Page 137 of Carnal Wagers

Chapter 33

I got one solid punch in before Liam and Arthur wrestled me off Brody. My brother, whom I always protected, almost strangled the woman I loved. I nearly lost her, not to a serial killer, but to one of the people I trusted most.

Blood trickled from his nose. He wiped his knuckles through it and smeared it over the rest of his flushed face. He deserved worse. I’d seen the mark of his fingers on her neck and the trauma in her gaze. He deserved the same at the very least. If he were anyone else…

“You’re a menace, Brody.” I thrust a pointed finger at him through the arms grappling me backward. “Rein it in, or I’ll do it for you.”

“She should be dead!”

Fury ripped through me. Someone behind me caught my elbow. Another got a headbutt. Their hold loosened, and I lunged.

My hands wrapped around his throat and squeezed. “You stay away from Alice.”

He punched my sides again and again, yet I didn’t relent. He tried to slip through my hold, but I knew all his moves. My thumbs crushed down against the depressions under his jawline, not to kill him, just to make him understand what he did to her.

“Killy, let him go.” Arms pulled at me. Hands tugged at the hold I had on his neck as his skin colored and his eyes lost focus. “Enough.”

“You don’t look at Alice,” I snarled in Brody’s face. Spittle spattered between us. “You don’t talk to Alice. You don’t fucking touch Alice. Do you hear me?”

Whatever he croaked out broke into pieces, all unapologetic bullshit squelched under the pounding in my ears. There was no regret in the lines of his face. Only his own rage and his feelings of my betrayal to our brotherly bond stared back at me. Brody had only ever been able to understand his own logic, no one else’s.

I shoved him away with a roared grunt. He landed in a heap on the ground, coughing between gasps. Arthur patted his back, and with Liam’s arm grappled around me, I toppled backward into him and a wall. It knocked the air out of him.

“I mean it, Brody.” I labored through each word with choppy inhales and clenched my fists at my sides to avoid going at him again.

“Al-zee,” he rasped, the sound scraping out of him.

“Whatever shite notion you’ve conjured up, you’re wrong.” I battered away Liam’s hold and advanced on Brody.

“Ali-zee.”

He cleared his throat, hawking phlegm, and heaved himself up. Only a foot stood between us, our heights evenly matched, but he jutted his chin out like he still held control of the situation.

“Her name. It’s not Alice.”

I slashed a hand between us.

“Stop digging yourself in deeper. I’m going to marry that woman.”

“You,” he panted out, “already are.”

“What?” I shook off the reach of Liam’s hand as he attempted to pull me back from Brody again. “What the fecking hell you going on about now?”

From the back of his waistband, below his dress shirt, he drew out a stack of papers and photos and smacked them against my chest.

“I deserve your trust”—he coughed—“more than she does, you bleedin’ arsehole.”

The documents rustled and wobbled to the ground in an arc. Photos stared back up at me. Candid photos of Alice crossing foreign streets, set against a background of old French buildings. Photos of her at galas, on the arm of a man I knew as the head of the French mafia, Adrien De Villier. Photos of her at conferences and product launches, wearing business formal attire for the brand Maison DV Parfums, written on banners and placards in the background. Then there was the photo of Alice and Maeve from a few days ago. I picked it up and traced her smile.

“Alice is Alizé De Villier. Your wife.”

I shook my head, my jaw slack, and stumbled a step. I shoved my tongue against the backs of my teeth and rubbed at my suddenly itchy ears with heavy hands. This wasn’t right. She wouldn’t lie to me.

“Alice Marine out there”—Brody sucked in a breath, the rasp already gone—“exists only in the US and only as a foreigner who occasionally visits. There’s no record of her in France.”

“No.”

I tugged at my tie and picked up another photo. Every single one looked exactly like my Alice. I lost track of everything else around me as I stared down at the pictures of the woman I loved. It felt like someone jammed a nail through my ribs.