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I slowly turn toward his handsome face, or at least it feels like time has started to crawl. I don’t know him very well, but from just the last hour, we totally clicked, and I know the next words out of my mouth are going to change that. “Finn, this is—”
Cole cuts me off. “Her brother.”
The guards around him stiffen. Not because this is new information but because of the dark way Cole decided to give Finn this information. They’re so attuned to him. It’s freaky.
“He’s my brother,” I say anyway, with a bit of edge and a glare toward the brother in question. My voice brings Finn’s gaze to me. He’s certainly not smiling anymore, but he’s not running either. He frowns, and I don’t know which reaction is worse. The running away, I expected. This is something more. The indentation in the center of his lips deepens.
He roams his gaze over me for a few moments before turning back to Cole. “Wow, I didn’t know you had a sister.”
“Obviously,” Cole says, acting bored now. It’s this thing he does, so he can elevate himself around everyone around him, and with most people, it works. “Did I see you guys dancing?”
I reach out instinctively, grabbing Finn’s hand. He doesn’t immediately pull away, so that’s more points in his favor. “Yeah, we were.”
Now it’s Cole’s turn to frown at me. He lowers his gaze and finds us holding hands, which only worsens his reaction. He steps up close, his entire being bringing with him a wave of tension. “I’m going to give you the opportunity to run away now, Finn.”
Here it is, I grumble inside my head. I try to extricate my fingers from Finn before he can do it himself, but instead, he increases the pressure, keeping his hand in mine. I stare at him in awe. I didn’t take him as someone who had a death wish.
Cole’s lips pull tight. “Looks like we’re going to need to take this conversation someplace else.”
“I have the perfect place,” Finn smiles.
Turning, he leads us around the octagon and toward the back room I saw him and his fighter exit earlier. He’s dropped my hand now, and I really want to bitch my brother out for that, but that’s just simply a no-no in front of all these people. It’ll have to wait.
I watch Finn as he takes us through dimly lit hallways until stopping at a non-descript door. He turns the handle, and it moves freely in his hand, opening up into a locker room. Clothes, gloves, and mouth pieces are strewn everywhere, including benches and the floor, and a hint of sweat and exertion permeate the air.
Cole tells his guard to stand outside, so it’s just the three of us in the room. Luckily for me, I can talk to him like my brother instead of the gang leader now. “Cole, that was rude.”
“Leenie...”
When he says my name like that, I’m transported back in time. My heart aches for the relationship that I used to have with him. I’m well aware of the responsibility on his shoulders now, but I shouldn’t have to suffer because of that.
He shakes himself out of the old Cole, and instead, shadows creep back over his features. “I’m going to deal with you in a minute, but I need to have a talk with Finn.”
“You don’t need to deal with Finn,” I argue. “We just met.”
“Ouch,” Finn bemoans.
I peer over at him. He’s leaning against a row of lockers with his arms crossed. “Trust me, I’m helping you.”
He gives me a smile. “I never needed help before, sweetheart.”
Cole gazes between the two of us. I’m not ashamed to admit that the cute name for me coupled with the fact that it sounds as if he’s about to tell my brother to go suck it, endears me to him even more. How is this guy even real?
“Colleen, leave the room.” Cole stalks forward, but I step in his way, grabbing his inked-up forearms.
“Can you please just be my brother again for a minute?”
“Even if I was just being your brother, I’d be telling you off for ignoring my texts and lying to me. And—”
“I didn’t—”
Cole laughs. “Leenie, come on.Hanging outmakes me think you were staying in. You know when you go out you need a guard now. That’s all I ask.”
“Yeah, and the Dragon tattoos are a major cockblock.”
Cole shudders, his lips turning up in disgust. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.”
Finn chuckles behind us and doesn’t stop even when Cole narrows his gaze at him. “Sorry, it was funny.”