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I was slow in rising to my feet, and I never took my eyes off the gun. “She did. Something drew us together from the first moment we met. We talked at the wedding—”
“Yeah, she told me you fucking kissed her,” Gareth growled out, his green gaze envious. “She also told me she fucked Alistair in the shower!” The gun was no longer pointed at me, his second mistake.
But, of course, I was too busy replaying what he’d just said in my head to make a move for it, which was my mistake. “She… they did… huh.” I suspected Alistair had a thing for the girl, but I didn’t really think something had happened between them.
Gareth ran a hand through his hair, and he moved around the couch and sunk into the nearest cushion, his shoulders slumped. He said nothing, but I could tell his mind was racing. Mine was, too.
Brianna had fucked Alistair? That was… there was a difference between suspecting Alistair had a thing for her and knowing they’d actually done something. I was more shocked than upset, but I was sure, if given the time, the jealousy and rage would return.
I winced as I bent to pick up the switchblade off the floor, moving to sit on the same couch, though I took up the opposite end, leaving a whole empty cushion between Gareth and me. We were silent for a while, and then I muttered, “I suspected Alistair might have a thing for her, but I didn’t… I didn’t know—huh.” It seemed the wordhuhwas about all I could say when I pictured Brianna and him together.
“My plan was to kill you and then kill him, but,” Gareth paused, his eyes on the gun in his hand, “I don’t know if I can go through with it.” When I looked at him, he hurried to say, “I could kill you no problem, but Alistair… he’s the only family I have left.”
Though I hated saying it, I muttered, “I’m your family too, kid.”
“I hate that you call me that. It makes me want to shoot you.” Gareth looked at me then, as if reminding me he still had my gun and he could theoretically shoot me whenever he wanted. “I’m not a kid. Even when I was a child, I wasn’t really.” His gaze returned to the gun, and with a heavy sigh, he set it on the cushion between us.
He was giving it back? That was not at all how I thought this would go.
I didn’t reach for the gun right away. I grimaced as I unbuttoned my shirt to get a better look at the stab wound in my shoulder. I wasn’t bleeding too much, so nothing too important had gotten sliced, but it still hurt like a bitch.
Well, I guess if the asshole was playing nice, I could play nice, too.
I looked at the switchblade, seeing how my blood lined the steel, and then I wiped it off on my shirt—it was already too bloody; I’d need to burn it or something. I set the switchblade near the gun, saying, “That’s a nice blade you got.”
Gareth frowned as he picked up the switchblade, slow to push the sharp blade back in its handle. “Thanks. I stuck it inside Brianna’s pussy before coming here.” Spoken so simply, like he was talking about the weather or something.
I coughed. That wasn’t at all what I’d expected him to say.
He slid the switchblade into his pocket. “I wanted to have her here with me when I killed you,” he whispered, “but I guess that’s not happening anymore.” He set an elbow on the couch arm, leaning his chin on his hand as a pensive expression crossed his face. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
I took my gun, mostly to take it out of his reach. I trusted Gareth as much as I trusted an old, rusted, rickety ladder, and that was to say, not at all.
“I know I… I have a problem with patience. I know I don’t think things over like I should. But it’s ten times worse with her. She makes me feel like I’m going insane.” Gareth ground his teeth. “It’s so fucking stupid. I mean, I hated her when I first found out about her. I hated her when I first met her at the wedding, and I fucking hated Alistair for thinking he could giftwrap someone for me and it would keep me out of trouble.”
“Has she kept you out of trouble? Besides this, I mean.”
He shrugged. “I might’ve killed the cook when she was ignoring me.”
I remembered the call, going to Montgomery Manor and acting like she was some kind of rat while simultaneously playing it off at the station as a prank call. “Ah, yes. The body. That was your fault for showing her.”
That got Gareth to shoot a glare my way. “She’s different, Rick. She acts like she cares about what’s right and what’s wrong, but she’s just like me.” His lips thinned as his glare hardened. “And just like you, I guess. Don’t tell me you can’t sense it.”
Hmm. Maybe I could. Maybe that’s why I was so drawn to her to begin with. She wasn’t like Veronica, in that respect. Brianna liked the darkness, craved the danger. She was beautiful and defiant, and she would destroy us all, if we let her. Never had there been a more gorgeous devastation.
And of course we’d let her. What else could we do?
It was like Gareth could hear my thoughts, because in the next moment, he asked, “What are we going to do?”
I didn’t know if he wanted me to offer him suggestions or not. Hell, none of this was going how I thought it would. Brianna had fucked Alistair… not a thought I wanted to have, but one that wouldn’t leave my head, regardless. So, I told him the truth: “I don’t know.”
“We could fight more,” he suggested. “You could walk out and then walk back in and pretend you didn’t know I was here. A redo.”
“As tempting as that is—” And it wasn’t tempting at all. “—maybe we shouldn’t kill each other. If we kill each other, the only one who wins is—”
“My uncle,” Gareth huffed. “He’ll get Brianna all to himself. I bet that’s what he wants, the asshole.” He had the same thought process as me when it came to pitting us against each other. Eh, I guess the psycho was my nephew. Maybe his craziness hadn’t all come from the Montgomery bloodline after all. “But I can’t stand back and do nothing, knowing all this.”
An option came to me, and I was slow in glancing at him and saying, “We could let her decide.” Instead of going after each other, we could focus on her and see which one of us she wanted more.
