Page 62 of Brazen Defiance (Brazen Boys #4)

Trips

L eaving Clara in the bunk with Smith and his gun has me desperate to get loose again.

Because while I don’t think this is a killing offense, I can’t be sure.

The only thing that keeps me sane is knowing that my father would want me there if he killed Clara.

He’d want to watch me fall apart at the loss.

Sadistic fucker.

Falk and another guard drag me toward the house, a third and fourth guard joining them after I toss not-Falk into the lake.

Trevor, meanwhile, strolls beside us, his bloodied grin visible in the white of the landscaping lights the asshole progenitor spent a fortune installing, the sickeningly sweet perfume of roses making my stomach turn.

In my father’s office, I’m forced into a chair, my arms and legs banded with plastic, tight enough to cut when I test them.

And then the devil himself strolls in, his pajamas loose around him, his eyes ringed in black.

He looks sick, old, and tired, and for a second, I’m glad I’ve disrupted his night.

The consequences will be severe, but I’m not making this easy for him.

He should suffer, even if it’s just a night of lost sleep.

Trevor gloats as he tells my father what he discovered, that Clara and I have been faking following his edict. He gets his own consequence, a call to be held back before he’s given a fist to his gut, apparently for trying to take what isn’t his.

Which has me questioning why my father even cares. Trevor’s spawn would be his grandchild just the same as mine would, so what difference would it make to the old man?

It makes a hell of a lot of difference to Clara and to me, but to him?

They march Clara in next, her hands tied in front of her, a privilege given to her by her gender.

Because to my father, no woman could be a danger, not really.

Smith has his gun out, tapping it against his leg as he looks at her, his fingers twitching with stalled desire.

The man she was sure she’d killed wants her dead.

For once, I’m glad for whatever my father holds over that bastard’s head.

Guards drag Trevor to the side, and Clara’s curious gaze follows, trying to read what’s happening.

My father doesn’t make her guess. “I’m sorry, Ms. McElroy. My eldest son doesn’t seem to understand that you are for Archie and Archie alone.”

Her brows furrow. “Why?”

Exactly what I was wondering.

He paces a circle around her. “You and Archie share a few traits. You’re both fit, intelligent, and stubborn, with a vicious streak.

” He glances at my brother’s bloody face and at Smith behind her.

“Those are all traits I need for my successor. You, my dear, have the added benefit of being able to exist in polite society. Not that you have any training in it. Despite that, you’ve managed just fine.

Archie may have no charm, but you, my dear, do. That is something else I need.”

He turns to my brother, his face solemn and disappointed. “Trevor, you have more charm than you know what to do with, but only half the brain you should. I will risk a lack of charm in a successor, but I will not risk a lack of intelligence. This girl is not for you.”

Trevor’s temper flares, the same temper we all have, and he points his rage at me. “If I’m so lacking, why not gift the keys to the kingdom to Archie?”

“Because your brother is nothing but a loose cannon for me to point at my enemies. His intelligence is shortsighted, and his anger is quick to overtake his reason. As you both share that last trait, it’s just something I’ll have to excise from my successor with a firm hand and solid guidance.”

Clara tenses, the implied threat not sitting well with her. It’s not with me either.

“Now, onto the consequences. While I admire your subterfuge, you should both know better than to cross me. This is your second strike.” Like a viper, he shifts, slamming his fist into Clara’s middle, and she folds in half, her mouth hanging open as she pants through the pain.

A roar sounds, and it takes a moment to realize it’s me, blood dripping from my forearms and ankles as I struggle against my bindings.

But I can’t get loose.

Instead, I’m forced to watch as my father beats the woman I care about, the woman I’ve wanted to protect from him so badly that I’ve kept myself as far out of her life as possible despite the strings of fate and desire that pull us together.

I watch as she falls to the ground. I watch as he kicks her until blood coats her lips. I watch as her eyes grow glassy and faded.

When my father finally steps back and dabs her blood from his pajamas, I’m weak and trembling from my attempts to get to her, to break free from this goddamn chair and kill the monster once and for all.

A lifetime in prison would be well worth it.

Instead of committing patricide, I’m locked in place, my blood soaking into the upholstery.

“Now,” my father says, slightly winded from his tantrum, Clara pushing herself upright with bound hands, even now not willing to lie at his feet like the pelt of a dead animal.

Still fighting, even if she can’t stand up.

“That is only the beginning of the consequences of your actions. Effective immediately, your parents are homeless, girl. They’ll be out before the week is done.

In addition, you have both lost any privacy I gifted you.

I will have a grandson, and you two will provide him for me.

