“Stay here,” I say to Caidyn when he follows my scramble out of the Buick.
“Like hell, Maddox. That’soursister in there.”
I push him back three places when he attempts to beat me to the gate. “That’s right. That isoursister in there, but she’s there because ofme, so it’smyresponsibility to get her out.”
He shoves me back just as firmly. “I rank higher than you.”
“How so?”
With flaring nostrils and balled hands, he gets up in my face. “I’m older, which means I rank higher.”
“This has nothing to do with rank, Caidyn! You heard what Dimitri said, it’s my life or Justine’s. Me or her. Pick.”
He looks like he wants to be sick, his repulsion perverse enough for him to stumble back two paces. “I’m not fucking picking. I could never…” A shudder finalizes his reply.
“Then you understand why you need to stay here. I have no trouble picking.” I strive to keep my expression neutral when saying, “But I need to know someone will be there for Demi, Caidyn. I need to know she’ll be taken care of as she deserves.” I choke on my next set of words. “If it can’t be me, I want it to be you.” I don’t mean sexually. I mean in the essence of a brother-in-law protecting his sister-in-law. Caidyn cares for Demi, but there isn’t an ounce of sexual ambiguity behind his mutual admiration. “Women always come first, Caidyn. It’s what our father taught us.”
“No, Maddox.” He shakes his head so fast I’m sure I can hear the rattling of his brain against his skull. “This isn’t what he meant.”
When I step up to him chest to chest, eyes to eyes, brother to brother, relief engulfs me. Although he is verbally denying my request, his eyes say the opposite. He’ll have my back no matter what because that is what the Walsh brothers do. It is how our father raised us.
“It has to be me, Caidyn. I need to take responsibility for my actions.”
He hates that I’m right, but he won’t announce it out loud. His job as my big brother means he’s meant to protect me as I’m endeavoring to protect Justine, but that’s null and void when the fuck-up lands solely on my shoulders.
Caidyn takes a moment to stray his eyes to the concrete bunker on his right before he eventually jerks up his chin. The quiet shrouding the compound aided in his agreement. It doesn’t give me the same level of comfort. Nothing good ever comes from long bouts of silence. “But we’ll have words about this once you’re out. I want it noted that I’m not fucking happy, Maddox. Not with you and not with Justine. I warned her about this.”
I get where his frustration stems from, but I don’t have time to assure him his points are valid. “Wait here. I’ll be right out with Justine.” The ease of my statement would have you convinced I’m walking into a locker room full of pimple-faced teens instead of a compound filled with militiamen willing to do anything their commander orders. “Then we’ll take it from there. Wewillget through this.” I squeeze his shoulder in silent support. I wish I could offer him more comfort than that, but time isn’t in our favor, and men like Caidyn need more than a bro-hug to see them through a crisis. “It’s what we do.” I squeeze his shoulder for the second time before tapping my knuckles over his heart. “We’d rather destroy ourselves than let our siblings experience our pain.”
Stealing his chance to reply, I give him the quickest bro-hug, then sprint for the guarded steel gate.
“Stop right there.” My chest lights up with more than the scope of a single assault rifle. “This is private property.”
With my hands held out in front of me in a non-defensive manner, I say, “I’m here for the Gauntlet.” I have no clue if the Gauntlet is a place or a thing. Men in this industry like naming themselves after objects, so it is highly possible it could be a person. “The password is cannon.”
The armed guard drifts his eyes in the direction I came from before returning them to my face. “Are you carrying any weapons?”
When I shake my head, grateful as fuck I shoved my gun into the glove compartment of the Buick when Caidyn raced down the stairs of our family cabin, the guard requests for me to raise my shirt.
Once he has visually cleared me of weapons, he lifts his chin, signaling for a second man in a security box next to the gate to open it. The spiked barrier Dimitri’s vehicle is parked behind jerks open only just enough for me to squeeze through.
I’m subjected to a quick frisk search by goon number two before the head goon signals for a third armed man to join our trio. “He’s going to the Gauntlet. Take him straight there.”
The excited flare darting through the man’s eyes has me wondering if the Gauntlet is a woman. If it isn’t, what excuse does he have for the thirsty glint forming in his eyes?
“This way.” He nudges his head to the door at the side of the concrete structure before heading in the direction he nudged.
After flashing a final glance Caidyn’s way, I fall into step behind the goon. My heart is raging, and I’m sweating profusely. Nothing good ever comes from eerie silence, and that’s all we’re being bombarded with right now. Excluding the five men manning the entrance, there doesn’t appear to be another soul nearby.
The reason for the quiet smacks into me when we step down a set of concrete stairs. At least two hundred men are in a bunker-like room at the bottom of a spiral staircase. There are also a handful of women, none of which have lava-red hair. They’re all peering at a dome in the middle of the deathly black space, laughing and cheering at whatever spectacle is occurring in the glass shoebox-shaped arena.
As they surge toward the thick windowpanes, the roars of the crowd remind me of scenes from theGladiatormovie. They’re thirsty for blood like hungry vultures circling a carcass. Inhuman, immorally corrupt fuckers I sentence to burn in hell when I realize who their attention is rapt on.
The Gauntlet isn’t a person. It’s a torture chamber. A horror skit more unimaginable than you couldevercomprehend, and my baby sister is in the middle of it.
“J!”
My stomach launches into my throat when my shout of Justine’s nickname is overtaken by the vicious growl of a dog trained to attack. When his leash is unclipped from his studded collar, he charges across the room like his hunger for carnage is as cruel as the crowds. He isn’t like Max. He wasn’t trained to protect women. He was trained to kill. The viciousness of his charge is indicative enough, much less the way his teeth rip through Justine’s dress like a hot knife through butter.
