us space without questioning Tiernan’s motives.