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“What the fuck?” Rayne roars as he stands from his seat so quickly the chair flings back and hits the ground in a heavy bang. “Why the fuck would he do that? And why the fuck didn’t you tell me?”
“She asked me not to tell anyone, but you two by name. She didn’t want both brothers to know what he’d done to her, and she didn’t want Everett coming back because he felt guilty that she was hurt.”
“How bad was it?” Rayne asks through gritted teeth.
Storm takes another deep breath and looks longingly at the whiskey across the room. “Bad. The doctor took hours cleaning the wounds. I tried to get her to go to the hospital, but she wouldn’t. She couldn’t. She wouldn’t even let me in for days.” He drops his head into his hands in a sign of defeat. In all the years I’ve known him, I’ve only seen him look like this twice. The first was the night I told him about what I’d done, and why I had to leave. And the other was a week ago as we tried to work out where to start looking for his parents’ murder.
EIGHT YEARS AGO
All I’ve done for the last hour is stare at the note in my hand. The writing only seems to hold my attention more as time passes, the way the handwritten note is scrawled messily across the page, the threat in the words clear and precise. It doesn’t take a genius to work out the intent behind them, or even who sent it.
My family have always been a bunch of psychotic assholes which is why I never wanted anything to do with them. When I was young, my mother shielded me from the worst of it. My father’s affairs, the abuse, both physical and verbal, and all the things I saw that no child should have to, including watching as my father killed my mother in front of my eyes.
It was strange how differently the Saint James family ran the same operation my father had. They bred loyalty and respect, where my father ruled with nothing but fear. The night I heard him order a hit on a woman and child for the misgivings of one man was the night I knew I didn’t want to be anything like him.
As terrible as my father was, he’s nothing compared to the other side of the family. The Russos are another breed of awful. They’ve always been the scum of this city, but since my father died they’ve only escalated. By marrying my mother off to my father, they thought they guaranteed themselves the key to the city, but they didn’t anticipate the takeover.
I managed to keep my friendship with the Saint James family a secret for a long time. When I slipped out for the night here and there they didn’t seem to notice, or care for that matter. I lived with Uncle Angelo, the unattached, bachelor of the family, but also the cold, ruthless leader. He wasn’t home enough to give a shit about the parentless nephew he never wanted.
And when they found out, I moved out the same day. The Saint James’s welcomed me with open arms, and I’ve been here ever since, with the exception of college.
But as I stare down at the note in my hand, I know deep down this is the last night I can spend in this house. I’m putting Wynter in danger just by being here, and I can’t risk her. Iwon’t.
Wynter is everything good in the world. She’s beauty, and light, and happiness all rolled into the most stunning package I’ve ever seen in my life. She is my life.
We’ve spent the last few years skirting around one another, but since she turned eighteen a few weeks ago tensions have been high. The subtle kisses and touches aren’t so innocent anymore. They’re filled with passion and need for all the years we’ve had to wait for our time. And now that it’s here, I have to leave. Talk about cruel fate.
By the time I force myself to leave the refuge of my bedroom and head up the hallway to Storm’s room, my hands are shaking and I’m barely able to hold on to the note. It’s burning my hands with the threat scrawled across it, and the longer I hold it, the deeper the dread seems to bury itself until it seeps from my pores like a virus.
The moment the door swings open and I’m face to face with my best friend he knows something is wrong, he knows me well enough to know the catatonic state I find myself in is a very bad sign, and the moment he eyes the note in my hand he pushes past me and knocks on the door across the hall.
“Rayne, we’ve got a problem.”
25
Wynter
“Idon’t like this,” Everett says for the eighth time since he walked into the kitchen this morning.
“You don’t have to. This is the best way for us to travel,” Storm tells him.
I feel like I’m stuck in a never-ending time loop that I can’t escape from no matter how many times we go around and around.
“I mean, I don’t like that the girls are leaving the house. It’s risky,” Everett huffs.
“And I’ve told you that the lawyer has requested all of our presence for the reading of the will, and they said they can’t come to the house to do it, so we all have to go to the city,” Storm explains… again.
It has to be Groundhog Day, that’s the only explanation for this constant loop.
“I still don’t like it,” Everett grumbles.
I wrap my hands around the mug in front of me and bring my lips to the rim, inhaling the sweet caffeine. I was going to wait until we got to the city to get one of the fancy coffees I like, but when Everett almost had a coronary at the idea of making a pit stop along the way I quickly made myself a cup and sat my ass down at the table with Snow and Emerson as we watched the never-ending pissing match.
“You don’t have to like it, but it’s happening.” Storm shrugs. They’ve been cold toward one another since everyone woke up this morning, and if I had to hazard a guess I would say they had words last night about the secrets I forced my brother to keep. Everett was never going to let it go, I don’t know why I wasted my breath in the first place. “And we’re doing it the safest way we know how.”
“Like we’re the goddamn royal family.” Rayne rolls his eyes. “I’m with Everett on this one, I’m not comfortable sending Emerson in a car on her own.”
Storm sighs and scrubs his hands down his face. “She’s not on her own, she’s with three security guards.”
