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Chapter Seven

Matteo

S wallowing around the lump in my throat, I watch as Globe seems to admire my bare chest. His usually upbeat and carefree personality is out the window, and in its place, a man set to visually devour me. I will be a puddle of mush and desire if his gaze remains steady on me.

An awkward silence captures us both as I pull my shirt back over myself. Whatever daze he caught himself in is immediately gone.

He adjusts his glasses and clears his throat. “Let’s grab that footage.” He turns his back to me and sits at his desk. There’s a tightness in his shoulders that has me hesitating. “It’s pretty easy to grab, just have to wait for the bandwidth to catch up to us.”

I hesitate. Nothing about him turning his back showed he was fine with what happened, yet there’s this coolness in the room that I was not prepared for.

He must sense this because he peers at me over his shoulder.

“Pull up a chair and sit. It’s the only way I can show you and help you get your feet under you.

” Rounding his desk uncertainly, he grabs the chair closest to him and yanks.

An unappealing shriek echoes across the room as the leg catches on the concrete floor. Tapping the leather top, he waits.

With a wave of finality, I sit. “So, what exactly are we looking for?” I question as he starts clicking into two different programs.

“Like a fucking idiot, I didn’t check the time when shit went down, so I have to rewind to the approximate time it happened until I’m able to catch glimpses of the armed female.

” He scoots over a bit so I can squeeze closer to the monitors.

Waving me forward, he shows me where to go and how to work the system.

He explains that the bandwidth isn’t big enough to accommodate moving the security footage, so it takes double the time to do anything.

“There,” he mumbles, and I stop the feed that shows the main hall.

A flash of blonde hair catches on the screen, and Globe writes the time on a sticky note.

“She came from the eastern wing, which is where the psyche area is. Go to the main line of a different screen and search a few minutes before this.” Entering the eastern wing cameras, it’s even easier to locate the female.

“How did she even get a gun?” I mumble as confusion mars my brain and features. She walks with it from the room, then seconds turn into minutes as I watch everything leading up to Irene getting shot.

The door to the office opens, jolting Globe and me as Nero walks in, a wild look in his eyes.

“I thought-” Globe starts, but a growl works its way up Nero’s throat.

“You felt it too, right?” He throws out the question we all were thinking about but refuses to acknowledge. The question throws a lead weight into the air that crushes our windpipes. Globe sucks in a harsh breath as I watch Nero pace. “Tell me I’m not fucking crazy, someone.”

“You aren’t crazy,” Globe sighs, dragging his fingers through his floppy brown hair. A second later, like a switch flicking, a goofy grin covers his face. “Round two, huh?”

“Round two?” I parrot and look between the two of them. Globe chuckles as Nero shakes his head with a sly smirk. “Round two for what?” Both men glance at me incredulously.

“Remember Regan?” asks Globe, and I wrack my brain to figure out who that is. Unfortunately, I come up empty. He must read it on my face because he continues. “She runs the library and educational stuff on the other side?”

“That rings a bell.”

“That’s Viper, Mav, Ghost, and Warden’s girl.” His face is almost wistful.

Nero snickers. “Silly girl was snooping around and got more than she bargained for.”

Globe laughs loudly, the tone bouncing off the surrounding walls. “They are some possessive motherfuckers, too. Exactly how I feel now.”

“Me too,” Nero confirms, which causes them both to look at me.

“Shit, that’s how I feel for her too, like if she loses another drop of blood due to the hands of someone else, I would fucking kill someone…” I trail off, narrowing my eyes at them. “All three of us?”

Globe and Nero simply shrug. “Why not? If it works, there’s no point in not pursuing it. There are four of them to care for her, which means that she has someone almost at all times,” Globe explains with a pitch of longing.

“They aren’t jealous of one another?” Both men shake their heads at my inquisition. Fucking hell, are we really…

“Quite the opposite actually,” Nero explains while Globe wiggles his eyebrows suggestively. “I can’t handle another one of you fuckers, only us.”

I have no idea what to think about anything else at this moment.

The organ in my chest constricts with longing for the raven-haired beauty lying pale on the gurney in the medical ward.

The mirth in her eyes is long gone as rivers of red stream over her pebbled flesh.

Imagining sharing her blood with someone else doesn’t appeal to me, the calling to make her my own is far too harsh…

“Well,” I start, unsure where to begin or where I want to go with this.

“How do we know if she reciprocates these…feelings?” My question seems to have the impact I anticipated because they both look taken aback, the thought sobering.

Nero looks seconds away from blowing a fuse while Globe grinds his mullers.

How one female can wreak so much chaos within three men is boggling.

“Does she get a choice?” Nero growls as his eyes slant at us. His question is rhetorical, that’s for damn sure. “She could have died. This tightness…” he scoffs at himself as he shakes his head. Seconds later, he cracks his knuckles and nearly snarls at us.

My chest seizes at the thought of turning into a dynamic quad.

Possessiveness threatens to tear through me, but it’s not against Nero and Globe.

No, it’s possessive for them, too. It doesn’t make sense, and I know myself far too well than to even consider questioning it at this point.

Giving in to the feeling is a fuck ton easier than trying to fight it.

Before today, she was just a female that I longed for from afar.

Beautiful, educated, whip-smart, all of it.

There is a deep fire within her that I crave to ignite and mix with my own.

This feeling borders on obsession, and if it’s anything like I feel, my emotions will be raked over the coals before we find our peace.

The other side of my soul, the scared, scarred, and broken pieces, begs for me to let her go.

She doesn’t rest easily with the deep need for eternal satisfaction, which is evidenced by her hollowness.

So, my soul would rather we take the brunt of walking away.

I have been through more than enough shit for four lifetimes.

I don’t need to drag and mix her darkness with my own.

But watching her blood scatter for me, for us…

Familiar feelings bubble inside of me, gripping my trachea with brute strength.

Lust for blood burns inside of me as I attempt to beat down the feeling.

Now isn’t the time to be worried about how my demons threaten to tear me from limb to limb, but the trickle from the wound on her bicep to the tips of her fingers…

What I wouldn’t give to drag that golden liquid around her body, push it back into her in more ways than one while we mark her as ours.

Her smooth, pale, scarless flesh is flawless to mar for our pleasure.

The perfect canvas to paint on with red.

Tidal waves of crimson pour down her back, legs, arms, really anywhere that we want her to bleed.

Glancing down at my palms, it takes a moment for me to register the oxidized blood-tinged brown on my knuckles. It’s crusty and dry. With ease, I’m able to rub away some of the flakes, but it almost makes my chest ache with the lack of her marking on me.

“You good?” Globe questions as he looks from my face to my hands and back. Swallowing thickly, I do my best to push the thirst for her down and away, compartmentalize it for another time.

A slap on my shoulder has me jarring harshly from my daydreams. “Come on,” Globe says, with a wicked smirk on his lips. “I will have Hawk take care of this. I think we have a craving that needs to be fed.”