Page 12 of The Ecstasy of Sin (Brutal Brotherhood #1)

Dominic

My heart is pounding a strong and steady rhythm, my mind a little more clear than it has been in days.

I glance down at my running partner, the athletic sable German Shepherd keeping pace at my side. His face is relaxed, his tongue hanging out as we jog under the light of the moon, down the forest trail behind the place I call home.

I can’t sleep tonight. Every time I close my eyes, I see her.

My sweet, fragile, little lamb. Looking up at me with fear in those big, brown eyes, begging me to be a hero, when what I really am would send her running for the hills.

She wouldn’t be calling me a hero if she knew the thoughts going through my mind, especially where she’s concerned. She’d be calling the police if she knew all of the things I want to do to her, and all of the ways I want to make her scream for me.

Our encounter began because of her suffering, and pain happens to be a trigger of mine. So is fear, and that is how our time together ended: with her trembling beneath my touch and looking at me like she finally saw all of the things I wasn’t even trying to hide.

She’s beautiful, too. A broken woman with haunted eyes and a story I’m dying to know. Soft, feminine, and delicate… she’s th e perfect prey. I just know she would shatter so beautifully for me, coming apart at the seams like she was made to be destroyed in the most sublime way.

Then there is the strange, unfamiliar urge I feel to protect her. To hide her away from the world so that the only one who can hurt her is me. Mine to keep, and mine to ruin—whatever my heart desires.

Everything that happened between us in that short span of time turned out to be the perfect cocktail to root this obsession deep inside of me, and now I can’t get my mind off of her.

It’s been three days since we met at the clinic. Three days of working out to the point of physical and mental exhaustion, trying to regain control of myself despite this newfound need burning through me like a wildfire.

A need to know everything there is about Wren Holloway.

In the quieter moments of my day, I find myself stalking her social media. Much to my frustration, she isn’t as active as the average person, which means what I have access to just isn’t enough to satisfy my dark craving to study her.

Stalking is one facet of this new obsession that I can’t shake.

I’ve even shut my brothers out, ignoring their text messages and pacing my house like a caged animal while I obsess over her Instagram feed like it holds all the keys to the fucking universe.

Even though her posts are sporadic, there’s just enough to keep the fire inside of me burning. She almost always tags the Trinity Hill Public Library, often with a shot of whatever book she is currently reading.

I can tell she’s artistic because she puts effort into framing her photos to fit a certain aesthetic, one that clearly shows her love of literature and tea.

Stalking her online has taught me several things about her: She loves cozy shit, which pisses me off consider practically nothing about her current life is cozy.

She also loves chocolate, although I can tell she doesn’t get it often because she raves about it like it’s a rare treat for her.

Lastly, her heart is as big and kind as I imagined it would be.

She has a few pictures of herself snuggling elderly cats and walking dogs at the local humane society.

She’s everything I’m not. Wren is gentle and compassionate, an empathetic girl that deserves a peaceful life. Yet there is more to her than meets the eye. There is a quiet strength in her that I instantly recognized, a resilience born of hardship and trauma.

I knew it the moment I saw her, because I recognize that same strength in my brothers. The kind that comes from surviving the kind of horrors most people pretend don’t exist, because they’re too weak to endure.

Here Wren is, homeless and living with a health condition that is difficult to treat and has no cure, still fighting to exist in a world that has forgotten her.

But I see her, and I’m not going to forget her.

Over the last three days I’ve read everything I could find on migraines. I know with the right specialists and a consistent treatment plan she can have a better life .

Something she obviously doesn’t believe is attainable, consider the application for fucking euthanasia I found in her backpack.

My mind is racing, and I can’t make it stop. All of this would be so much easier if I just kidnapped her and chained her to my bed. I could keep her safe, and warm, and fed. She wouldn’t have to sleep on the streets ever again.

Hunter and I are pushing through the last stretch of the trail when he begins to slow down. I always listen when he tells me he’s had enough, so I slow down too.

