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“What?” he asked, leaning against the wall in my hallway and staring me down. His hair was just as dark as I remembered it, the tattoos covering his skin looking a little darker with more of them. He looked every bit the big brother I’d always known, barely changing in the last fifteen years. Only now things were different. What he said was law to the men in his organization.
Too bad for him that wasn’t going to happen with me though. I mirrored him, leaning against the wall and narrowed my eyes. “I’m not going anywhere.” Movement in the corner of my eye gained my attention. “Hey!” I spun around and pointed at one of the men. “You can’t go up there!” He didn’t listen to me though, just continued upstairs, a bag in his hand…oh my God, was this really happening?
“They’re doing their job,” Ace commented, sounding bored as hell.
“Ace, you don’t understand.” I tried to plead, pushing off the wall and reaching out to him, but he sidestepped me, almost as if he’d been prepared for me to say that to him. What the… This wasn’t the big brother I’d grown up with. He was always so ready and willing to listen to me. And maybe that was yet another reason why I should have told him the truth sooner. But now there wasn’t a choice. He had to know what I’d gone through, what we’d all gone through at Travis’s hands.
“I do understand, P.” His brows knitted together, his lips pulled down at the corners. “I’m gonna get you the help you need.” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “I’ve been such a shit big brother, but that changes today.”
I jerked forward, my hand landing on his leather jacket. “No, Ace, you don’t get it.” Tears sprung in my eyes, falling as fast as water through a broken dam. “I can’t go back to Travis. I can’t live with him. He’ll hurt me.”
Ace’s eyes softened, his hand reached up, stroking the side of my face. For a second I was sure he was believing me, but then he murmured, “He said you’d say that too.” He shook his head, disappointment flashing over his face. “I’ll make this right, baby sister, I promise, I’ll make this right.”
“No!” I wailed, my fists slamming against his chest. “I won’t let you take me back. No!” I fought him, trying to get away, because fuck, I’d made a terrible mistake going closer to him. Now he had me in his trap, something that Travis had created.
He’d pulled the wool over my eyes for years, but the moment I’d run away from him, everything became crystal clear. But Ace…he was still under his influence, and as I stared up at him, tears streaming down my face, I knew that anything I said would have fallen on deaf ears.
Travis had manipulated him, just like he always had with me, and there was no going back from that.
I didn’t think, I just spun around, running toward the playroom where the boys still were, but arms banding around my waist from behind stopped me.
“Let go!” I screamed, so loud my throat hurt, but it wasn’t at Ace who was holding me back, but at the two men who were carrying Kian and Reed out. Reed was his normal happy self, but Kian…Kian was crying and screaming, even more so when he saw how distraught I was.
I probably shouldn’t have let him see me like this, not after everything he’d been through, but the thought of them going back to Travis frightened me even more than me going back to be with him. He’d hurt them, but more than that, he’d use them to hurt me in the worst ways possible.
“Stop, P. Stop!” Ace bear hugged me, lifting me off the ground, then spun us around so I could see the boys being taken out of the house. What I hadn’t expected was for Ace to follow them out.
He wasn’t taking the boys away from me…right?
“Just calm down, P. I’ll make it better, okay? I promise.”
Yet another promise that was being made by a man who didn’t understand. And—
Wait, where was Raf? Had Ace waited for me to be alone before knocking on the door? What would Raf do when he got back only to find me gone? What—
I blinked as Ace carried me outside, the sunlight blinding me for a second until my attention veered from the SUV that the boys were being put into, to Romeo’s driveway where Romeo and Rafael were standing, staring at everything that was happening.
“Raf!” I struggled in Ace’s arms again, only this time he put me down. He knew better than anyone that now that they had my boys in their possession, there was no way I was going to run away. My boys were my life, just like my big brother used to be. But that Ace was gone. That Ace had been brainwashed by evil incarnate.
Raf stepped back, his lips spread in a straight line. “No,” he muttered, so low that I wasn’t sure he’d actually said it. But when my gaze met his, so much darkness shined from his irises, I knew he had.
The Rafael that had held me every night as the nightmares took hold was gone and in its place was a Rafael that I’d never met. This one was cold and calculated, causing me to shiver. I felt it deep into my soul, the pain almost knocking me sick.
It was only then that it clicked…they were waiting here, knowing what was happening. Had they led Ace to me? Had Raf betrayed me after everything I’d confided in him?
Shaking my head, I placed my hand over my heart and croaked out, “You’re just like the rest of them.”
He took a step forward, only halting because Romeo placed his hand on his shoulder, a silent command to stay back—to stay away from me. Indecision flashed over his features, but it was too late.
He’d assisted in ripping my happiness away from me.
He’d sentenced me to a lifetime of pain.
He’d…broken his promise.
So I turned to face the SUV at the edge of the sidewalk, stumbled down to it, accepting my fate in this world, and knowing that all I had to do now was protect the boys. The problem was, deep down, I knew I couldn’t protect them from the man who helped create them.
All I could do was put myself between him and them and accept the beatings that were sure to come.
