Page 17

17

SEAN

Aiden storms into my house the next morning, his face bright red, Royce trailing behind him.

I glance up from the newspaper in front of me. “What the hell do you think you’re doing here? Didn’t it ever occur to you to knock?”

“You fucking bastard.” Aiden lunges at me, but Royce catches him and holds him back. “Why the fuck didn’t I hear from you that my sister has Noah fucking Rinaldo’s initials carved into her back?”

Royce glares at me from behind Aiden, but he isn’t a hothead about his family. Not in the same way Aiden is.

If I’m being honest, it’s Royce who unsettles me the most. It feels like he’s always there, waiting for the moment to strike, but never taking it. Like he’s biding his time until you finally think he’s not going to be a problem.

I stand up, chair screeching across the floor. “How the hell did you get that picture?”

When I told Ellie that it was a possibility there was a picture floating around last night, I didn’t want it to be true. I would have paid any amount of money for it not to be true.

The last thing she needs is for the brand to be made public knowledge. The marks on her hands and thighs are bad enough.

Aiden’s mouth drops open. “Excuse me?”

He throws an elbow back, catching Royce in the side. With a groan, Royce drops his grip on Aiden.

All it takes is a couple seconds for Aiden to cross the room and get in my face. “You should have been the one to tell me about the damn attack. I shouldn’t have had to get a fucking message from some unknown number.”

“I don’t report to you.”

It’s the wrong thing to say, even if it’s the truth.

Aiden’s fist swings back before it collides with the side of my face.

Laughing, I work my jaw to the side, more annoyed about the stinging sensation than I am angry. “That all you got?”

With a wordless yell, Aiden throws himself at me, but I’m ready. When he goes high, I duck and slam my fist into his stomach.

The air is forced from his lungs as he doubles over.

Royce is on him in the next instant, pulling him back. “Aiden, stop being an idiot. Nobody here is happy that Ellie is hurt, but how about we act like adults?”

I cross my arms, glaring at Aiden as he straightens up. “If you attack me in my own home again, it will be the last.”

Aiden’s chest puffs out as he steps closer to me. “I’d like to see you try.”

Royce groans. “Can the pair of you put away this alpha male bullshit? We’re here to find out what happened to Ellie, not beat the hell out of each other for not starting the goddamn phone tree.”

My arms drop, and I stuff my hands in my pockets. “I was going to talk to you this morning, after I had a coffee. Ellie needed some time alone to process everything last night. She was a mess.”

Aiden pales and sinks down into one of the dining chairs. “How the hell did someone get to her?”

“That’s what Dominic is in the middle of doing right now. I have the people who worked last night being held for questioning.” I rock on my heels, glancing toward the stairs. “Ellie is still sleeping. She doesn’t want anyone to know about the brand, though.”

“I’m not going to pretend it isn’t there,” Aiden says, his voice a low growl. “That bastard had my sister marked.”

“It could have been worse. It’s just a brand. She’s going to heal from it in time, but revenge isn’t yours to get.” I keep my tone level, even though bile rises in the back of my throat, a bitter taste filling my mouth.

Aiden’s nostrils flare, fist banging on the table. “Like hell it isn’t. The bastard marked my sister.”

Royce sighs, pressing his fingers to his temples. “But she’s his wife.”

“We don’t have time to deal with this right now anyway.” I nod to Dominic as he walks into the room. “Dominic is going to watch Ellie while we go out to the cottage and question the guards who worked last night.”

Aiden shoots to his feet, heading for the back door. “I’m the one who gets to kill the man who did this to her. She might be your wife, but you don’t give a damn about her, so don’t pretend that you do.”

Before Royce can get between us, my fist cracks into the side of Aiden’s face.

“Say that again and this is done.” I storm to the door, yanking it open and heading down the path that leads to the cottage at the far end of the property.

Royce sighs as he falls into step beside me. “You’re going to have to forgive him. I don’t know what the hell is going on in his head right now, but I know that he’s as worried about Ellie as you are.”

“He’s the one who agreed to us getting married in the first place.” I dig in my pocket for the key to the cottage. “If he thinks that I don’t care about what happens to Ellie while she’s under my care, then he’s wrong.”

Royce chuckles and looks over his shoulder. “He’s not going to see things that way. After she saw Dad die, he took on this need to protect her at all costs. He lets Jade, Summer, and Skyla have a little more freedom—though it still isn’t much—but when it comes to Ellie, it’s like something in him snaps.”

“All sense of reality?”

He shrugs. “Maybe. I don’t know what, but I do know that both of you would do anything for her, so you should be on the same page about this.”

“I doubt that’s going to happen.”