I give him a pat on the shoulder, and his tail wags in response. “That’s my good boy.”

On his silent orders, we stop jogging and start walking back home. I give him all the time he wants to stop and sniff, tracking whatever nocturnal creatures are out and about.

I zone out, getting lost in my thoughts, as he enjoys the mental enrichment portion of our outing.

As we near the house, Hunter’s tail begins wagging furiously, which snaps me out of my quiet brooding. I look up to find my brothers standing on the covered porch in front of my door, looking like they’re up to no good in the dead of night.

“Hey Hunter, c’mere buddy!” Ryker calls out, crouching down and opening his arms. Since the street is empty at this hour, and there are no moving cars in sight, I drop his leash and let him haul ass into Ryker’s lap.

I grin as Hunter takes him down, climbing on top of him and licking his ear as Ryker turns his face away from the affectionate assault, laughing delightedly .

“Eat him next time, big man,” I say pointedly to my dog as I jog up the steps and stand next to the trio of mean-looking motherfuckers who have been out here waiting for me for who knows how long, probably scaring the neighbours again.

Ryker chuckles as he gets back on his feet, and we all watch as Hunter shakes off the excitement and goes to sit by the door.

My brother dusts off the back of his pants, then runs a hand through his blonde hair as he levels me with a serious look. “You don’t like us anymore, big brother?”

I ignore him for a moment as I let Hunter into the house. My dog disappears into the darkness, most likely in pursuit of the fresh bowl of water I refilled before we left.

I turn back to face the three of them, aiming my annoyance at Ryker. “Just when I think you’ve matured into an intelligent adult, you go and say something stupid like that.”

Crossing his arms over his chest, his scowl deepens. “Then explain why you’ve been blowing us off for three fucking days, brother .” He spits the last word like an insult, but I know he means it as a reminder.

The four of us are not found family. We didn’t find each other like this. What we are is something we all forged together, making the decision to anchor to one another—for better or for worse.

We chose each other as we stood in the fires of foster home hell; abused, neglected and practically tortured by the people who were supposed to be caring for us. We chose each other, and that kind of bond doesn’t break no matter what you throw at it .

I sigh, the sound loud and exaggerated. I haven’t forgotten where my loyalties lie. “I’ve got a lot on my mind,” I tell him with a nonchalant shrug.

“And we’ve got a brand new foreign horror movie to watch and nowhere else to be,” he offers, nodding towards the front door. He’s telling me, not asking.

I pull out my phone and glance at the time, then tuck it away again. “It’s three thirty in the morning.”

Ghost laughs, the sound drawing my attention to him. He’s leaning against the wall, a joint hanging between his lips and smoke curling around his face as he exhales. “When have we ever had a healthy sleeping routine?”

Ghost is wearing nothing but black sweat pants, his heavily inked upper body bare. He’s obviously planning to crash on my couch the second whatever movie Ryker brought with him starts playing.

“Where is your fucking shirt?” I question, lifting a brow.

Ghost shrugs, taking the joint from his between lips and flicking the ash from the tip. “I’m ready for bed.”

I look at Torin next, who is standing several feet away, looking out at the empty street. The moonlight is catching on the myriad of scars covering every inch of his exposed skin. He’s pensive, which is never a good thing at this hour of night.

Out of the four of us, Torin is the one who hates being alone. Even though he won’t admit it, he needs us as much as we need him… maybe a little mo re.

I sigh again, and it’s noisy as fuck, making the point that I’m tired and not about to start arguing out here in the middle of the neighbourhood.

I push the door open, and gesture for the three of them to go in. “It’s like none of you needy bastards have houses of your own.”

I don’t mean for my words to be as sharp as they come out, but I’m already expecting them to pry into Wren and what happened at the clinic, no matter how hard I try to keep her to myself.

Torin speaks up next, his expression hard. “When you grow up expecting your foster dad to stumble into your bedroom every night and beat the shit out of you in a drunken rage, you stop enjoying nights alone.”

His words are like knives stabbing through my chest, and a memory seizes me in a vice grip.

