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I drag my bottom lip between my teeth as I consider my options. Rationally I know I should just leave the room, but I’m just as involved as they are. I should at least know what’s in the box. But he has a point. Whatever is in the box could be designed to hurt me, and if that were the case, shouldn’t I run in the opposite direction?
“I want to know what’s in the box.”
The sound Everett makes can’t even be described as human. It’s deep and loud and rough, and it kind of terrifies the hell out of me. “Do. As. You’re. Told.”
I stare into his eyes for long moments, considering my options. “Fuck you.”
I shove his hands away from my body and start down the hallway. As much as I want to know what’s in the box, it’s probably nothing I need to see after burying my parents yesterday.
Plus, I need to get the fuck out of this house before I go insane.
14
Everett
Islam the door to the office so hard the walls rattle from the force before taking long strides back to the desk. That woman is fucking infuriating. She was when she was a teenager, and I don’t know why I’m surprised that she’s even more so as an adult.
Doesn’t she understand I’m just trying to keep her safe? Doesn’t she get that we’re at war and this very fucking suspicious box that was delivered with her name on it could very well be a trap? Dealing with her only reminds me why I stayed single all this time.
I should have moved on after I left. It would have been easier if I cut ties all together and moved on with my life rather than watching from afar, but I’m nothing if not a glutton for punishment. And I’ve never wanted anyone other than Wynter. I tried. I fucked so many women I lost count, and none of them ever matched up to my dove. They couldn’t hold my interest, and even during sex, I found myself imagining the woman I love beneath me.
“So things are going well then?” Storm smirks.
I glare at him before doing the same to the box. “Shut up.”
“You would never have been interested in her if she weren’t the way she is, and she’s always been like this. She’s always thought she knows better. It comes with the territory, I guess. Growing up in the environment we did with two older brothers who were involved in the family business.” He shrugs.
“I just got her back,” I whisper. “I can’t bear the idea of something happening to her, it makes me homicidal. When I saw her holding the box by the front door…” I trail off. God, the idea of what could have happened makes my heart beat so hard in my chest it hurts.
“I know. Believe me, man, I know. Every fucking day in the family is another day one of us could get taken out. The accident proves that.” He shakes his head, staring at the leather chair his father used to sit in every night with a glass of scotch and read.
He always said it was his way of unwinding and letting the horrors of the day go. I didn’t understand that until I was older, until after I took my first life.
I scrub both hands over my face. It’s like there’s a live wire under my skin burning me from the inside out. “What do you think is in this thing?” I ask.
“Honestly, I have no fucking clue. I’m guessing not a bomb. It would have blown up by now.”
I nod. “I agree.”
Storm picks up a letter opener from the desk and carefully slides the blade through the tape until the flaps give way beneath it. We both take a breath as he opens the box with the end of the letter opener, careful not to touch it just in case it’s laced in poison.
The things the box could contain are limitless. The family receives any number of threats per day, usually body parts or the like, but what I’m staring at laying in the middle of the box takes long moments for me to put the pieces together.
“What the fuck is that?” Storm asks.
“It’s a dove,” I whisper. This threat isn’t for Wynter alone. No, this is for both of us, and it’s not a stretch to assume it came from one of the Russos. If I had to guess, I would say Elijah, but it could have been any of them.
His eyes move from the dead bird in the bottom of the box to mine, and I know he’s thinking the same thing I am. I chose to leave Wynter to keep her safe. My family is dangerous, they have no boundaries, and nothing is off limits to them, but we made a decision to allow me back in her life, and the moment I did, she was in danger again, maybe even more so than when I left.
“Don’t even think about it,” Storm says quickly.
“What?”
“Leaving. I see it in your eyes. You think she’s safer if she’s far away from you, and that may have been the case eight years ago, but not anymore. We’re all in danger. Every person in this house has a target on their back, and if anything, Wynter is safer now because there is nothing you wouldn’t do to protect her, including throw yourself in front of anything that could hurt her.”
“They threatened her because of me,” I say quietly. “This may be addressed to her, but it’s a threat to me. If I stay with her, they’re going to hurt her.”
Storm groans. “They threatened her before you came back.”
