Page 9

Problem is he’s way too close to my dresser where my clothes are stashed.

Fuck it. Taking a step back, I grab the towel from the back of the door, keeping my eyes on him the whole time, and hold it to my chest.

Then begin to back away from him toward the front door.

Shit. I really don’t want to walk away from that much money, but what good will it do me if I’m dead?

If this place had more than one big, open space, I might have a chance to lock myself in a room and call for help but the only door other than the front is to the bathroom, and that flimsy piece of wood wouldn’t keep a toddler out, let alone a monster the size of the man watching me from the shadows.

I can’t see his eyes, can’t see his face, but I can physically feel his gaze on me, my skin prickling under his attention.

My phone is on the bed beside the duffel bag, but surely a naked woman running through the hall or outside the complex will garner enough attention to make this asshole think twice about whatever he has planned.

Before I can reach a hand back to open the door, it swings open, smacking into my shoulder and knocking me onto my hands and knees. Which, of course, makes me drop the towel.

“Hm. I remember that ass,” a voice says from behind me. A very familiar voice.

As I turn my head slowly and sink back onto my haunches, I crane my neck and look into a face I thought I would never see again. Two faces I thought I would never see again.

Kato’s attention moves from my face to my chest, to the apex of my thighs, before it raises again and there’s nothing short of rage and repulsion burning hot in his blue eyes.

I’d always thought of them like the blue of a cloudless spring sky, so clear and bright and beautiful.

Not now. There is no emotion other than anger. No love. No affection.

It’s like he’s looking at an enemy. Or worse, like a bug he’s seconds away from smashing under his ridiculously fancy looking shoe.

Since when did my Kato give a shit about expensive shoes? Since when does he dress so much…like his father? The suit is obviously tailored to his form, and I’d been around money long enough to know it’s Italian silk.

I’m equal parts elated and horrified. Especially when I turn my head and watch as the giant comes out of the shadows and the light from the bathroom shines on Brixton’s now hardened face.

No love there either, and he looks so different. They all do. Brix seems even bigger than he did when we were teenagers. His hair is long and pulled back from his face, there are tats running down his fingers, peeking above the crisp collar of his button down, and up his forearms to where he has the sleeves rolled up.

Kato and Madd are bigger, too. Broader. More…manly. They’ve lost that boyish charm and I swear there’s almost aninsanity in Maddox’s eyes, like he’s just this side of becoming a full-fledged psychopath.

For four years, I dreamed and fantasized that I might one day be able to find them again, that they would be excited to see me, that they would cry with me over the life and time we’d lost.

But as they all stare down at my naked body, I’m beginning to feel like prey to three terrifying apex predators.

Chapter 3

Kato

So many emotions rush through me as I stare down at Everest, and I can’t help but smirk at the miasma of conflicting emotions that flit over her face. Shock. Happiness, and my favorite…fear.

She should be afraid.

The whore walked through this piece of shit apartment in the dark, completely unaware she wasn’t alone. Four years running from us, and she hadn’t bothered developing a lick of situational awareness or self-preservation.

“Miss me?” I ask as her head continues to turn, her eyes bouncing from one of us to the other.

“What are you doing here? You can’t be here,” she blurts out.

I reach over and flip the switch beside the door, turning on the one light in the ceiling connected to a ceiling fan that looks straight out of the fucking eighties. In fact, the entire place looks like it would be better off with a strike of a match.

Lowering to the balls of my feet, I let my eyes roam her form. She’s filled out more, if that’s even possible. Her tits look fuller, her hips a little wider…

And there are obvious crisscrossing scars over our initials, as though she tried to erase us from her body.