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TWO
Vivienne
I jumped at the roar as London lunged, grabbed a glass vase filled with blood-red roses in front of him, and heaved it across the hall.
Crash!
It smashed against the wall next to the paintings.
His powerful chest rose with a harsh breath as he fixed that dangerous stare on the water as it dripped to the floor. With a guttural snarl, he strode forward grabbed the first painting, and yanked it from the hooks holding it in place.
“Touch MY fucking SON!” he bellowed, slamming it down. “AFTER ALL I’VE DONE FOR YOU!”
The wooden frame splintered instantly before he cast it aside, leaving it to clatter to the floor.
But his reaction was like a switch had been tripped…in all of us.
A ripple of rage coursed through me. Colder. Hungrier. More savage than I’d ever felt before. I sucked in the foul, fetid air of that place as he grabbed the next painting and wrenched it free.
Crack!
It shattered before he moved on, tore each one from the wall, and lunged forward. The soft, sheer blinds were next. Shredded in blind fury, they fluttered to the floor before the low-rise steel table was lifted into the air and heaved clear across the room.
Crash!
In a matter of minutes, the room was utterly destroyed. Broken, torn…
Still, it wasn’t enough.
It wasn’t anywhere near enough.
Hard muscles rippled under his white shirt as he spun. That incensed look of rage was darker than I’d ever seen it before. “I’ll burn it.” His husky words were the match he needed. “I’ll burn it all to the goddamn ground.”
He strode into the kitchen, then yanked open the cupboard and rummaged through until he pulled out a large bottle of kerosene and placed it on the counter. But his gaze moved to that thumb.
I couldn’t look away as he reached out and grabbed it.
My gaze fixed on the touch I craved. To feel those callused ridges brush my tears away. But I wouldn’t, not anymore. Tears threatened. But they weren’t tears of sadness…they were of rage.
The kind that swallowed me.
London bowed his head as his fist closed around that shorn-off digit, his body quaking. “I promised him,” he whispered raggedly. “I promised him when I carried the both of you out of that place, they’d never take him from me.” There was a small shake of his head. “Now Hale has him. So I failed. I fucking failed.”
I opened my mouth to answer.
But no words came, trapped behind that lump in the back of my throat. Out of the twins, Colt was the one he protected the most. The one beaten. The one tortured…the one scarred. I saw the weight London carried now. The weight of responsibility to a broken boy…and now to a man.
It rippled back to me.
Go to him, London’s voice rose in my head. Fuck him, Wildcat. Love him. Take care of my son…
All the times London pushed me to Colt. Over and over again, as though he knew what Colt needed.
And he was desperate to put the son’s needs before his own.
“No…” Carven snarled, striding forward until he was in front of London. His words were a growl behind clenched teeth. “You didn’t. It was them. It was all of them. Fucking Hale and The Order. They take and corrupt and destroy. But they won’t destroy us, London. Do you hear me? They. Won’t. Destroy. Us.” He grabbed London by the back of his neck, dragging him close until their foreheads touched. The sight of that raw, masculine need for strength drew me forward. “Familia est omnia. Isn’t that what you’ve always told us, London? Family…is…everything.”
London shuddered, then reached out, grasped my hand and drew me closer. So close that I became part of the need for strength. Sparks collided in London’s dark eyes as he turned his head and fixed that desperate gaze on me. “Familia est omnia.”