S omething crashes into the door, startling the four of us awake. We’re lying on dirty, worn out mattress on the floor, two threadbare blankets between us for warmth. Torin sits up first, fear in his eyes as he stares at the door.

No. Not again.

The four of us pushed the old dresser we share in front of the door, hoping to stop him from trying to get in our room, but it only made him madder.

It took less than twenty seconds for Mr. Barton to bust through the door, shoving the dresser aside as he forced his way in with what we saw back then as superhuman strength.

The rage on his face was terrifying. “You stupid, useless little shits!”

I put myself closest to the door, hoping Mr. Barton would target me instead of my little brothers, but he liked to beat up Torin the best.

Torin was the smallest of us, and he always shook when someone was angry at him. Gerald Barton loved to see the youngest of us shake and cry when he came into our bedroom at night.

Mr. Barton reached down and wrapped his grimy fist in Torin’s shirt, yanking him up off the mattress and hauling him to his feet. “I should kill you! You’re fucking worthless. All you do is eat my food and cause trouble!”

Torin cried out, shaking violently as Mr. Barton struck him hard across the face with the back of his hand. I shot up from the mattress, grabbing our foster dad’s arm and tugging at it with all my strength. “Leave him alone!”

But it wasn’t enough. I was only ten years old, and Mr. Barton was a grown up. He shoved me backwards, and I fell against the dresser now sitting at an angle in the middle of the room.

My head collided with the thick wood, my vision immediately darkening as I slipped into unconsciousness.

The sounds of my brothers screaming were the last thing I heard as everything went black.

My expression softens as my brothers file into my home, greeted again by Hunter, like he didn’t just see them moments ago.

With that memory drifting back into the corners of my mind, I find myself grateful for the opportunity to give them all a safe place to be when the ghosts of our pasts comeback to haunt us.

I follow them in, quietly closing the door behind me, only for Ryker to stop me at the threshold as the others find a spot on my couch.

“The Volkovs stopped by the club again today,” he says, his voice low and tense. “They aren’t taking no for an answer.”

I scowl.

Dimitri Volkov, and his brother Maksim, run Toronto’s branch of Bratva. They’re both Russian immigrants, struggling to fill the void of power we left when we had to wipe out an Italian faction a few years back.

The Irish syndicate avoids us because they know we’ll eradicate them if they fuck around, but Dimitri is determined to use Ryker and Torin to their advantage in the war that’s brewing.

Ryker and Torin want to be left the fuck alone, but Dimitri knows power when he sees it. Torin is the most lethal assassin the world has ever seen, and Ryker’s club is the perfect place for the Bratva to run their drugs.

Dimitri also wants control over the underground fighting ring Ryker has been running for the last six years. It brings in ridiculous amounts of money, and is notorious across the globe. People travel from every corner of the world to participate and watch fights in Ryker’s cage .

The four of us are a brotherhood that value our independence. We generally don’t give a fuck what anyone else is doing, as long as they don’t interfere with our business.

Dimitri Volkov is becoming a fucking problem.

“We’re going to have to deal with that shit,” I point out, hanging up Hunter’s gear on the wall next to the door before heading for the couch.

“Volkov men showed up at my fucking house a week ago,” Torin grunts as I walk over and sit in between him and Ghost. “Offered me a ton of money to wipe out Killian Kinahan.”

Killian is the head of the Irish syndicate, and he’s never even attempted to bother us about anything. He’s smarter than his Russian nemesis.

“I assume you slammed the door in his face?” I question, lifting the brow Torin busted open a few nights ago.

“I may have pulled a gun on him,” he says with a shrug.

“All I want is peace and quiet, and here comes Dimitri fucking Volkov starting shit,” Ghost mutters under his breath.

We all nod.

We’ve built lives for ourselves out of nothing, finally finding the peace we couldn’t have as kids, and now we’re being forced into a war we never wanted to get involved in.

I’m going to kill Dimitri Volkov for fucking with my family, and turn his massacre into a warning.