Page 14

14

ZANE

I slept on the stairs that night, accepting the pain radiating through every inch of my body. It was nothing compared to what Fawn was feeling, so I didn’t try to move. Didn’t climb back down the stairs to the bottom floor, which would have been more comfortable. I didn’t deserve any of that, after what I’d done.

I should have known better. Fawn had learned that there was no outsmarting Eddie.

But I’d been cocky. Thought I was clever enough to fight back. Eddie had said I always tried to be the hero and failed miserably, and he was right.

Now Eddie was punishing me in the way he knew hurt me most.

By hurting someone I loved.

Nothing had changed in all the years I’d thought her dead, and I knew nothing would. I’d loved Fawn from the minute I’d met her, and I was going to love her until the day I died. There’d never been anyone else for me. It had always been her.

When I woke, Eddie was laid out on his recliner, Santos and Ward perched either side of him, all of them peering at a phone screen and Eddie laughing so hard he snorted.

It was the first time I’d seen a device since I’d gotten here. If I could somehow get it away from them, maybe I could call for help. I didn’t know who, since the police clearly weren’t an option, but a phone would be a chance.

Apparently, even after last night, I couldn’t turn off the instinct that screamed not to give up. To keep trying, despite the danger.

Guilt turned my stomach to lead. It was my fault he’d hurt her.

But I couldn’t shake the feeling I had to try again. It burned inside me. Hot and demanding. Because what was the alternative?

Eddie would call me arrogant for still thinking there was something I could do.

But to me, it just felt like there was no other option. Leaving her and Otis here, locked in this house, or all of us living out our lives like this, was unthinkable.

I faked sleep, forcing my breaths to be slow, deep, and even. Though, somehow, I doubted I’d been that peaceful earlier. I was in too much pain, both of the physical and emotional variety, but it was unlikely my brother would have noticed. It wasn’t like psychopaths felt empathy.

Closing my eyes meant all my other senses sharpened. Soft noises came from the kitchen, the sizzle of bacon and the scent of toast wafting up the stairs.

“Food’s ready,” Fawn said quietly.

It was agony not to open my eyes to check she was okay. But logically, I knew she wouldn’t be, and that us getting a look at that phone was what was most important.

There was a clinking of cutlery, then Fawn’s sweet voice. “There’s plates out, just come pick what you want.”

In a scramble of heavy boots, Santos and Ward moved into the kitchen and clattered around with what sounded like serving tongs.

Fawn cleared her throat again. “Eddie, I can put yours on a plate so you don’t have to get up—”

There was a groan from his recliner and a squeak of protest from the floorboards at the foot of the stairs as he crossed the room. His voice was low when he snarled, “I’m perfectly capable of putting some fucking eggs on a plate. Didn’t I prove that to you last night?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Then don’t try making me look weak in front of my guys. You saw how well that worked for Zane.”

The fight to stay still and not react was agonizing.

Eddie’s little ruse had obviously fallen apart, and I was no longer being touted as the brother he’d brought in to take over. No, clearly, I’d been demoted to slave, and Eddie, bullet wound and all, had put himself back in charge.

It wasn’t surprising. Eddie had never been able to be anything other than top dog, and even me pretending to take his place had clearly irked him so badly he’d only been able to last a few days. He now had to show his dominance again.

Hence why I was locked up on the stairs, bruised and beaten while I’d been unconscious. On display for Eddie’s guys to see so they knew exactly what he was capable of if you stepped out of the lines he drew.

“I’m sorry,” Fawn whispered. “It won’t happen again.”

I fought not to react to her subservience. But her soft obedience made me want to launch up off the stairs and throw myself at my brother. To claw his fucking eyeballs out with my nails so he could never look at her again. To break every finger so badly they had to amputate, so he could never touch her like he had last night.

But that would be suicide.

I might have had a hope before the chains. Before he’d weakened us both, and when it was just him against me. But now, with his friends waiting to prove how loyal they were in the face of my betrayal, trying to jump Eddie was plain dumb.

So instead, I waited, straining my ears, hoping for a moment I wasn’t sure would come.

I pushed away all the other noise and waited for the telltale thud of Eddie putting down the phone.

It came like music to my ears. He needed both hands to carry his plate and serve his own food.

I made my move, not knowing exactly what my plan was, but fully believing I had to try something. Standing, I stumbled into the kitchen, making a racket, drawing all attention my way. “Need food.” I shoved my way between the men scooping Fawn’s bacon and eggs onto their plates and nabbed a piece of bacon with one hand like I was a starving man.

And the phone with the other, slipping it into my pocket.

It was a skill Eddie had taught me as a kid, how to lift something so the owner didn’t notice. He’d made me steal all sorts of things from candy to cigarettes to pretty much any random item, even if it had no value.

Half the time, Eddie just threw them away once I’d gotten a hold of it. It had never been about the object itself. Only that Eddie knew I hated stealing, and he got off on making me do things I didn’t want to do. That was where the fun lay for him.

It was the making me uncomfortable bit he wanted. And he’d always known exactly how best to do that.

Back then it had been stealing.

Now it was hurting people I cared about. My gaze darted to Fawn, and I sucked in a breath at the bruises on her pretty face.

