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CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

GIA

Aiden looks between the two of us, and if a glare could kill, I would be dead on the floor right now.

Skyla sighs and steps closer to her brother, her hands curling into fists. “You need to get your head out of your ass. Being the head of the family doesn’t mean you get to make unilateral decisions about what happens.”

Aiden scowls at her while I wish the ground would open up and swallow me whole. I should’ve worn something other than Royce’s shirt when I came down here, but I wasn’t thinking.

I assumed Skyla had just been yelling at Matt or her wound. I didn’t think anything of it other than getting down to her with something on so the world didn’t see my nipples.

This might be worse than everyone seeing my nipples.

If this ever happens again, I’m just going to come downstairs naked. It can’t be any more awkward than standing in front of a man who has been an enemy of my family for as long as I can remember in nothing but his brother’s shirt.

Skyla glances over her shoulder at me. “Cute outfit.”

That’s it.

I’m dying of mortification.

Royce snorts and steps between his siblings. “Now, if we’re done calling Aiden a bastard and questioning Gia’s lack of fashion sense, can you tell me what the hell you’re doing here?”

“You should’ve told me about the attack.” Aiden puts his hands on Royce’s chest, pushing him out of the way before glaring down at Skyla. “And then there’s you.”

She puffs up, looking like an angry kitten.

Who could skin me without flinching.

“And what about me?” Skyla asks, sarcasm and venom creating a deadly cocktail as it drips from her tone.

Aiden’s nostrils flare, the vein in the side of his neck bulging a little. “You have been nothing but a pain in my ass since this shit began, and all you seem to do these days is overstep.”

“Someone has to tell you when you’re pushing too hard, and since Sean isn’t here to do it right now, it looks like I’m going to be the one who has to.” Skyla’s lip twitches, her body tense.

The tension in the room is thick, feeling like it’s close to choking me as Aiden steps into Skyla’s space.

He stares at her, waiting for her to back down but she only stands taller.

“I’m tired of this shit, Skyla, and if you keep pulling it, I’m going to have to force my hand.”

She snorts. “That may work on your little peons, but you wouldn’t be anything without me, and we both know it. You don’t have the head for the money laundering that I do and without that, the empire would crumble beneath you, so don’t forget who the fuck you’re talking to.”

I lean closer to Royce, turning and standing on my toes to whisper in his ear. “Are the two of them going to kill each other?”

He shrugs, hands in his pockets, a cruel amusement shining in his eyes. “They get into this argument with each other at least once year.”

“And it always goes like this?”

“More or less. Sometimes someone ends up with a broken nose, but it’s usually Aiden when he pushes her too far.”

I stare at Aiden, wondering what caused this fight to begin with.

Did he suggest they kill me? Did he tell Skyla that the only way to get Noah to show his face was to make a point of killing me?

Swallowing hard, I try to calm the feeling of my stomach tossing and turning, even as the bile rises in the back of my throat.

If Aiden thought it would get Noah to show up, I think he would kill me. I think he would take his time doing it too. Make it painful, and I doubt it would end until Noah showed up.

If Noah showed up.

I have a hard time believing that my brother would risk showing his hand for me. I’m not worth everything else he’s trying to accomplish, but then there’s still the issue of his pride.

I don’t know which would win.

Royce sighs and steps between them again, giving them both a gentle push backward. “Nobody is going to start slaughtering people to end a war. It’s not worth it and it’s not going to help anything. You both know that, so why the hell are we doing this right now?”

Aiden rounds on Royce, his fist cracking into the side of his face.

Royce was expecting it, though. He barely flinches, instead waiting to see if there’s another one coming or if he’s done.

“You’re a disgrace to this family,” Aiden says, spitting the words at him. “You slept with the enemy when you were supposed to be watching over her. How the hell can I trust your judgment now?”

Royce wipes blood from the corner of his mouth. “The same way you’ve trusted it without question for the last two and a half years, since that’s when I first got together with Gia.”

I groan and bury my face in my hands as the attention in the room turns back to me. “Don’t drag me into this.”

“You’re into this,” Skyla says, practically gleeful as she claps her hands. “And now that the cat’s out of the bag, Aiden can get back to removing his head from his ass.”

I bite back a smirk as Aiden whirls around, his attention fully off me and back to her.

As long as the rest of the Lynde siblings are more like Skyla than they are like Aiden, I might not have such a hard time getting along with the rest of the family.

Royce lets out an exasperated huff. “Enough of this. We need to talk about the attack and what we’re going to do next. Skyla, you’re supposed to be resting until Ellie gets here.”

