I could do that.
CHAPTER 40
LIAM
Everyone danced around where Emersyn had been. We’d discussed it, some, while she was visiting her friend. Her friend. Her friend was Ezra and Adam’s Lainey. The leverage the fucking King had over them and the girl Ezra worried about being missing.
How it all became so tangled in this Gordian fucking knot I had no idea, but it was gonna get messy.
Really fucking messy.
Emersyn encouraged Freddie, but in his tales regaling us with how he’d gotten in and out of his room, maneuvered around the facility, and gotten to her, were kernels of the shit that happened to her there.
We needed a list of names. One glance at Jasper told me he was thinking the same thing. Look at that. We were absolutely in agreement on this one. Then again, I rather doubted a single one of us wouldn’t walk right into Hell for her. She tugged at her sweatshirt at one point, pulling the cuffs down.
The scars on her arms pissed me off on a visceral level. Beating Cole until he was half dead, then cutting him up like he’d done her. It helped. But he wasn’t the sole cause of what happened to her.
No, that we could lay at her uncle’s feet. That son of a bitch had a lot to answer for.
A lot.
Then there were her parents. Where the fuck were they in all of this?
We’d both been adopted, but I’d won the fucking lottery compared to her freak show of a family, with their proper breeding and wealthy bank accounts. Doc had shown up, but he kept his distance, even if he was very focused on every breath she took.
Yeah, that was all of us. Dragging my gaze off her, I caught Rome’s glance. I understood the message. He was just waiting for me to admit it.
Right. Fuck that. At the moment, she had enough guys wanting her, she didn’t need me on top of the rest. What she needed was for me to deal with the threats. Including the one pointed at Lainey, one that could spill over onto her, that meant I needed to deal with it too.
After putting my empty coffee cup in the kitchen, I headed out. She was safe here. They both were and I needed to take care of things.
“You’re leaving?” Her question silenced the hum of conversation.
I just smirked. “Don’t worry, Hellspawn. I’ll be back. But there’s shit I need to do. Entertain the boys. I’ve had you for the last three days, they deserve a chance.”
Oh, that worked even better than I thought. Jasper’s expression darkened and even Kellan gave me a distinctly unfriendly look. Doc actually sighed, but Rome shook his head. Yeah, bro, I get it. But focus on your girl. If I started, well, Jasper and I had enough things to fight about.
Not that Hellspawn wouldn’t be worth it.
Milo caught my eye as I passed him, but I just bumped his shoulder with my fist. He had his hands full with Lainey, and there was another problem I didn’t want to think about. Whatever shit had gone down in the last few weeks—it had shifted things between them.
Fuck. My. Life.
The interior of the SUV wasn’t entirely pleasant, but I could deal with that later. No one followed me. Leaving the warehouse behind, I headed back out of the city. My destination was an hour away. As it was, I’d already been cutting it close with how off the map I’d been, but there had only been one message from the king and no missed calls.
The message involved a fight that was a month away. It didn’t require a response. When the O’Connells first adopted me, they had a manor estate in Bay Ridge. The affluent area had gradually become something of a bedroom community in the last decade, but prior to that, it had been an escape for the wealthy in summer.
In some ways, it was like the Hamptons, only instead of being on an island in New York, it was spread out around a lake. Fishing, water sports, and hiking were all easily accessible. In winter, they were an hour away from semi-decent slopes.
A lot of families had places out here. Huge estates on isolated bits of land, where the closest neighbor was several acres away. Private property where just about anything could happen. Back in our school days, there had been any number of parties at the various estates, reopened even if they had been closed for winter.
Parties no one reported and where anything could happen.
Parties where the Royals could gather to plot or celebrate. Gang territory, only in a different zip code and income bracket. It was also where the Royals got their name. Particularly because it wasn’t the only Bay Ridge area.
I’d repurchased the old O’Connell property a couple of years earlier. It had gone back on the market, so I set up a shell to snag it. Always have a fall back plan. Currently, the only staff was a caretaker who maintained the property and a cleaning crew that came through once a month to freshen the house up.
No one else lived there. Made for privacy when I needed it. If we had to hide Emersyn—this would be where I would suggest. Though she wouldn’t care for the isolation.
The gates swung open as I pulled up and then I was through. They closed silently behind me. The whole drive, I’d been turning this conversation over in my head. Once in the garage, I checked the security cameras. I had a company monitor them to let me know if anyone tried to get on the property, but it never hurt to review them myself.
Yeah, I was only delaying the inevitable, but it helped to assure myself nothing had changed in the last three weeks. The last person in and out had been me.
Inside, I followed the sound of the television toward the living room. Adam Reed shoved up from the chair he’d been seated in and glared at me.
“It’s about fucking time,” he said.
“I told you it would take time,” I reminded him as I crossed to the bar. I didn’t care what time it was. The next part of this conversation was going to need a drink.
“You didn’t mention weeks, prick.” Despite his anger, he hadn’t left. Then again, the king thought he was dead. More, he thought I’d killed him. He couldn’t really afford to leave, could he?
“No,” I said, agreeing with him as I added three fingers of whiskey to the tumbler and glanced at him to see if he wanted any. “But things changed and I was needed somewhere else. Now I’m not.”
“It’s not even lunchtime,” he argued as if that was a reason not to drink.
“So, one finger?”
His dead-eyed, unimpressed look almost amused me.
Almost.
“Suit yourself,” I told him as I tossed the drink back and refilled my glass before facing him. “We need to talk.” Probably better to just dive right in. “About Ezra. Lainey. The king.” His eyes narrowed and his lips flattened. “And a girl named Emersyn Sharpe.”
Emersyn and the Vandals will return in Brutal Fighter
To keep up with Heather and all her series as well as enjoy bonus scenes and other content join her reader’s group on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/HeathersPack/
BRUTAL FIGHTER
Order Now
Broken dreams.
Broken lives.
Broken bird.
Our feelings for her were like wild animals finally freed from their cage. But my Sparrow, she was the most brutal fighter of us all. She’d had to be.