Page 28 of Love Me in the Dark

“I have family,” I say with a sigh.

“I know. I’ll call Cade and Callum later on,” he says. Hearing my brother’s names grabs my attention, and I snap my head up to look at him. “Your brother is not as innocent as you think he is, Puppet.”

“I kill people for fun, so I can’t say much,” I say as I lay my head back on his chest. “He’s not going to tell you, ya know.”

“I know. I didn’t even know they had a sibling until recently when they missed meetings,” he says. “Did either of them hurt you?”

“No. They took care of me after,” I admit. “Your brother has to really like you in order to wipe your ass.”

“I don’t know if I would do that for my brothers, so he must really care about you,” Tripp laughs.

“Rest. You can explain later,” Knox says.

“I’m not explaining,” I mutter sleepily.

“You will because we will do that, plus some, over and over again. We will break you down until you are so exhausted from coming that you’ll do anything to rest,” he tells me.

“Yeah. Fine. Okay,” I say. “Sleep first.”

“Sleep first,” he agrees.

4

Knox

“She’s a tough girl,” Rook says when I shut the bedroom door.

“She’s reckless, but tough. She’s running off emotions,” I say. “She’s lucky none of those men had anyone close by.”

“I wish Cade had mentioned why he was with his sister. He could have told us,” Tripp says.

“Yeah, if Cade never told us that she existed, then he likely was just trying to protect her from everything. I’m willing to bet that she lives up in the cabin he owns,” I say.

“Gonna call him?” Rook asks. “Jered brought her car up here earlier, and she has nearly fifty missed calls from Cade.”

“Yeah,” I say. I got dressed after I laid Nyx on my bed, so I need to go locate my phone in the living room. We walk downstairs and I see that it is sitting on a couch cushion. I see that I have a missed call from Cade, which means that he is likelyfreaking the fuck out if he is coming to me now. I call him back, and he answers almost immediately.

“Knox. Hey,” Cade says. “Sorry I called so late. I need your?—”

“Phoenyx is here. She’s safe,” I say. “I assume that’s why you called?”

“What? Why in the fuck is she with you? What the fuck did you do?” He yells at me with no regard to how much power I have. I can respect that.

“Cade, you know damn well I would never hurt someone innocent,” I say. “Well… she’s not exactly innocent, but I didn’t hurt her.”

“What are you talking about? Where is she?” he asks angrily.

“You and Callum come to the house. She’s asleep upstairs right now,” I say calmly. If I meet his panic with anger or anything other than support, it’s not going to help anything. I might be an asshole, but I’m not evil. He is worried sick about his sister, so I don’t blame him for being pissed off that she ended up at a mafia boss’s home.

“We are already on our way. She wasn’t home, and her phone is going to voicemail. Are you sure she is okay?”

“Yeah. I will explain the situation when you get here. The gate is open right now, but I will shut it behind you when you get here. Do me a favor and shut your phone off before you get here. She’s created a bit of a mess for herself, so we all need to talk before any of you guys can be tracked here.”

“Shit. Okay,” he sighs. “Oh. Are you guys able to try and get into her laptop? We were trying to figure out where she went, but she has her laptop locked the fuck down. Now I’m good with computers, but she’s better. She’s hiding something.”

“She definitely is,” I confirm. “I’ll explain soon.”

“Okay,” he says hesitantly.