Page 5 of The Ecstasy of Sin (Brutal Brotherhood #1)
Dominic
I’m home in record time, my rundown Volkswagen sedan groaning in protest as I take the last corner onto my street way too fast. Unlike my motorcycle or the Camaro, this piece of shit isn’t built for rough handling.
Pulling into the driveway, I park beside Ghost’s blacked-out Dodge Challenger, my eyes on the front door. It’s wide open, with none of my brothers in sight.
I’m glad my dog is well-trained and knows not to leave the house without one of us, because if he ever got lost, I’d lose my fucking mind.
I bolt from my car and sprint to the house. A muffled cacophony of agitated voices rises from my basement, tension hanging heavy in the air. I slam the door shut behind me, lock it, and head for the basement.
My German Shepherd, Hunter, is sitting at the top of the stairs, the door leading down closed, with his ears pinned back in concern.
I pause beside him to stroke the top of his head reassuringly, taking a moment to appreciate the softness of his big ears while I take a deep breath and prepare myself for what’s waiting below. “Wait here, my boy,” I tell him gently, before opening the door and descending into the darkness.
Their tense voices become clear as I reach the bottom of the stairs, the light from above illuminating the three men. My heart is pounding, the thrum of adrenaline and anxiety crashing together in my chest.
“Torin, my brother, I need you to listen to me,” Ghost pleads, the pain evident in his voice.
Torin stands with his back to our sparring ring, his chest heaving, and his eyes wild. In his right hand, a dagger that matches my own. The long black blade, edged in silver, gleams in the bright overhead lights.
“She’s not here, Tor,” Ryker says calmly, both hands raised in surrender. “You’re not a kid anymore, and we haven’t seen that bitch in a long fucking time.”
Except that’s what Torin is right now, and anytime he has one of these episodes. A broken child in a grown man’s body, trapped between reality and the nightmare that is our past.
I approach slowly, doing my best not to startle Torin. Ryker’s tired eyes find mine, and I’m gutted by the guilt I see there. He has a fresh bruise blooming beneath the skin surrounding one of his eyes.
Our haunted brother points the combat blade in Ryker’s direction, a broken expression on his face. “It’s almost three thirty. It’s almost three thirty,” He repeats the phrase under his breath as he begins pacing back and forth like a wild animal that has been cornered .
I feel like my brother has his fist wrapped around my cold, black heart—threatening to destroy us all if he can’t get a grip on reality. I step forward, placing myself between Ghost and Ryker.
“Hey, brother,” I say gently, keeping my voice level. “What’s got you upset tonight? What were you and Ghost doing before this started?”
I’m desperate to anchor him to reality, hoping to pull him out of whatever nightmare loop he’s trapped in. I’m haunted by the far away, terrified look his eyes take on whenever he gets like this.
“Dominic.” He whispers my name like a prayer, like he’s putting his faith in me to protect him from the monster he thinks is coming to get him.
His body begins to shiver, but his eyes—those dark, haunted eyes—won’t focus on any of us.
“I don’t want to play with her,” his voice cracks. My heart shatters.
I’d string that wretched bitch up and watch her bleed if it could erase even a fraction of the damage she did to him.
Memories of him being taken by our foster mom, from our shared childhood bedroom, threaten to overwhelm me. I beat back those awful visions by sheer force of will, refusing to allow them the chance to get a foothold in me.
“No, Tor, look at me.” I take slow, deliberate steps forward. “She’s not coming. You’re safe in my home. We’re not in Vancouver, we’re in Toronto. Anita Barton is across the country, far away from you.”
Torin’s eyes finally meet mine, but they give me no reassurance. The tormented ghosts living in his nearly black gaze make me want to hunt Gerald and Anita Barton down and butcher them.
My stomach twists with dread as he slowly lifts the blade. The same one all four of us carry, now held against his own fucking throat.
“I’d rather die than play her game.” The finality in his voice makes my blood run cold.
No. I can’t lose my brother. Not like this.
“Torin!” Ghost shouts, just as I launch forward and slam into Torin with every ounce of strength I have left in me.
We hit the mat so hard the breath is knocked out of my lungs, crashing through the ropes and into the sparring ring at the center of the room.
I grab his dagger from his hand and throw it across the ground behind me. A thin red line blooms across Torin’s throat, superficial and shallow, thank fuck.
Regret isn’t an emotion that I feel often, but I feel it tonight as my right fist slams into Torin’s jaw. His head snaps back with a grunt, pain erupting behind his eyes like a flash of lightning across the darkest of skies.
When he slowly turns back to face me, something finally clicks. His eyes find mine, focused and sharp. Relief washes over me, and I shake out my fist to ease the painful burn now radiating across my knuckles.
I rise to my feet and take a defensive posture, while he stares up at me from where his ass is still planted on the mat. My eyes follow a trickle of blood that glides down from the thin line marking his throat .
“Come to me, brother.” I crook my fingers in invitation. “Let me take all of that sick shit trapped inside of you,” I offer, beckoning him to get on his feet.
