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The doors ping and open right into the room I’m staying in. I don’t care enough to really look at everything right now, so I take the three steps down into the entrance room and quickly find the kitchen that’s curved around the corner and adjacent to the sitting room with large blue, red, and yellow stained-glass windows. The furniture looks basic, and it isn’t long before Jordan and Christopher are rounding the corner of one of the bedrooms.
I nod at them reassuringly, as if to say that I’m okay, though I’m not sure I am.
“Um… meet me over there—” I point to the lounge and watch as everyone shuffles through, Killian on his phone and Lilith remaining silent beneath Kyrin.
Keaton stays behind in the kitchen, watching as I open the fridge and pull out a bottle of wine. I don’t like wine, but this will do.
I take down two goblet glasses that look far too big for white wine, and pour them to the rim before scooping them up and carrying them to the lounge, setting one on top of the coffee table in front of Lilith, and placing the other on my lap once I’ve lowered to the two-seater.
Keaton stays in the kitchen, but I can feel his gaze all over me like an inferno of fire ripping rapidly through a forest.
I slowly raise the glass to my mouth and take one large gulp. And then another. And another until I feel the warmth from the wine mix with the one Keaton is leaving behind with his obvious staring.
“Eli is alive, and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you all that I knew.” I squeeze the stem of the wineglass, sheepishly following the trail up until I’m met with Lilith’s purple gaze. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”
Lilith leans forward to grab her wine, following my steps and taking a few gulps before placing it onto the coffee table again. “I’m not upset with you about that, Cartier, so long as you tell me why you kept it from us.” Us? My eyes swing to Kyrin, then back to Keaton, and to Kill who is launching up from the sofa and making his way to the entrance again, no doubt to meet King. Christopher follows Kill, slowly rounding my sofa as if to stand directly behind me as Jordan moves to the kitchen bar.
“Hold up!” Keaton breaks the tense silence. He points to Jordan and Christopher. “You two motherfuckers think we’re going to hurt her?”
Christopher is the first to speak. “Every person is a threat to her. That is simply how it is.”
Keaton pushes off the fridge he was leaning on, taking big strides toward Christopher, but I launch up from the sofa, stopping him with my hand on his chest.
“No!” His chest is hard and warm, and even though I’m staring straight at his pecs, I know that all it would take would be me to tilt my head upward to see the storm in his eyes. “That is what they are trained for, Keaton. Leave my men alone.”
Keaton snarls, and I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who hears the growl in his voice. “You’ll pay for that.” His words are for me, and the same game of cat and mouse prickles over my skin. The fear, the pleasure, and everything else in-between. He backs up slowly, retreating the same way he came.
“Tell me more, Cartier. Ignore Keaton and his dick riding competition,” Lilith interrupts. As she should.
After lowering myself back onto the sofa, I swallow yet another swig of the wine, sighing once it’s lowered my heart rate.
“All I know is that when he was babysitting me all those years ago, Dominic Stranger broke into my apartment in the city. At the time, I thought they came for Eli since we were followed earlier that day while we were out riding in his car—”
“What?” Kyrin interrupts, and I pause, annoyed that I’m once again having to stop my story to talk about shit that has no relevance to the endgame.
“What, what, brother?” My tone is sharp. I intended it to be. “You found out about him and me being close.”
“I know that!” he snaps, and when I really look into Kyrin’s eyes, I can see our father in there—or should I say his father—he’s like the shadow that follows him everywhere without him knowing. It’s not a bad thing, it’s just… a scary thing. “Why were you riding around with him?”
“Because I was getting drunk with Nial at this bar down the road—”
“—what? How the fuck old were you when you were drinking at this fucking bar?” Keaton’s turn to snap at me now.
My shoulders pull back and my eyes narrow on his. “Old enough to fuck you. And have you phone fuck me outside of it.”
Keaton’s face falls as if he remembers.
Kyrin launches off the chair. “What!” Oh God. This is not good. He continues his steps toward the kitchen, angered and heavy. “You fucked my sister back then!” he yells so loud spit flies out of his mouth and the veins in his neck swell against his skin.
Lilith and I look back at each other, our expressions mirroring one another. I cheers her and she responds with her own as we both take another sip of wine. Something smashes to the floor around yelling, and I think King has entered, and Christopher has taken the spot beside me on the sofa, his hand resting on mine with reassurance. Glass is flying, more yelling, and all Lilith and I do is sit. And wait. And drink.
I squeeze my thigh. “This guy…” I whisper, and even above the boys fighting in the kitchen, Lilith’s attention is solely on me. She shifts to the coffee table, sitting directly opposite me now with her wineglass between the palms of her hands.
“Tell me,” she urges, her eyes wide and cheeks rosy. “Tell me it all.” Eli has always been the lifeline between Kyrin and Lilith. They needed him to stay alive the same way that they needed him to not kill each other.
“On this day, we thought we got away from them, but we drove back to my apartment and Dominic was sitting in the lounge with two other people. He looked like he stepped right out of a mafia movie.” The yelling has simmered down enough to hear me speak, and it’s not until I open my mouth to say the next part that I feel the flame of Keaton hover right beside me until he’s sitting on the couch. “I thought it had to do with Eli. I mean, for years I assumed it had to do with him because of The Kings. I thought it was one of their dodgy dealings and they’d come to collect—or I don’t know—whatever.” I take another sip as Keaton’s thigh presses against mine.
My pulse slows in my ears, but I continue. “Their exchange was odd. Almost as though they both knew why the other was there, but none of them were going to say it out loud. I’ve replayed it over and over in my head. Like what did I miss? Was there something I could have picked up on?” I shake my head. “The man wasn’t there for Eli. I think some of you met him already at one of his venues. Anyway, when I finally hunted them down and found Eli after months of trying, I stumbled across Dominic again. That was when Eli told me to stop looking or people were going to get hurt and that he has it under control.”