So, we’ll set a schedule, and all couplings will be supervised.

There will be no more of this faking nonsense.

Smith, if you would remove the girl’s clothes.

Falk, you’ll have to cut my son’s clothes off him.

No need to be careful with the knife. He heals quickly. ”

Falk kneels in front of me, his face unreadable as he slices my clothes from me, only a few small knicks on my skin to show my father he’s a good little soldier.

Then Clara gets dropped at my feet, the bruises not yet visible, but the skin across her abdomen swollen and red.

My father used his usual discretion—none of the marks will be visible, even in a sundress.

She looks up at me, and when I see rage reflected, the beast under my skin settles. She was beaten but not broken.

She spits red onto the rug beside me, our blood pooling together, staining the priceless antique.

My father sits on his chair, pulling paperwork out, a red pen in hand as he reviews drafts. “Well then, get on with it.”

Everyone in the room stays.

Clara stares up at me, not knowing how to handle this. I’m so far from hard after watching her be brutalized, that I don’t know how we’re going to do what we must.

Smith steps up behind her, prodding the back of her head with his pistol. Her eyes flare, and I can see the quick calculus between taking his weapon and the likelihood someone else would gun her down for it. She stays put. “Go on, girly. Suck your boy hard. It’s just biology.”

There’s a question in those dark eyes, a fear that this is crossing a line.

I force my lips to twist into something smile shaped, trying to tell her it’s okay, that this torture has nothing to do with her and everything to do with the monster directing this charade.

She whimpers as she shifts before me, another pause for me to do something, anything, to save us.

But I can't. We don’t have what we need to end this.

Not yet. And until we gain some trust, we won’t have it.

She whispers, just for me, her breath warm against my thigh. “Fear and fury, Trips.”

And damn. That’s all I want from her. I want to fight against her fears and revel in her fury.

Her mouth is hot when it closes around me, smears of red left on my dick as she tries to coax me into doing what we’ve been demanded to do.

Confusion swirls in me. I’ve wanted this, dreamed of this, for so long. But with her blood coating me, her pained breaths shuddering through her, my burning skin where I’ve cut deep into my flesh trying and failing to protect her, none of it is right.

For an eternity, she works at me, and the longer Smith stands there, tapping the back of her head with the gun whenever she stops to breathe, the angrier and sicker I get.

I can’t feel my hands or my feet, let alone my dick.

Tears collect on her eyelashes, each movement more pained than the last. Trevor goes to bed with a muttered curse, two guards following him, leaving Smith and Falk to watch with my father.

The light in the office turns hazy and orange, and I’m worried I’m worse off than I think, before I realize it’s just the sun peeking at the horizon.

My father takes off his glasses, glaring at us. “You can’t even do this one thing right, can you?”

He snaps his fingers, and Falk is there, helping Clara lay on the floor, her bound hands rubbing her jaw, the fire I saw in her eyes banked by pain and exhaustion. And because he knows more than he lets on, he scoops her up, carrying her from the room, leaving Smith with me.

“Wait until Falk is back. He might look calm, but that’s when he’s most vicious,” my father states as Smith pulls out his utility knife, intent on cutting me loose with less care than Falk had removed my clothes.

“Yes, sir,” he says, threat in his gaze. But I meet his violence with my own.

Meanwhile, my father sighs, swiping through his phone. “Wednesday evening, we will try again. I had hoped for more from you, Archie. The videos of the two of you were exactly what I’d expected. Such a disappointment.”

He stretches, locks his papers in his safe, and leaves the room.

Smith and I stare at each other, and it’s clear he’s the kind of messed-up that will only fight to the death. He’s already decided Clara should die, and I’m not too far behind on his list, as I’m going to be given all his fun jobs going forward.

When Falk returns and they cut me loose, tearing my barely formed scabs as they yank the plastic from the ridges they’d settled into, it’s Smith who adds some cuts of his own.

It’s only September. We need to stay until the wedding. And things are only going to get worse.

Not for the first time, regret slams into me.

Clara said she could do this.

Maybe she can. Who am I to guess the depth of strength she has? She’s pulled herself out of a sport-ending injury. Then she escaped an abusive relationship and a toxic mother. She’s survived with the four of us, with the terror and mistakes we seem so good at stumbling into.

So maybe this is just another thing to endure with grace and grit.

It fucking sucks I don’t have an ounce of grace or grit. I only survived here by hiding with drugs and alcohol and only got better by getting out.

Maybe she can do this.

But I don’t know that I can.

Which means we’re fucked, because there’s no way out but forward.