For half a second, I forgot what I was doing and just stared at her in horror, taking in the details, wanting with every fiber of my being to reach out and stroke her skin, desperate to erase Eddie’s touch, even though I knew I didn’t have the right.

Since it was my fault he’d punished her in the first place.

The force Eddie sent me to the floor with took me by surprise. I hit the clean but shabby linoleum with a bone-jarring thud. Or maybe it just hurt more because my body was already so broken from the beating I’d taken last night while I was unconscious.

“Get your grubby, backstabbing fingers off my food,” he practically growled in my face.

I forced myself to nod. To drag myself out of the room like a dog with its tail between its legs.

To let Eddie think he’d won.

I got up and hurried around the corner, into the living room, praying it would take Eddie a minute to realize his phone was missing.

All I needed was thirty seconds to call…someone.

I wanted to call Ophelia, Fawn’s older sister. She’d be able to get a message to their brother.

And Vincent, with his split personality, though both were ruthless, was the scariest motherfucker I knew. Someone even Eddie feared, which was no doubt why he’d faked Fawn’s death. He knew they’d have never stopped searching for her if they thought she was alive, and eventually, their perseverance would pay off and Eddie would end up with his entrails strung up like Christmas lights.

But Ophelia’s number was stored on my phone in Eddie’s fireproof safe, and I certainly didn’t remember it by heart.

Maybe Fawn would.

“What are you doing?” she hissed.

I jerked my head up like I’d been caught red-handed in the cookie jar.

Her expression was full of fear. And then anger. “Do you want him to kill me? Seriously, Zane, are you literally trying to get us buried six feet under?”

I didn’t have time to explain to her. “Do you know one of your siblings’ phone numbers?”

Fawn let out a sharp breath. She darted a glance over her shoulder. “Yes, but he has a lock on his phone. He’s not stupid, Zane. You think I haven’t tried working out the passcode before?”

My fingers shook. God, I was so fucking stupid. Of course there’d be a code.

I racked my brain, trying to think up a sequence of numbers that Fawn wouldn’t have already tried.

Our dad was the only person Eddie had ever cared about besides himself. All I remembered of him was him being a mean old bastard, but Eddie had always hero-worshipped him. Gone out of his way to impress him. Not that he ever had. The man had been impossible for anyone to please. He never had a complimentary word for Mom or Eddie or me.

I hadn’t been sad when he’d left.

But Eddie’s already bad behavior had instantly gotten worse.

I stabbed the old man’s birth date into the phone.

And watched the damn thing magically unlock.

Fawn’s mouth dropped open into a little ‘O’ of surprise, but she recovered quickly. “One, eight, six—” She stared at me. “Zane! Are you going to put the number in?”

But I couldn’t move.

With the phone unlocked, an app began playing silently, the one Eddie and the other guys must have been watching before Fawn had called them in for breakfast.

And it froze my fingers to the spot.

“Zane!”

Fawn went to take the phone from my fingers, but I couldn’t let go of it. And when she looked down at the screen, she inhaled a short, sharp gasp. “Who is that?”

Security camera footage rolled on a continual loop.

A man in a mask, chasing a woman around a house, a knife the size of my arm clutched in his gloved fingers.

“Don’t you remember my mom, Peach?”

Fawn jumped a mile at Eddie’s voice behind us.

I just stared at him in horror, not even caring that he’d caught us when what was on that screen was so much worse. “What have you done?”

Eddie chuckled, plucking the phone from my fingers. “Just teaching you a little lesson about snooping through other people’s property. See something you don’t like?”

“Why?” I couldn’t help the agonized question that fell from my lips, even though I already knew exactly what his answer would be.

Eddie shrugged. “You think Fawn was the only one who needed punishing last night, Zaney boy?” His eyes narrowed. “You clearly needed to be reminded of your place. So I sent Spider down to hang out with Mommy.” He peered over my shoulder at the phone and grinned at the chase taking place. “Does look like he got a little carried away though, doesn’t it? What a clown.”

Anger blazed inside me. “She’s seventy years old, Eddie! You’re going to give her a heart attack!”

He snatched the phone and got in my face, lording his size over me. “Then maybe you’ll learn what it feels like to lose the only person who gives a shit about you.”

I refused to back down. “Then what? She’s dead. You’ve got nothing on me after that.”

Eddie glanced toward Fawn, a knowing gleam in his eye.

Like he knew everything we’d done out by the stream. Like he knew the exact sound of my heartbeat every time I looked at her. He unlocked the safe with his thumb print and put the phone back inside. “Don’t I?”

For both our sakes, I needed to pretend like there was nothing between me and Fawn. I couldn’t give Eddie another thing to use against me. “I want proof Mom’s alive.”

“She’s fine. You just saw that.”

“I want proof, Eddie. That could have been footage from hours ago. She could have bled out on the kitchen floor now for all I know. I want to talk to her.”

Eddie shrugged. “Fine. I’ll give you proof.”

He walked away without another word, rejoining his friends at the kitchen table.

Fawn paused as she passed me, making her way upstairs. “He left that phone there so you’d see what he’s doing to your mom.”

“I know.” At least, I knew that now.

Fawn stared down at her feet. “Just play the game, Zane. It’s the only way to survive and stay alive. The sooner you learn that, the better off we’ll all be.”

She walked away, and I watched her go, not sure that just surviving was any better than being buried six feet under.