Page 147 of Viper

Father shoves past Reaper, gathers his laptop, then stalks from the room.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Striker says, raking his fingers through his hair. “Tell me he didn’t just say that.”

“He did,” Reaper and I say at the same time. Our eyes lock. “What do we do?” I ask him. “We can’t let him near her.”

“This is too far,” Breaker says.

We fall silent because it’s true.

Reaper exhales slowly, looking at each of us. “We do this. We follow through.”

“Are you fucking kidding me, he—” Reaper puts his hand up, cutting off my words.

“We get into his safe, we get—” He clears his throat. “Once we successfully complete the mission, we’ll do what we should have done a long time ago.”

Striker glances my way, then asks the single question we already know the answer to. “And what is that?”

“We stop taking orders.”

Chapter 45

Viper

Heatkissesmyface,laps at my arms. I stab at the fire in the hearth with the iron poker, driving it deep into the logs until they crack and split. They flare wildly, almost as violent and hot as the anger simmering under my skin. A fiery rage settled in my bones after our conversation with Father, and I can’t seem to rid myself of it. Every muscle in my body coils tight, ready to snap. I pace the study like a caged animal, waiting for him.

Striker checked on our girl after our talk with Father and said she was sleeping. As much as I want to wake her, see her face, I know she needs rest. She deserves peace after the hell she’s been through.

Fuckingtest.

Fallon is many things, a sociopath, a narcissistic bastard, but one thing he is not is a bald-faced liar. He may leave out details, lie by omission, but I believe him when he says he didn’t send his soldier to assault her.

That’s not how he works. Threaten to kill Striker? Absolutely. Actually do it?

My stomach twists. I like to think he wouldn’t, but he would send a soldier to test Delilah’s skills. To see if she can handle herself on her own.

But rape?

Not his style.

Threaten, yes. Demean, of course. Test, scare, and humiliate? That’s how he works. But he knows how protective we are of each other. And now, how protective we are of our girls.

They belong to us, and are one of us now.

If Father killed one of us, we’d burn everything to the ground.

Reaper filled us in on the nightmare of this past week. The brutal training, Fallon’s suffocating presence, the harsh weapons lesson Delilah learned. How he wraps threats around our throats like fucking collars.

We tried to negate the damage done to them. We thought if we were softer, showed them we cared in our fucked-up way, we could lessen the harm done to them. As if our pathetic attempts at kindness could erase the damage we caused.

Fucking fools we are. You can’t plan something like this and not destroy the very tool you’re using. Delilah will never be the same after this. If she lives. If we all live.

When they learn the truth? They’ll see exactly what we are, and we’ll lose them forever.

They may even lose each other.

My heart aches at the thought.

We’re selfish bastards. Arrogant, and cruel too. We willingly went along with Reaper and snatched Cora up, dragging her into this mess simply because we wanted her. We thought we could use them and then discard them when we were done, uncaring of the aftermath.