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Chapter Twenty-One

Chelsea

"It's been so long since both of you were here for dinner." Mum didn't bother to hide her delight. "I can't remember the last time the four of us sat down together."

"It was about four months ago," I said. I sat down on the couch next to my brother and placed my phone on the coffee table in front of me. Screen down, like always. When I was here, I was always as present as I could be.

Mum frowned. "It feels longer than that. Anyway, make yourself comfortable. The spaghetti will be ready soon."

"My favourite." Ice rubbed his stomach.

"That's why I made it." She happily disappeared into the kitchen, leaving us alone in the living room.

"I keep trying to convince her to move in with me so I can eat home-cooked meals every day," Ice remarked. He laced his hands behind his head and leaned back against the couch.

"Are you trying to tell me there's four of you living in that house and none cook?" I teased.

"Oh, we cook, but Mum's cooking is better than ours. That's why we all love coming here to eat." He propped his feet on the coffee table. "They'd be here tonight, but Mannix had a thing, and took Kennedy and Ares with him."

I eyed him, only the fact he wasn't wearing shoes kept me from scolding him. If Dad saw him with his feet on the table, he'd have something to say.

"When are you bringing your boyfriends to dinner?" he continued.

Sometimes we had dinner with my brother and his partners and sometimes it was just the four of us. Mum liked cooking for us either way, but it was nice to catch up without the crowd.

"I don't know," I said. "Right now, if I brought them here, it might end up in a food fight."

"You say 'food fight' like it's a bad thing." He grinned.

"It is if it involves bludgeoning someone with a leg of lamb," I said dryly. "Mum wouldn't be impressed if they wasted food like that."

Ice chuckled. "Trouble in paradise? Did you figure things out with Atlas?" Finally he got down to what he really wanted to ask.

I told him everything Atlas and Daze told me, including how happy she was that she'd found a way to get me back into the fold.

Ice looked just as happy.

"I told you, you couldn't stay away for long." He reached over to pat my knee.

"If you say 'welcome to the dark side,' I'm going to be the one bludgeoning you with a leg of lamb," I warned.

He grinned. "That's my baby sister. Threatening people with roasted farm animals. You'll be threatening to shoot me next."

"You don't have to look so happy about it," I said. "This wasn't what I wanted for my life."

I would have settled for the guys understanding the way Dusk Bay worked, and who to be wary of. I'd never intended for them to become minions of the Brantley family. I certainly never intended to get personally involved. I could kick myself for it now.

He scooted over closer, put an arm around me and pulled me to him. "I know it wasn't, but did you really think you could avoid it forever? Even if you left Dusk Bay, Dusk Bay wouldn't leave you. Sooner or later, they would have found a way to get you to do what they want."

"You're okay with that?" I nestled up against him, enjoying the feeling of safety he always gave me.

The guys said they'd kill for me, but my brother would go further than that. He'd burn the world down for the people he loved. Tear it apart and leave it in ashes.

"I'm not happy that you're not happy," he said. "But I know you will be. You have…how many guys into you?"

I swallowed. "Six," I admitted. "Well, five and a half, but close enough."

He laughed into my hair. "Six? That's my baby sister. A badass doctor with six boyfriends. All six of them better make sure they take care of you. Otherwise, they'll have me to answer to."

"They wouldn't dare to piss you off," I said. "Frost seems to idolise you. He'd probably want to help eviscerate the other five."

"I've been thinking about taking on an apprentice," Ice said thoughtfully. "Any other likely recruits?"

"To your skillset? I don't think so. Storm would prefer to break fingers. Atlas too. They have more in common than they realise."

"We can never have too many hired thugs," Ice said. "What about the others?"

"Jay and Dallas seem happy to go with the flow," I said slowly. "Although, Jay is given to pranking people. I get the impression he's good at not getting caught."

"An interesting skill set," Ice said. "Once in a while, pranks turn deadly."

"That sounds like a television show," I said. I made my voice sound like a TV presenter. "When pranks go wrong."

Ice laughed. "I'd watch."

"That doesn't surprise me," I said. "As for Ramsey, Daze said we're taking orders from him. I don't think Storm or Atlas are too happy about that. Storm in particular. He might push back."

"From what I've seen of him, I'd expect nothing less," Ice mused. "I'm sure they'll work it out. Hopefully without bloodshed."

I sat up a little and stared at him. "Did you just say you hoped there wasn't bloodshed?" I pressed a hand to his forehead. "You don't feel hot."

"I don't always want blood spilled." He grabbed my wrist and pulled my hand down to his chest.

"Who are you and what have you done with my brother?" I asked. "Because the one I know would write a book about a hundred ways to make someone bleed while killing them slowly."

