Johnny’s father moves into view. He prowls forward like a dangerous predator, his eyes on Johnny. “Out, Kyla.”
My back straightens. I can’t leave Johnny, I can’t. “I thought you needed to speak with me.”
“Another time,” K says through clenched teeth, gaze zeroed in on his son.
Johnny squeezes my fingers and lets them go, wiggling himself from my grip. “I thought I—”
“Go!” K roars, making me jump. His face turns a furious shade of red. “I will not be ignored.”
“Magnum,” Johnny pleads with his friend and bodyguard.
Magnum takes my shoulders, forcibly steering me from the room. I peek over my shoulder, watching the glaring match play out until I can’t see them anymore. The first crack of skin on skin whips through the room before the door is even shut behind us.
I turn, digging my heels in to go back, but Magnum has years of experience on me. He wraps his arms around me with a vise-like grip, speaking softly into my ear. “You won’t help. Johnny’s got this. He’s been dealing with this his whole life.”
Thankfully, no one else is in the hall as he carries me into the elevator, my feet just grazing the carpet at our feet. He presses the number for our floor briefly before returning his arms to me, holding me in place and soothing me at the same time.
“He hit him again,” I grind out, my mind flashing to all the terrible things K could be doing to Johnny right now. “He should put me in the ring with himself. I’ll kick his fucking ass.”
“I know you would,” Mag says, kissing my temple. He breathes, the hot breath stirring my hair. “You have to calm down. You have to go deal with Brawler right now. We need a plan. A fucking good plan.”
I go limp in Magnum’s arms until he doesn’t have to hold me back anymore, he has to hold me up. “Did you know he was doing that?”
Mag relaxes his grip only to stretch a soothing hand over my abdomen, making careful strokes of comfort. “No, I had no idea.”
I relax against him, placing my head against his shoulder. He gives my neck a chaste kiss, but it ends all too quickly. Right before the elevator opens, he props me up. I wobble on my feet, and he puts a steady hand against the small of my back until I regain composure in case anyone is hanging out in the hall who we wouldn’t want to see how comfortable we are with each other.
The doors open fully, and Oscar and Brawler appear in the hallway. I march out, eyeing Brawler the whole time.
He meets my gaze head-on, the pulse at his neck a flurry of beats visible with the naked eye.
“Everyone,” Mag says. “My place. Now.”
“This ought to be fun,” Oscar deadpans, leaning against the wall as Mag unlocks his door and ushers us through it.
As soon as the door closes behind us, I approach Brawler. “What are you doing?”
I want to be mad. I want to scream and rage and scold him, but an overwhelming sadness attacks me first. It’s not the fury I thought I would start with. I try to say something more, but I choke. He sat in Dunnegan’s chair. Dunnegan’s. Fucking. Chair. The dead body slumped over the table next time could very well be him, and then where would we be?
I fist my fingers in my hands. Brawler reaches down, scooping them up, his enormous palms encompassing every square inch of my tight fists. He moves his fingers just slightly so he can kiss my skin as he brings them to his mouth. “I had to, Kyla. Are you okay?” He squeezes me, and instead of looking me over in a cursory inspection, he pierces me with his gaze as if he can find all the answers he needs inside me. “This is the third time you’ve been caught in a crossfire, and I’ve been stuck not knowing one fucking word on what’s happening. I can’t do it anymore. I had to do something.”
I close my eyes before reopening them. “But join the Crew? It’s the Crew, Brawler. They murdered your brother, they—”
He kisses the end of my pinkies again, his hands warm against my skin. “Which is why I can’t let anything happen to you. If I get in, I can help protect you. I can keep you safe. Out there, I can’t do shit. I just have to sit and wait. Hope you make it out okay not knowing where you are or what exactly happened. They tried to blow the fucking tower up, and I had no idea what happened to you. Talk about another Crew hit was all over the Heights, and I had no idea if that was you. Then, you’re whisked away for a couple of days—days—and I still don’t know if you’re hurt. Or what they did to you. Or if you even got away. It’s killing me. It fucking killed me, okay?”
I throw his hands away and scream out in frustration. “But this isn’t what was supposed to happen, Brawler. You had an out.”
He pulls me back to him with a growl. “I don’t want an out without you. If you think I’m going to just one day skip off into the sunset and leave you here, you know nothing about me.”
His words press into all the sensitive parts of me. “If you were smart, you’d do that now.”
His blue eyes spark like turquoise fire burning through dry brush. “Not happening.”
“As heart wrenching as this all is,” Oscar says, interjecting his lazy humor into our moment, “Now you have to fight each other, so I’m with Princess on this one. Dumb move.”
“You would’ve done the same thing,” Brawler scoffs back. “In fact, I’m pretty sure it was you who told me to man up and join the Crew a few weeks ago. I need to know what’s happening with Kyla.”
“I told you what I knew,” Oscar seethes. “She’s alive. She’s at the safe house.”
“But you wouldn’t tell me where it was!”
“Because I don’t fucking know where it is!” Oscar lifts his hat off and then pulls it back down over his head with a hard tug. “I told you everything I knew.”
“Careful,” Brawler teases with a humorless smirk. “People might think you actually care.”
“Fuck off. You don’t think I was worried?” He points to me. “This girl is my life. My mother might as well be dead. No one cares about me but her.”
“You don’t think it’s the same for me?” Brawler yells. His shoulders heave up and down.
“Alright,” Mag says with finality, walking into the center of our spat and eyeing each of us. “That’s enough. What’s done is done. Brawler can’t take back what’s already out there, which means he needs to complete the initiation tasks K sets forth.”
“Yeah, one of which is taking Kyla out.”
“I didn’t know he was going to set that,” Brawler answers through clenched teeth.
“He’s evil,” Oscar says. “He takes what you love most and exploits it against you, watches to see how you handle it because if you do, he knows he has you in the bag. He knows he can mold you into doing whatever he wants. If you don’t, he just discards you. The last guy who didn’t make it through initiation disappeared. Did you know that?”
I bite my lip and peek at Magnum. My first thought is maybe the guy just escaped. Maybe he wised up and walked out of the Heights, but at the same time, that’s a naïve person’s wish. Nothing happens like that without the Crew having their filthy hands in it.