Page 24

Twenty-three

JAXON

I keep fidgeting with my lip piercing as I pace in Jared’s living room. I’m too wired up to keep looking for weird fucking shit.

Knox is crazy, though. He’s trashing Jared’s bedroom, ripping it to shreds in search of something.

I don’t know what else he’ll find, but I’m not na?ve to act like there’s nothing to be found. Jared is sicker than anyone probably ever thought he was. If he has cameras and pictures, he has something else.

“Knox, are you done?” I bellow as I stare at my phone, unable to stop checking and fidgeting with impatience. Dimitri could be back with Hope any minute, and she shouldn’t come back and see Knox on a rampage. Again.

“Back off, Jaxon. I just know there’s more.”

“One of your voices telling you that?”

He whips his head out of Jared’s bedroom. “I don’t hear voices, dimwit!”

I cock my head. “You sure? Cause what else is telling you to fuck up the bedroom?”

He narrows his eyes at me. “Just a hunch,” he mumbles and disappears again.

I sigh and turn as I hear the front door opening.

“Dimitri, just tell me why we’re going into Jared’s apartment,” Hope says, annoyance tugging on her voice.

I can’t stop the smile that spreads on my lips at that sound, finally stopping my damn fidgeting. She puts me at ease yet excites me at the same time. No other person on the planet has that effect on me.

“Having a loving banter again, sweetheart,” I say and catch her angered stare, but not a sound leaves her.

“Come, sit,” Dimitri says as he points to the couch, and my lip tugs up.

“Sit, in this house of that perv—”

“There’s nothing wrong with the couch,” Dimitri says with a loaded sigh.

“Definitely something wrong with the owner of that couch,” I mumble.

Hope rests back and crosses her arms, looking around anywhere but at me.

“Don’t feel bad about Jared,” I say as I step closer to her, able to see the guilt weighing her down. She should be angry or happy that he was punished, but I know that she has a bleeding heart. She cares about others, even if they’ve treated her wrong.

It’s one of the things that I love about her, but it makes me nervous too. That’s the chink in her armor. That’s how people are able to screw her over.

“He shouldn’t have done what he did, I know. But you destroyed him,” she says, and her shoulders slump. “I didn’t ask for that.”

“We should have killed him,” Dimitri says and hands me a drink.

She straightens while her jaw clenches. Fuck, she always looks so pretty when she’s angry and frustrated.

My hand slips lower and I casually adjust myself. Her gaze drops, and Dimitri nudges me.

“What?” I shrug. He knows how she affects me. How she affects us all .

“Knox?” Dimitri calls out. “She’s here.”

“And why am I here?” Hope asks impatiently, and Knox’s heavy footsteps come in from behind me.

“We want to show you something,” Knox says and disappears into the spare bedroom .

Hope’s gaze follows him, but she stays rooted on the couch. “Perhaps I don’t want to see it.”

Dimitri steps closer to her and holds out his hand. “You want to, I promise.”

She narrows her gaze at him and stands up without taking his hand. She moves past him without a touch.

I grin at him and follow after her. “Did you really think she would take your hand?” I taunt as I nudge him back.

“Was worth a shot,” he grumbles.

Knox stands in front of the wall plastered with all the different pictures of Hope, and she slowly stands beside him.

I watch as her lips part, her eyes widen. She edges back and shakes her head as she covers her mouth with her hand, a shaky exhale breaking from her lips.

She hits the bed and slumps down. “No,” she breathes. “This can’t be.”

Seeing her in such a devastated state makes my skin crawl with unease. I want to fix her, but I don’t know how. All I know how to do is get rid of the problem and make sure that it never happens again. That it never hurts her again.

“We found the cameras,” I say and point at the bag. “Dimitri is still working on Jared’s computer.”

“This does explain why he tried to… yesterday,” Dimitri says, but Knox shakes his head. “No, it doesn’t,” he says.

“What do you mean?” Hope asks.

“He was clearly obsessed with you, but what changed that he made his move yesterday?” Knox says .

Hope shifts. “He said that he was doing what I wanted,” she says softly.

“Wanted?” I ask as I take a step closer to her, needing to understand her.

“He saw me with you and assumed that I was into being… taken, grabbed, fucked.” She jumps up and starts ripping the pictures off the wall.

None of us stop her as she destroys every picture, every bit of proof of what he did.

She’s panting as she goes through the pictures on the floor, the pictures of her naked, exposed, vulnerable.

She rips them into pieces, tears sparkling in her eyes as she tears through all of them.

She winces through the cuts on her fingertips, refusing to stop until shreds of paper litter the floor around her feet.

“Hope…” I say as I try to reach for her to get her to stop and take a damn breath.

“This isn’t your problem. It’s mine,” she says and rummages through the bag of cameras.

Knox chuckles, breaking the tension in the room.

“You’re ours,” he says so simply, and she scoffs.

“I’m not!” she sneers.

That’s where she’s so wrong.

I tilt my head. “Ours to hurt.”

“Ours to destroy,” Dimitri adds.

Knox crouches down, his fingers hooking under her chin, and forces her to stare back at him. “And we protect what is ours,” Knox says.

She tears her face from his touch. “No! ”

Knox grabs her arms and lifts her to her feet. He pulls her with him as she tries to break free.

My hands itch to take over, to touch her, to go back to that moment we had all those years ago. I know it was wrong, but fuck, did it feel good. She hates us for controlling her body, but we also controlled her pleasure. Her pain.

We made her feel .

“Look at this,” Knox snaps and opens up her buttons of her work shirt, pulling it down to expose her chest.

“You can hide from everyone in the world, but not from us. We are yours, Hope, just as much as you are ours!”

Tears brim her eyes as Knox traces the carved lines in her chest. The crooked initials we put there that night. My mouth waters as I rub the tattoos on my chest. I thought she would notice once she saw me without clothes. The initials tattooed there are her initials.

Because I am marked as hers like she is marked as mine.

“I never wanted them,” she cries, but Knox won’t release her, forcing her to stare at them, at us.

“It’s a promise, one that says you can never get rid of us,” Dimitri says.

“It doesn’t matter where you go, Hope. We’ll always find you,” I say and stand on her other side, skimming my fingers over her heated skin. “Give in, sweetheart. Accept what you are.”

“I–I–I can’t,” she whispers.

“We won’t let you fall,” Dimitri says and gently wipes away a stray tear .

“You’ve hurt me,” she whimpers.

“And it will never be enough,” Knox grunts. “Say it, Hope. No more lies.”

“Look how perfect,” I start and catch her gaze through the mirror. Her breath hitches as my mouth turns up into a knowing grin. “The tears, the panting, broken, destroyed, and we want to see even more.”

“We’ve played nice, but our patience is thinning. We’ll take what belongs to us.” Knox groans.