"One hundred and one," he said. "I could probably come up with a series of books, if I'm honest. But you care about these guys and you don't want them to kill each other, right? And you're my sister, so I want what you want. If you don't want them spilling each other's blood, they better not."

"If you're about to say you'll spill their blood if they spill each other's blood, I'm not sure it works that way." I sat back against him again.

This whole conversation was starting to make my head spin, like we were going around in circles. Threats of violence to prevent threats of violence. Blood after blood.

We were definitely not normal people.

"I have other methods," he said. "I've been working on how to cause pain without breaking the skin. It's fascinating. You should come down to my work room sometime. Let me show you what I've been working on."

"On the face of the planet, only you would say something like that," I said.

If I was fascinated with pain the way he was, I only had to turn up at work on any given day. There was always someone injured, or recovering from an injury.

I was definitely not going to admit that one thing I liked about the job was exactly that. Seeing the guys throw themselves into the game until they were battered, bruised and sometimes with broken bones. I definitely didn't get off on that, no way.

"Only me?" he mused. "Probably not, but I like to be unique. How boring would life be if we were all the same?"

"That's what I keep trying to say," I said. "I was quite happy living my life away from all the violence. Just to be different, you know?"

"Poor Chels." He kissed my forehead. "You'll do fine. Did you know Daisy Lasalle got out for a few years? She thought she put it behind her, but look at her now. She's just about running this city. And loving every moment of it. Once she embraced her true self, she really started living."

"I'm not like her," I said.

"Aren't you?" he asked. "If you weren't, you wouldn't have brought Belinda Simmons to me. But you did. A person living a normal life would have— Actually, I don't know what they would have done. Letting someone like that ruin your life seems like a bad idea to me."

"You think?" I asked with a hint of sarcasm. I closed my eyes and sighed slowly. "I didn't know what else to do. I would have been kicked out of the Smashers if Bruce knew sooner than he did. I wouldn't have been able to finish my practical placement, much less got a job with the team. She would have destroyed everything."

"So you did what you had to do and destroyed her first," he concluded.

"I'm still not like Daze," I argued.

I didn't get a kick out of controlling people the way she seemed to. I didn't want people scared of me. At least, not consciously.

Also not something I'd admit to myself.

Although, maybe that was why I didn't mind the guys giving me the occasional roofie, or acting out a kidnapping and being rough with me. If I relinquished power to them, maybe it would stop me from going after it myself.

Possibly, deep down, I craved it a lot more than I realised.

"Do you regret bringing Belinda to me?" he asked.

I chewed my lip for a few moments before finally responding. "Not exactly. I asked her not to publish that story and she wouldn't listen. I gave her a choice. She decided screwing with my life was perfectly okay. I wish she'd done what I asked. We both could have walked away."

I couldn't bring myself to admit, even to myself, that I enjoyed the fear in her eyes. If I accepted that fact, I was one step deeper into what seemed to me like a dark, black hole. One I'd been skirting around for years, but managed to avoid falling into. Like a black hole in space, it was difficult to resist its pull. If I didn't keep trying, I could disappear inside forever. Losing myself and everything I spent so long working towards.

My brother would tell me to embrace it, but I couldn't. I'd keep fighting until I had no fight left in me.

"You really think she would have?" He squeezed my shoulders. "People like her are always looking for an angle. If it wasn't that article, on that day, it would have been another. It might have been something with even bigger fallout. And it might have come at a time when you were too late to stop it. Like you said, you gave her a choice and she made it. People don't always make good choices. That other dancer, what was her name? Ivy? She also made choices. So did Bruce Fergus. Every single day I get out of bed and I have to make choices and live with them. That was exactly what they did. But their choices killed them instead. It's not your fault they had bad intentions and bad reasoning. All we can do is our best in life and look out for the people we love."

"You're right," I said slowly.

"I'm your big brother, I'm always right," he said with a laugh. "It's my job. Autopsies, torture and wisdom. Huh, I should get that on a T-shirt."

"And one that says ‘I kill people and I know things,’" I said dryly.

"That would be perfect." He laughed again. "Although, it might raise some eyebrows. Nothing says 'subtle' like a T-shirt like that."

"On the other hand, no one would suspect anyone would wear that on a T-shirt if they really did it," I pointed out. "It might be the perfect disguise, out in the open."

"Now you're the wise one," he said. "I'll look into that. Would you like one?"

"I think I'll pass," I said. I opened my mouth to add something, but Mum called out first.

"Kids, dinner is ready!"

"Perfect, I'm starving." He tugged me to my feet and pushed me towards the dining table, laughing like we were children again.