“Don’t,” she says.
I kick a broken crate, feeling like everything’s gone to shit. Dust flies up as the thing knocks into a scrub tree. A few pigeons flap up from a corner, all the way up through a jagged hole and into the blue sky beyond.
She puts a hand over her chest. The pigeons startled her. Fuck.
“You’re okay.” I sling an arm around her. Just an arm. It means nothing. I punch in a code on the far door, and we’re in the cavernous main room, the place where we actually do live.
Knox and Grayson are playing a video game in the corner seating area, but she doesn’t see them right off.
She’s gawking at how fucking tricked out it is.
The floor and walls may be rough old brick and concrete, but the rugs and couches are total uptown shit. The bar area opposite us was imported from Ireland—the wooden contents of an entire old pub they were tearing down. Calder made it happen. He likes the old things.
She may be oblivious to Knox and Grayson kicked back on the couch in front of a massive screen, but they’re not oblivious to her, standing there in her little schoolgirl uniform—the short plaid skirt. The white shirt with some logo that looks like it was designed by the fucking queen of England. And don’t get me started on the knee socks and shiny black shoes. Or the question of what kind of panties she has underneath there.
Yeah, they stopped playing the moment we walked in. They rise as a unit. The game rolls on without them. Fake shit exploding. The world ending because of this one girl.
She still doesn’t see them, even as they stalk around the long group table, past the nook where Calder likes to read.
Knox’s brows knit in confusion. Grayson looks pissed.
I pull her closer. I don’t like them looking at her in her uniform. It’s too fucking sexy. The only women they’ve ever seen in schoolgirl clothes like this have been strippers.
Never the real thing.
She is the most real thing.
I can feel when she sees them, because she squeezes in closer to me, like she thinks I’ll protect her from them. Yeah, right.
It’s me she needs protection from.
Still she squeezes closer. I try to not let it make me feel good. I tell myself she’d cower into the side of Godzilla himself if that’s who was beside her, because Grayson and Knox, they’re definitely a scary pair.
It’s not true, though. She loves me. She fucking loves me, and I love her.
But that can’t matter.
I try to imagine them through her eyes. The way Grayson looks like a goddamn avenging angel. No woman can resist him, but they’re afraid of him too. The violence in him runs too deep not to feel it. And Knox, wearing an emerald-green button-down today. So sharp. Like a goddamn blade.
I can’t put this girl above my guys. I’ve struggled too long for vengeance. And now there are those kids to think about. I need her to give me the answers. Will she understand that?
Grayson’s huge. Seriously built—prison’ll do that to a guy. He’s a looker for sure, but he radiates threat, and that’s the first thing you ever notice. Yeah, time inside definitely hardened him.
Knox has blond hair and blue eyes, but he looks the opposite of wholesome, somehow. He’s sharp as a razor. Bright, cold edges like the tech he loves so much.
“Who’s this?” Grayson asks tightly.
“This is Brooke,” I say, though that’s not at all what the fuck he’s asking.
“Hey there,” Knox says to her in that smooth way of his.
“Brooke, this here’s Knox.” I don’t have to tell her who they are to me. Brothers from the basement. I see in her eyes that she gets it.
She steels her spine, chest rising and falling. “How do you do?” she says, holding out her hand.
They both kind of stare. Because, how do you do? Who the fuck says that?
Knox takes her hand and shakes it. “You two on a date here or something?” he asks gruffly. Neither of them will directly challenge me.
“Or something.” I pull her away and up the stairs that lead to the rooms—luxury suites back before this place went to hell.
There are still a few broken chandeliers hanging in the hallway. Weathered carpet still in parts, but it’s clean and dry. The Bradford catered to the elite of the elite before Franklin City went from land of the wealthy to rust-belt hellhole.
Grayson catches up. “Something?”
I give him a look over her head, like, what do you think? “Yeah, something,” I growl.
I see when he gets it. There’s only one thing I care about right now, as far as he’s concerned, and that’s finding and freeing those boys. This is about Keeper.
She’s the lead.
“Okay, then,” he says, still walking alongside of us.
“Got any more questions?” I ask.
“Yeah, you gonna introduce me? I’m Grayson,” he says to her. “Pleased to meet you.”
She smiles up at him, even gives him her hand as we walk. “Hi,” she says, voice hushed. Is she getting that she’s in trouble right about now? Could be. And God, the schoolgirl uniform.
I force my gaze to Grayson. “Later,” I say.
Grayson stops. I guide her onward. Even from this light touch, I can feel the tension in Brooke’s body. Every instinct inside me is screaming to soothe her, to pull her up into my arms and carry her, to whisper that she’s okay. To kiss her soft cheek and let her know I love her. Fucking love her.
Yeah, things couldn’t be more messed up right about now.
“They don’t like guests,” she observes.
“We don’t do guests much.”
We come to my door. You can still see the faint outline of the number five on the polished wood, even though the brass plate is long gone.
I push it open and guide her in, touching the small of her back. She doesn’t need me to show her the way in. But her shirt is soft as heaven under my fingers.
And also, she’s mine.
I remove my hand and let her get her fill of the place, even though it feels wrong not to be touching her when she’s feeling uncertain like she is now. To reassure her.
My suite is simple like the cottage. Things are sturdy and wooden.
The other guys’ rooms, not so much.
Knox has his suite decked out with massive screens and shiny tech. Cruz has a collection of vintage rock guitars and oil paintings that don’t look too different than the graffiti outside if you ask me.
Grayson’s suite is comfortable and welcoming, thanks to Abby. The nicest to be in, though maybe a little girly. We all teased her when she hung bright curtains over the windows, which are covered with double-thick sheet metal. All the windows here are. No good if people on the street see light coming from the Bradford.
Me, I don’t need much. I flip on the bedside lamp, a little wood and metal thing. “Not much of a view, I’m afraid.”
She moves around the space. “It’s…nice.”
I grunt like my heart isn’t jackhammering out of my chest. Like I don’t give a shit whether she likes it. This is a girl raised in a goddamn palace, and here she is in my half-empty room.
“How do you get electricity in here?”
I close the door. “Is that what you really want to ask?”
She turns around, uncertain. What happens now? That’s what she wants to know. The mood isn’t romantic like it was at the cottage, much as I want to flip up that skirt and devour her sweet pussy. Much as I want to make her moan and scream in ecstasy. We have a darker purpose here.