“You never know.” Royce’s jaw sets in a hard line as he looks at the cottage. “I think he blames himself for not being able to protect her that day. I mean, I can admit that Dad had it coming after the shit he pulled, but Ellie, well, she was his shadow.”

“You don’t need to tell me. I remember the way she used to follow him around.”

Royce nods, stopping beside me as I unlock the cottage and wait for Aiden to catch up.

As annoyed with him as I might be right now, I’m not going to make him miss out on the chance to find out what happened with Ellie.

He would never forgive me for that.

And Ellie might not forgive me if she thinks I’m the one who told Aiden and Royce about the marks on her back.

I know that she’s going to be upset, but I can’t be worried about it. Not when all that matters is finding the man who did this to her.

Aiden steps into the cottage after me, glancing to the right at the wall of knives hanging there, the picture that normally covers them moved to the side.

I jerk my chin in the direction of the knives. “Pick whatever you want to work with, then go pick one of the rooms downstairs, but leave Kara to me.”

He and Royce take their time selecting weapons before heading through the door and down the stairs into the dark basement.

I follow behind them, heading to the very last door on the right of the long hall and shoving it open.

Kara sits at the metal table in the center of the room, handcuffed to a ring in the center of it. “Are you going to let me go or tell me why the hell I’m here?”

I pull out the chair across from her, sitting down and leaning forward with arms folded on the table. “You know, I would be careful right now if I were you. I might put up with the attitude and the snark because Ellie likes you, but after what happened last night, I’m not inclined to be so lenient with you anymore.”

Her eyebrows pull together, shock flashing in her eyes. “What happened last night?”

“Ellie was attacked. You and a dozen other guards were on duty.”

“Not possible.” Kara’s mouth drops open before snapping shut and pressing into a hard line. “There’s no way that something happened to her last night. I was in the backyard. I stayed there all night. I didn’t see a single person other than Beck and Angel doing their rounds.”

I hum, drumming my fingers on the table. “You didn’t see a man sneak in and out of Ellie’s room? You didn’t hear her trying to fight him off?”

Kara’s eyes well with tears. “She’s alright, isn’t she? Please tell me that nothing happened to her. I know I should have just stayed with her. She thought we would both get in shit if I ditched my post to spend time with her, and now look at what’s happened. I was supposed to check on her, but I didn’t.”

Tears roll down her cheeks as she looks at me with pleading eyes. She clearly wants for everything to be okay.

There’s a part of me that wants to drag this out for as long as possible. To make sure she knows what could have happened to Ellie.

The door opens before I have the chance, Dominic striding into the room.

I glance at him, body tensing. “What is it?”

“We’ve got the man who was in her room last night.” Dominic stands in the doorway, dark circles beneath his eyes as he glances between me and Kara.

Standing, I follow him out the door, slamming it shut behind me. Kara can sit in there and suffer until I’m ready to let her out.

While she shouldn’t have abandoned her post last night, if she had, this might not have happened. Ellie might not be wearing that bastard’s brand, and I wouldn’t be on my way to kill the man who put it on her.

“Make sure that Aiden and Royce don’t find out he’s here,” I say as we stop outside one of the other doors. “I want to handle this my way and the two of them are just going to cause more problems.”

Dominic nods. “Ellie is upstairs. She wanted to come down here, but I told her to wait. I can send them up to see her.”

I groan, a thudding in the back of my head the warning of my oncoming migraine. “Tell them whatever you need to.”

He takes off down the hall while I enter the room.

A man with two black eyes, a busted lip, and a broken nose stares up at me from the chair he’s tied to in the center of the room.

I pull the butterfly knife from my pocket, flicking it open. “I hope she did that to you.”

He smirks, one shoulder rising slightly and falling despite the restraints wrapped around him. “She might have. I like them feisty, though. I’ll get her back when I see her next.”

Pacing toward him, I try to keep my temper in check. He deserves to be as scared as she was last night. He should be crying and curling in on himself from the pain by the time I’m done with him.

But when I look at him, all I feel is rage swelling in me. I don’t know that I can make him feel the same pain before I lose all control and kill him.

He deserves it for what he did to my wife.

“You’re never going to put a hand on her again.” I press the knife to the side of his face, dragging a long cut from the corner of his mouth to his earlobe.

He grits his teeth against the pain, laughing when I pull the knife away. “Is that the best that you’ve got? I should have done more to her. Noah just wanted his initials. The X on her hands and thighs were my idea. I had so many more.”

“Oh good, then you’re going to love the ideas I have for you.” I make a matching cut on the other side of his face, his hot blood staining my fingers.

“I’m sure I will.” He laughs and shakes his head before spitting blood onto the floor. “What can you even do to me? You weren’t there to protect your wife. What kind of man leaves a woman alone in times like these? Noah is coming for all of you, and you knew it, but you still left her.”

