Page 94 of We Are Yours

Watching as he hovered above her with no distance between their mouths.

This, I couldn’t forgive.

Forget.

Ignore.

Pretend this wasn’t a betrayal, a slap in my face, the biggest fuck you. This was the line he decided to cross. Out of all the boundaries to burn, this was where I stopped being his shield and started being his threat.

I spent the past ten months since I turned eighteen working behind the scenes with a lawyer, filling out the proper paperwork to prove that our parents couldn’t sign him over to me, and that this needed to be mandated by the state. I also had to show a stable income for as far back as I could go, but most of my jobs were paid cash under the table.

The only money I had coming in now was from dealing, and although it was thousands at a time, it couldn’t look suspicious, or it’d bring a whole other set of problems, and I’d wind up in jail or worse —prison. I was no longer a minor, so I’d be tried as an adult. What was supposed to only be until I turned eighteen became a full-time career, and I had no plans for the future other than dealing drugs.

I was losing myself, and the only grounding I had was in two of the closest people to me, Isla and Kraven.

I didn’t add all my money to the bank to avoid questions about its source. Marco knew someone willing to lie as long as I paid them off, claiming I worked at their auto mechanic shop to prove established employment.

On top of providing a care plan for the future, I was winging every step of the way. It needed to include expenses, the mortgage I’d been paying for years, and everything in between. There had to be a paper trail. To make matters worse, I had to get replacements for our birth certificates and Social Security cards, and they had to run background checks on us.

With all our run-ins with the law, it didn’t help my case. Not to mention all our encounters with CPS. Now, with Kraven turning eighteen in a couple of months, all my hard work was pointless. I’d basically been chasing my own ass, and this was just the icing on the cake.

“You do what you need to.” Marco squeezed my shoulder one last time before he let go. “But don’t make a scene in my club.”

I didn’t move.

I was frozen.

Stuck.

Glued to the floor beneath me until I witnessed him backing her up against the wall, hauling her up to straddle his waist. That was all it took for me to snap. I heard it loud and clear. Something broke inside me, snapping in half like it was nothing more than a twig pretending to be metal. The crack echoed in my chest, vibrating deep into my core.

It reverberated all around me as I flew through the crowd, feeling like a man running to his own execution. In the end, it didn’t matter what way I decided to go. I was already going to be burned at the stake with no mercy.

I took off from across the dance floor, shoving people out of the way in the path of my own destruction, needing to get to them as fast as possible. Once I could see them right in front of me, his hands moved from her waist up her body.

Why isn’t she fighting him off?

Rage quickly slammed into me as I roughly tore Kraven off her, causing her to squeal from the unexpected jolt. I caught her before she hit the floor. In a heartbeat, I threw his ass out the back door into the alley, trying to respect Marco’s request.

“Julius!” Isla hollered, running behind us.

It was obvious she was overwhelmed by the turn of events. Kraven’s body stumbled out the door, struggling to remain upright, but he managed not to fall.

Her eyes flew from Kraven to me. “It’s not what you think, Julius!”

“It’s never what I think, right?” I roared. “Months of this and how many times have I walked in on something I’m ‘not thinking’?”

“Actually,” Kraven chimed in, regaining his balance, “it’s exactly what you’re thinking.”

Isla glared at Kraven. “Stop it! Don’t do this! He’s your brother!”

“My brother just put me out the door! What loyalty are we pretending we have tonight?”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I spewed, disgusted by his response.

“There’s no better time than the present,” Kraven antagonized, leading me on.

“Julius, please… It’s obvious he’s fucked up!” She gestured to him. “He doesn’t know what he’s doing.”