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I stare at my older brother and see the pain in his face. I understand the place he’s coming from and the need to believe that Jessie is still the same person we thought she was. But what if she’s not? “What if she doesn’t have an explanation, Con? Have you even considered that? What are you going to do?”
He turns to me again and that haunted look in his eyes, the one I hoped I’d never see again, is back. “Of course I’ve considered it. But I can’t think about what I’m going to do because it fucking terrifies me. I’m terrified of what he’ll do to her. Of what I might do to her, Liam.”
I swallow. I have no answers for him. I only hope that Jessie does. But I can offer him something. “I promise I won’t let you do anything that you’ll hate yourself for. Okay?” I wrap an arm around his neck and pull him to me.
“Yeah,” he sighs.
“You two ready for some food?” Mikey shouts across the kitchen, interrupting the moment.
“I’m not hungry,” Conor shouts back.
“What? I just spent an hour making this. And it’s your favorite. You gotta eat, Con,” Mikey snaps.
“Man has a point,” I add.
“Fine,” he snaps as he downs the last of his beer.
We’re heading over to the table when Shane walks into the room and we all look up at him expectantly. My eyes scan his face and his body, looking for any clues as to what might have happened downstairs. He’s not covered in blood, so there’s that.
“Is she awake?” Conor asks.
“Yeah,” Shane says with a nod as he crosses the room to sit at the table.
“And?” I ask.
“She won’t talk,” he snaps.
“She didn’t say anything?” Conor frowns at him.
“She played dumb. Wouldn’t tell me who she was working for. And then she said some shit about the Wolf being here.”
“The Wolf?” Conor interrupts him.
“Yeah,” Shane says nonchalantly as he looks over at Mikey. “What’s for dinner?” he asks.
Conor’s entire body vibrates with anger. “Forget about dinner. What the hell did she say about the Wolf?” he shouts.
Shane turns to him and glares at him so fiercely, I almost shit my pants. I haven’t seen him look at any of us like that since we were kids. “She asked if he was here. She is playing the victim card, Conor,” he snarls. “Trying to make us feel sorry for her. She’s probably been fucking the Wolf all along.”
“Fuck you, Shane,” Conor snarls as he slams his fist on the table. Shane pushes his chair back, planting his hands on the table and leaning toward Conor as the two of them glare at each other, making the tension in the room ratchet up from uncomfortable to downright fucking unbearable. I feel like the kid in the middle of a bitter divorce here.
Against my better judgment, I stand by the center of the table and place a hand on each of their arms. “She’s probably still confused by the drugs we gave her. Why don’t we all have something to eat and then one of us can talk to her again?”
“I’ll be the only one doing the talking,” Shane snaps.
“And no one is going to argue with that. So can you calm the fuck down and sit,” I say to Shane before I turn to Conor who is practically foaming at the mouth. It fucking kills me to see my brothers like this. Damn, Jessie, better have a good fucking reason for putting us all through this shit. “Con. Let’s sit down and eat, yeah?”
It takes a few seconds but the two of them back down and sit at the table and with impeccable timing, Mikey brings a huge bowl of chili to the table. Hopefully, he’s made his extra special recipe that is so freaking hot, none of us will be able to talk much at all after a few mouthfuls.
Chapter
Eight
JESSIE
Ihave no sense of how long I’ve been in this tiny cell. I suspect it’s in the basement of the brothers’ building because I hear the bass thumping from the club upstairs occasionally. Since I’ve been here, I have mostly slept, no doubt because the bastards drugged me but, surprisingly, my head seems clearer now than it has in days.
As I look down at the floor, I notice there is a bottle of water and a pre-packed sandwich on a tray beside the bed. Shane must have brought it in, because he is the only person I’ve seen since I arrived here. Once after I first woke up, and a few more times when he has stood near the doorway and fired questions at me for what has felt like hours. Each time I have refused to answer any of them until he answered some of mine. And it seems like he is the only person I’ll have an opportunity to ask, as clearly his brothers don’t have the balls to face me.
