Determination settles into my chest at the thought, slowing my pounding heart and clearing my head a little.
If no one stands up to these assholes, they’ll just keep walking all over us. They’ll make demands and back them up with the threat of violence, and who’s going to stop them? Who’s to say that even after Dad completes this job for them, they’ll actually let him go?
They could keep insisting that he owes them, demanding more and more until they finally kill him anyway when he’s no longer useful.
These men clearly have no honor. So the only way to ensure our protection is to learn their secrets, figure out what makes them tick.
And then I can make them pay for all of this.
I can find a way to bring the Black Roses down.
4
After another ten minutes of driving, we pull up to a house, and it’s just as annoying as everything else about these guys.
The place is gorgeous, for one thing. Big and expensive, set back from the street with a sprawling lawn that they probably have no idea how to maintain themselves. I highly doubt any of them spend their weekends out under the sun pushing a lawnmower, the way I remember my dad doing on Saturdays in the spring and summer.
They have their fancy-ass cars with the tinted windows, this fucking mansion of a house, everything they could ever want, probably, and they still throw their power around to wreck people’s lives. People like my dad, who has just been trying to earn a fucking living with his fights, since that’s the thing he knows best.
It makes me sick, and I glare up at the house as we get out of the car once again. I grab my bags from the trunk, my posture and facial expression daring one of the men to try to take them from me, and for once none of them take the bait.
Levi takes charge once we’re inside. “Come on,” he says. “I’ll show you your room.”
Gritting my teeth, I follow him up the stairs without a word.
Of course the room is as nice as the rest of the house. There’s a big bed in the center, the headboard placed under a window with the curtains drawn. In the daylight, it probably lets in a lot of light, filling the large space with sunshine.
I hate it anyway.
There’s a dresser off to one side, a desk against the opposite wall, with a large, comfortable looking chair pulled up to it. A door next to the desk stands open, and I peek in to see an attached bathroom, complete with a tub that’s clean and big enough to soak in.
“Are there cameras in here?” I ask him, dropping my bags on the floor and turning my glare on him. “So you three can get a free show to go along with me being held prisoner here? I mean, why else would you have a girl come live with the three of you, unless you’re expecting something?”
He frowns and then snorts, but it’s not an amused sound. “Trust me, Mercy, none of us are that hard up for pussy. I can get laid anytime I want.”
His rich brown eyes have been neutral so far, but they turn heated as he looks at me, his gaze practically burning my skin.
Immediately, I’m reminded of our hookup. I couldn’t stop thinking about it for days afterward, and it’s featured in an embarrassingly high number of my fantasies over the past year. I’ve made myself come with my own fingers more times than I can count thinking of his big hands on my waist, and the way he loomed over me and drove into me hard and fast enough to take my breath away.
My face flushes at the memory of it, and I dart my tongue out to lick my lips. And then on the heels of all that comes the realization that he’s probably hooked up with countless other girls since then.
Irritation flares in me, and I can’t tell if I’m irritated at him for the girls he’s fucked or at myself for caring. Maybe it’s a bit of both, but either way, I shove the emotion down.
I shouldn’t care.
It shouldn’t fucking matter who he sleeps with, and the last thing I should be doing in this situation is thinking about it.
“Yeah, I bet,” I snap, rolling my eyes. “You must go through girls pretty fucking quick, since none of them want to come back for seconds.”
Levi’s eyes narrow, and he steps closer to me. Instinctively, I step back, ending up with my back against the wall between the desk and the bathroom door. He’s got me boxed in, but I don’t let him see that it bothers me.
When he drops his head, it brings his lips so close to kissing me, ghosting right over the skin of my cheek at the corner of my mouth, and I hold my breath, shivering a little when his fingers brush against my arm.
As much as I’m telling myself not to react, my body gives me away, and Levi chuckles under his breath, those deep brown eyes boring right into mine.
“Sure seems like you want seconds,” he murmurs, and even the tone of his voice is enough to make me ache with something that feels suspiciously like yearning.
I don’t let it set in though. Instead, I reach for the anger that’s always close enough to the surface and use it to clear my head. I shove Levi’s chest and step away from the wall, rolling my eyes and praying my face isn’t as red as it feels like it is.
Fuck, I wish my body didn’t want him. This would be so much fucking easier.
Levi just smirks and lets me move farther away. “Let me give you a tour,” he says, dropping it for the moment. Thank god.
The rest of the house is big and well stocked, though I notice nothing is over the top or lavish. It’s got everything three guys in their early twenties could possibly need. They each have their own rooms with attached bathrooms, and there’s an extra bathroom for guests. The living room has a large, flat screen TV against one wall with every imaginable gaming console hooked up to it.
There’s a large gym in what used to be an unfinished basement, Levi explains, and he shows me the equipment, including weights and machines and a few heavy bags hanging from the ceiling. I perk up a little at the sight of those. At least I can keep up with my training while I’m stuck here. That’s something.
We head back upstairs and go into the kitchen. Even I have to admit it’s beautiful. All the appliances are shiny and silver and new, a long way away from the beat up old oven and refrigerator in our kitchen back home that Dad found at a yard sale a few years ago and has been repairing diligently ever since.
Sloan and Rory are both in the kitchen when we enter, the former leaning against the counter while Rory rummages in the fridge. Sloan seems content to ignore me as Levi points out the toaster, the microwave, and the fancy coffee maker that you just have to put the little pods in.
“You want a drink, Mercy?” Rory asks, gesturing to the well-stocked bar cart in the corner. I never told any of these guys my name, and they never told me theirs, but I guess we’re long past the point of official introductions.
“No,” I say shortly. “I’m going to bed.”
He looks at me for a second like he’s giving me a chance to change my mind. But even though a drink actually sounds really good right now, I don’t.
After a moment, Rory shrugs, and I turn on my heel and head back up the stairs. None of them try to stop me, and I can hear the sound of them talking in the kitchen as I take the stairs two at a time to get back to my room and close the door behind me.
I undress and shower, washing the day off me, but it’s not like it goes away. The suds swirl down the drain, and I dry off and pull on clothes to sleep in, but my mind is still going a mile a minute.