“You don’t get to talk right now.” Aiden points a finger in Royce’s direction. “Not after all the harm you’ve done to this family.”

“I didn’t know who Gia was when we got together.” Royce looks like he’s on the edge of a cliff and thinking about throwing himself onto the jagged rocks below.

“And once you did, you sure as shit didn’t tell me about it.” Aiden shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Not that I should be surprised, considering you didn’t know the person leaking the information to Noah has been the one moving around with you from place to place.”

Royce’s eyebrows pull together as my stomach turns.

I’m going to throw up. I know I am.

Royce glances to the door as a man I don’t recognize comes through the door, hauling Matt with him.

“You fucking bastard!” I lunge at him, fist snapping into his nose as the man pulls him upright.

Matt laughs, his head cracking backward and blood running down his face. “Is that the best you’ve got, traitor bitch?”

“I’m the fucking traitor? Look at you!” My fist snaps forward again, catching his mouth and splitting his lip. “You fucking piece of shit. I trusted you with my daughter!”

Skyla loops her arms around my waist when I go for his neck. She hauls me back and shoves me down onto the couch, standing in my way. “You’re only going to hurt yourself.”

“No. I’m going to kill him!”

Royce steps in front of Matt. “I trusted you to protect my family. You were my friend. I gave you everything that you could’ve asked for and this is how you decide to thank me?”

Matt spit a mouthful of blood at his feet. “You’ve done nothing but make my life miserable. Your family thrives on keeping people under their thumbs. You’ve never given a shit about the people who work for you.”

Looking to the man holding Matt, Royce gives a jerk of his chin toward the door. “Take him outside, please, Dominic. I’ve had enough of this.”

Matt scoffs and shakes his head, looking directly at Aiden. “If you think my keeping secrets is bad, you should ask your brother what else him and his little bitch have been doing behind your back.”

Dominic drags him out of the room and Royce follows, stopping long enough to grab a gun from the console table in the front hall before slamming the door shut behind him.

Aiden turns to me, his eyes narrowed. “If you do anything to hurt my brother, I’m going to kill you myself, are we understood?”

“I wouldn’t do anything to hurt him.”

Skyla sighs and moves to the window. I get up and follow her, watching as Dominic forces Matt to his knees in the snow.

Royce presses the gun to Matt’s forehead, the gunshot cracking through the morning, echoing off the surrounding trees.

His body slumps forward into the snow, lifeless eyes staring up at the skies.

“I’m going to go check my bandages,” Skyla says with a smirk. “Ellie is going to kill me if she gets here and finds out that I’m bleeding.”

“You can’t leave me alone with your brother. He wants to kill me.”

She shrugs and starts heading for the stairs. “He wants to kill a lot of people. Just try talking to him and you might find out he’s not so bad.”

“Skyla!”

With a dismissive wave, she takes the stairs two at a time, barely hiding the wince as she disappears from sight.

“Well, I think there are other matters we need to discuss,” Aiden says, appearing behind me.

“Could it wait until I have pants on?”

“I don’t think so.” Aiden crosses his arms, watching as Royce and Dominic drag the body to the back of a truck, hoisting it into the bed. “You see, this changes things. Does your brother know that you have a personal relationship with Royce?”

“You’re going to kill me either way, aren’t you?” I turn and face him, trying to steel every last nerve I have.

“Haven’t made up my mind on that yet. Depends on whether I think risking my relationship with my brother is worth it or not and what he sees in you.”

My mouth goes dry as I look at him, knowing that killing me is still on the table for him.

There isn’t the cold spark to his eyes that would be in Noah’s, though.

Instead, Aiden looks like he’s calculating a hundred different scenarios, wanting to be certain of the next move he makes and the three that come after it.

Royce walks back into the house as Dominic takes the hose to the bloody snow, washing it away and into the gutter down at the end of the road.

Aiden nods to him. “Now that that is handled, we have other matters we need to discuss.”

“Such as?”

“Such as the fact that the house here is no longer safe.” Aiden crosses his arms, still staring at me. “And you’re dating a woman who has a direct connection to the enemy, which is a problem for me, even if you don’t see it.”

Royce steps between me and his brother. “You’re going to learn to like it, and if you can’t, then we’re going to have a problem. Gia is not working for her brother, and she wants to get away from him, so if I were you, I would start talking to her like she can help us instead of hindering us.”

Aiden scoffs, pacing away from us. “I don’t care what you think she can do. We’re sending her and her daughter to Vermont, and you’re going to be coming back to New York with me.”