The words he says are the same ones that have been playing on repeat in my head since I woke up this morning.

My fist collides with his already broken nose, blood flowing freely out of it.

The man laughs, spitting another mouthful of blood on the ground.

Just as I’m about to hit him again, the door flies open and Aiden storms into the room.

I’m getting fucking tired of him thinking that my property is his own.

Aiden crosses the space between us in two steps, shoving me back. “You weren’t going to tell us he was here. You were going to take care of this on your own even though this is my right!”

“Like fuck it is.” I tighten my grip on the knife. “I’ve been your friend a long time, Aiden, but it’s time you put a stop to this shit. Ellie is my wife. Mine.”

I stand in front of the man, pressing my knife to the top of his cheek.

The man laughs, eyes hardening. “We should have known that the two of you were working together. Noah is going to find out and he’s going to kill you for it.”

With a shrug, I carve my initials into the side of the man’s face. “I don’t give a fuck.”

And with that, I stab the man in the side of the neck, blood oozing out around the blade and dripping down his shoulder. He gurgles, more blood seeping down his face from the cuts there.

Aiden roars, throwing himself at me as Royce charges into the room. Royce grabs him around the neck in a headlock, shoving him down toward the ground.

“You’re only going to start another war.” Royce holds tighter on to Aiden while he thrashes, trying to get free. “This was his right, not yours.”

Aiden tenses for a moment before he relaxes, and Royce drops his hold on him. He glowers at me. “I’m not going to forget this.”

“See that you don’t.” I put the knife down on a small table in the corner, picking up the machete that’s sitting there. “We’re friends, Aiden, but you seem to think that since I married your sister, you can tell me what to do. It doesn’t work that way. It’s time that you start showing me the same respect I show you.”

Aiden seethes in the corner, pacing back and forth like a caged animal. “This is going to change our friendship forever, you know that?”

“You didn’t think that everything would be the same after you forced me to marry one of your sisters, did you?” I take a deep breath, slicing the ropes from the man and shoving him to the floor.

I cut his head from his body as Royce sighs.

Royce stays between me and Aiden. “I think the two of you both need some time to cool off. Aiden, Sean is right about this. If it had been your wife who was attacked, you would have done the same.”

“I don’t have a wife.” Aiden stalks toward me as I kick the head to the side, but Royce steps into his path. “She is my sister. I raised her after the hell you brought down on my family. I’ve done everything I can to keep her safe. She’s with you for a couple weeks, and then she gets attacked. Even when you know Noah is watching her, you left her alone.”

“You don’t think I know that?” I open the door to the room. “Dominic!”

He jogs down the stairs and into the room. “Yes?”

“Take the head and mail it to one of Noah’s businesses. I don’t care which one. Just make sure that he gets it.”

I storm out of the room and down the hall to the small bathroom at the end. I spend time scrubbing the blood from my hands, cleaning beneath my fingernails.

Aiden is behind me in a couple minutes. “You had no right.”

“I had every right.” I look up at him in the mirror, shoulders stiffening.

Though I don’t want to keep fighting with him, I can’t keep allowing him to disrespect me the way he has been.

Even our friendship has limits.

“She is my wife. You need to take a step back and realize that this is what you wanted, and this is what you got.” I turn off the taps and dry my hands, turning to face him. “I had every right to kill that man, and I did.”

Royce appears in the doorway. “The two of you can’t keep doing this.”

“We’re not.” After tossing the paper into the trash can, I cross my arms. “This is where it ends. You either decide that you’re okay with this or you start a bigger problem.”

Aiden’s jaw clenches, teeth grinding together before he nods. “You didn’t tell me that something happened with Ellie last night.”

“Because she is my wife. She is my priority now. Not your feelings. What she needed last night was someone to sit there with her and tell her that everything was going to be okay. She didn’t need me running back to her older brother and telling him what happened.”

Royce leans against the doorframe. “Aiden, drop it.”

“You should have told me.” His voice is tight, eyes flashing with anger. “I don’t give a damn what she needed.”

My fist collides with his face before I fully register what I’m doing. I send him stumbling back a step before advancing on him again, shoving him back into the wall. “If you think that Ellie’s needs aren’t going to come first to me, you’re wrong. It is her above all else, whether that hurts your fragile feelings or not.”

Aiden shoves me off him, stalking toward the stairs. “I never should have trusted you with her. Not after all the damage you’ve done to our family.”

As he climbs the stairs, Royce at his heels after shooting me an apologetic glance, I start to think he might be right.

I’m the last person who should be trusted after I killed their father, but we are the only chance each other has at taking down the Rinaldos.

Hopefully Aiden sees that soon.