Page 218 of Wicked Brutal

Victor reaches us. Stops directly in front of me. Too close. Not enough to touch. Enough to make the point. He wants me to step back. I don’t.

Kaid moves up beside me. X on the other side. Danny. Iz. No discussion. No signal. We just do what we’ve always fucking done. Five.

Victor looks across us. His gaze comes back to me. “Roman tells me you’ve developed a habit of speaking to Alison in a way I find unacceptable.”

There it is. Roman. I knew somebody had been reporting. Didn’t know how far it had gone. Now I do.

“Roman talks about me?”

Victor’s mouth flattens. “He told me what happened.”

“I’m flattered.”

“You shouldn’t be.”

“Devastating.” A laugh comes from somewhere behind us.

Victor ignores it. “For whatever reason, you seem to believe humiliating my fiancée in front of her peers is amusing.”

I shrug. “She survived.”

His eyes harden. “Watch yourself.”

I smile. “I am.”

ThaVictor glances toward the students beginning to gather at a respectable distance. A couple more phones are up now. He looks back at me. “This is not one of your little schoolyard performances.”

Iz whispers, “He hasn’t seen our schoolyard performances.”

Danny whispers back, “Some are excellent.”

Kaid nods. “Strong reviews.”

Victor’s gaze shifts. Not to me. To Kaid. And I see the exact second he decides to make this bigger — maybe because the boys keep talking, maybe because people are watching now, maybe because he thinks putting one of us in our place means putting all of us there.

Big fucking mistake.

“Monaghan.”

Kaid smiles. “Tremblay.”

“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised to find you involved.”

Kaid glances around. “In Ryan standing in a hallway?”

“In whatever mess happens to be closest.” Kaid’s smile stays put. Victor lets the pause stretch, then spends it. “The Penningtons, for example.”

The air changes. Small. Immediate. Kaid goes still. Victor sees it and thinks he found something useful. “Your families have been tied together for years, haven’t they?” Kaid doesn’t answer. Victor does it for him. “Garrett Pennington.”

Kaid’s smile disappears. “You should stop.”

“Why? Everyone here knows the story.” Victor glances around the atrium, pitching it for the room now. “Your family’s involvement with his. What happened to you.” Kaid’s jaw tightens. “And then, years later, Catherine O’Farrell.”

Victor keeps going, reading it like a list of charges. “The same family. Again. Catherine’s mother. Her father. The blackmail. The kidnapping. The political embarrassment.”

Kaid looks back at him. Cold. “You really researched us.”

“It hardly required research.”