It starts as a growl, a primitive sound from deep in his chest, before his rage and pain pour out of him in a roar that rattles the entire room. He gets to his feet so fast I hardly have time to react, launching at me with his fist aiming low.
I don’t move. I don’t even try to defend myself. I just let his fist collide with my stomach while I brace against the hit. He strikes again with his other fist, and I tense my abdomen as I take every blow. I take it for him.
I’m my brother’s living, breathing punching bag.
Silent tears are streaking down his face as he swings, all of his grief and his madness bleeding through every punch. I let him drain the venom from his wounds with every hit, until my body threatens to give out.
Shoving him away from me, I drop my shoulder and ram it into his chest, tackling him down onto the mat.
We roll together, our lungs heaving from exertion, as we exchange blows. I take more than I give, delivering one hit for every two or three he lands.
But it’s working. The pain is clearing his head, centering him here in the moment with me.
Torin falls beneath me, his powerful body starting to shake as his strength fades, trembling from exhaustion and the emotional comedown. His head hits the mat, sweat slicking his pale skin .
I lean in, our faces mere inches apart, seeking his dark gaze. “Have you had enough?” I ask with a smirk, tasting the metallic bite of blood on my tongue from what I assume is a split lip.
We’re bloody, bruised and sweating, but we’re both alive—and that’s what fucking matters.
His eyes narrow on me. A few seconds pass, then his forehead smashes into mine.
Pain detonates behind my brow as my head snaps back, my body falling away from Torin. I land on my back with a thud. As I gaze up at the bright lights above me, red fills my vision. Lifting my hand, I touch it to my eyebrow, and it comes away soaked in blood.
I close the affected eye and sigh, laying there while I catch my breath, until Torin’s bloodied face fills my vision. There’s the faintest smile on his lips. It’s barely there, but it’s enough. He extends a hand toward me.
Relief finally breaks through the haze of pain and bone-deep fatigue, and I reach up and grab his hand. I let him do all the work, hauling my heavy ass off the mat.
Once we are both on our feet, my eyes land on Ghost and Ryker, who are leaning against the wall near the stairs. Both of them have joints between their lips, smoke curling around their faces like mist.
Without a word, Torin walks past them. Ghost holds out his joint, and Torin takes it, inhaling so deeply I think he might be trying to replace the oxygen in his body with the calming drug. I watch as he climbs the stairs in silence .
I don’t follow him right away, because Hunter will be waiting at the top of the stairs to greet him. Hunter knows how to love a broken person, how to help stitch their shattered pieces back together… and that perfect dog of mine will do the work tonight—for my brother, and for me.
“We almost lost him. I’m scared one of these times we’ll fail to save him,” Ryker says quietly as I approach. The immense guilt that haunts him is still there in his eyes, a poison with nowhere to go but inside of him.
Ghost lights another joint, holding it out to me. I shake my head, and he brings it to his lips.
Ghost exhales a thick plume of smoke and drags a hand down his face.
He looks as exhausted as I feel. “There’s no other fucking option,” he points out, reminding Ryker of the promise we made to each other all those years ago when we were children.
Starving, and huddled together in the darkness of our rotting foster home.
“If he dies, we die with him,” I say flatly, grabbing a towel off a nearby shelf and pressing it to my split brow.
They both nod in agreement. We move as one, and return upstairs.
My modest house is blanketed in the darkness of night, but the glow of the television illuminates Torin and Hunter where they sit on my large sectional couch.
Torin is watching hockey, a replay from tonight’s game, with Hunter’s large head in his lap. With one hand, he’s gently stroking Hunter’s furry neck, while the other holds a bag of frozen vegetables to his swollen jaw .
There’s a bloodied towel beside him where he wiped the blood off his face and neck.
Ryker and Ghost drop down beside him, Ryker stretching out like he owns the whole couch, taking up more space than necessary, as usual. He pulls a chocolate bar out of his pocket, ripping it open and taking a bite. “I swear to fuck, the Leafs are playing better this season than they have in years.”
Torin snorts. Within seconds, they’re arguing about the Maple Leafs’ recent record like blood was never spilled, and like no one was about to die on my basement floor. It’s back to business as usual.
Ghost watches me closely as I pull my phone out of the side pocket of my cargo pants. I quickly type out a text to Dr. Denton to let him know I’m coming in.
The shady doctor runs a twenty-four hour clinic downtown, and he will take any client for the right price; catering mostly to criminals.
Torin tries to steal Ryker’s chocolate bar, earning himself a middle finger as Ryker rolls off the couch with a grunt. Chuckling, Torin returns to stroking Hunter’s back while Ryker hauls himself up again, muttering a promise of murder if our brother ever pulls that shit again.
“You want me to stitch that up?” Ghost asks as I wander into the kitchen to grab a bottle of water out of the fridge, taking a leisurely stroll through the house like I’m not bleeding out of my face.
“Nah. I’m going to grab a quick shower and let the good doctor make me pretty again.” I head in the direction of the bathroom, leaving my brothers to crash in my living room for the night.
What’s the harm in a little vanity? I’ll add it to the long list of my sins, none of which I will bother repenting for.
Heaven wouldn’t want me, anyway.