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A hand pressed to the back of my head as Milo all but picked me up. I wanted the tears to stop. I was supposed to be looking after them, but I couldn’t stop it.
Mickey had been so damn broken. The pain in his eyes would forever haunt me. Rome looked like hell. Liam destroyed. Then there was Vaughn—the agony radiated in the air around him. Milo, Kel—no one was safe from my uncle’s retaliation.
“Sparrow,” Kellan’s voice penetrated the haze of tears as I cried against Milo. The firm weight of his hand on my back seemed to drag me back from the edge. “This is not on you…”
“Fuck, no,” Milo said, his vehement growl provoking more tears. “Jesus, Ghandi, and Joseph, Ivy. This is definitely not on you. Ever.”
Lifting my head, I glanced from Milo to Kellan. The understanding in his eyes threatened to break me. Yes, this was on me.
“No,” he whispered, as if reading my mind. “This is not. They might be striking back at us, Sparrow. But this is not your fault. It’s their fucking fault. It’s the son of a bitch who took Ms. Stephanie, who took Liam’s parents, who set the explosives and came after you guys in the street.”
He slid his hand down to my hip, the contact gentle and light.
“It’s the bastard who put their hands on you and on Freddie, who tried to take out all of us. They wanted to hurtus,not just you.”
“Because of me…”
“No,” Milo said, wrenching my attention back to him. I still hadn’t— “I don’t care what that fucking family who adopted you thinks. This shit? This crossed a line a long time ago. What they did to your mother? What they’re trying to do to you? Goddamn right, we’re not going to allow it to happen. They want to scare you. They want to make you run.”
Kellan stilled against my back as Milo set me down, then cupped my face. The smell of blood and antiseptic joined the scent of smoke, clogging my nostrils.
“That’s what this is,” Milo said, his expression darkening as his gaze locked on me. “It’s all a gambit to make you run. To make you leave us so that we can’t protect you…”
Had someone…?
“No, I don’t know what is at the root of this. No one has revealed your secrets to me. Not the guys. Not Mayhem. No one. I want you to trust me enough to tell me, but whether you do or not is irrelevant. Because you’re my baby sister, and what comes for you, is coming for me.”
“For us,” Kellan said in a steely tone, and Milo lifted his gaze to look past me. The wordless communication translated into a worried expression before his whole demeanor softened.
“Coming for us,” Milo said, reinforcing Kellan’s words. “They drew blood. I’m not doubting that. I refuse to let them take you. We all will. I just need you to keep fighting foryouand to trust us.”
Curling my hands into fists, I sniffled. “I just—hate that you guys are all hurting.”
“We know,” Kellan said, then slipped an arm around me to tug me back against him. His chest was flush with my back. Milo didn’t scowl or glare. If anything, he appeared almost indulgent, which seemed to underscore the moment. “We hate that you’re hurting too. We do this together. They want to drive a wedge between all of us.”
“Divide and conquer,” Milo said with a long sigh, reaching for the cotton I’d used to dab his knuckles. He resumed the work with care. “It’s a plausible theory. You put a wedge against one person, turn that person against the rest or put them in a position where they see only one way out…”
“Sacrifice the one to save the many,” Kellan continued, then he pressed a kiss to the side of my head. “We’re not sacrificing anyone.”
“We already—”
“No,” Milo said with a stern shake of his head. “They made a mistake in taking Ms. Stephanie. They compounded that mistake by taking Liam’s parents. They just added salt to the wound by going after the businesses. They want us distracted, looking away, and they wantyouafraid.”
A shudder went through me. What had I said? I told no one because everyone I’d ever told had died? The doctor. The nurse.
“Don’t be afraid, Ivy,” Milo said. His dark eyes held a threat of violence, but it wasn’t directed at me. “A few years ago, someone put me in that position. They set me up—threatened the guys—threatened to pursue worse with them, and I went to jail for three years to make sure that didn’t happen. I made a mistake…”
The shock from Kellan translated with how his arms tightened.
“I let fear dictate my decision. It was on me to protect my brothers. Just like right now, you are trying to put it on yourself to protect us. The problem is… I didn’t trust them to protect me.”
Milo focused on Kellan.
“Don’t make my mistake,” Milo continued as he stared at me again.
“I don’t know if I can tell you,” I said slowly. It wasn’t fear holding the information captive. Well, not entirely fear. I didn’t want to hurt him… but all of this was going to hurt him.
It was going to hurt all of us.
