Page 12 of Fractured Memories

That thought has been circling my mind since I took my mask off and she stared up at me with confusion. Since she tried to fight me when I pulled her into one of my vehicles. Since she spent the entire ride back up the mountain trying to escape the car.

In true Eden fashion, she went completely feral once her shock wore off, and I’ve gotten nowhere trying to talk to her. I couldn’t reason with her, couldn’t calm her. She didn’t want me touching her, nor would she answer any of my questions.

She treated me like a threat. A danger. Someone she wanted to get away from.

And Eden has never looked at me like that.

Not the first time I saw her in the cages. Not every time I sought her out to win her over. She’s always had this fire I fucking loved, but never has she reacted so violently to me.

“They did something to her,” I growl, lifting the glass to my lips. It’s one of the few that survived after I stormed into the sitting room and took to breaking everything in sight—mostly the extensive whiskey collection that had been on the bar behind me. Before I broke it all.

“We can have the doctor look at her immediately.” Rohan twists his own glass on the table, brows furrowed. “I’m shocked you left her side.”

I hear the question in his voice. As my second-in-command, Rohan had to stay back at the compound. Typically, he and Lochlan would deal with matters like this so I wouldn’t be jeopardized, but since it was Eden, they both knew that wouldn’t be the case. I would be going after her, with Lochlan’s help, of course.

Nothing says loyalty like following me into a rebel camp just to taunt death for the hundredth time. Heaven knows that’s Lochlan’s favorite activity.

Despite our titles, we make our decisions together. They are my brothers, even if we don’t share any blood, and they were just as devastated when they learned that Eden had been targeted.

Which is why Rohan is staring at me with concealed worry. He’s not one to be overly emotional—thank fuck—but he knows me. Knows I have been unstable since Eden went missing, and I should be glued to her side right now.

That’s where I fucking want to be, too.

Instead, I’m in the sitting room on the opposite side of the house like I’m not one second away from fucking losing it altogether. I have no doubt the shattered glass behind me after returning with my wife makes very little sense to Rohan.

“She doesn’t want me there.” I swallow the rest of my whiskey, hating how the words are more painful than any blade I’ve ever taken. “She didn’t recognize me.”

Rohan blinks. “She didn’t recognize you.”

“That’s what I fucking said.” I nearly throw the damn glass. “They did something to her, and she wants nothing to do with me.”

She made that abundantly clear the entire way back.

And it fucking killed me. Not that I’d admit it out loud.

Some people think I am the devil incarnate, but believe it or not, even men like me can fall in love…in our way. Eden Kelly has carved my damn heart out of my chest and holds it for herself.

So, to find her like this…it’s nearly leveling me.

I expected a teasing remark. A joke. Her telling me that she saved me a few arseholes to kill as a form of foreplay. Any of those sassy remarks that made me fall for her so damn hard. She’s always been so witty, so strong, so full of fire that I couldn’t get enough.

That is not who I found waiting for me.

But I’m also shite at expressing my emotions, so I’ve taken to destroying bottles and trying to drink myself into this making sense. My two favorite coping mechanisms: alcohol and violence.

And they say the city I rule isn’t paradise. Fucking sounds like it to me.

Rohan studies me for a moment before picking up his glass again. “I think I’m going to need a little more here, Kier.”

I swing around and pick up one of the few remaining bottles from the bar along the wall. As I pour myself a refill, I contemplate what I’ll even say. I’ve never been good with words—worse when I need to explain my damn emotions—so I’m almost relieved when I hear footsteps heading toward us.

Almost.

Because I know that gait.

Lochlan rounds the corner with a big grin on his face. “Rohan!” His accent is extra thick when he’s feeling playful, high on the bloodlust.

It’s a telltale sign of who we are. Very few people in the city remember much of anything before my family rose to power, but the mafia has deep roots in its culture. Which is why my mother—the cold bitch—made sure I knew where I came from. She tried to ingrain my Irish heritage into me, and some of it stuck, like the whiskey we still have made the Irish way and the accents we developed listening to our parents. Some of the guards even speak in the same lilting tone. According to the history our parents shoved down our throats, half the population in the city has roots back to the country.