The passenger door suddenly opened, and Rowe climbed into the open front seat as he ended a call on his cell phone.
“What’s the word?” Noah asked.
“Quinn is still checking all the cameras and video, but he can’t find the person who pulled the alarm. Thinks it might be in an obscured corner. We didn’t cover the entire place. Just the main areas since that’s where he was supposed to stay.” Rowe twisted in his seat and frowned at Marc. “Foster.”
“Ward.”
Royce looked from one man to the other, and the tension thickened in the car. Rowe never acted this way with anyone. His boss got along with everyone, but apparently there was some bad blood between the two men.
“Any new thoughts on who could be doing this?”
“No.”
“Not exactly helpful when we’re trying to keep you alive.”
Royce started to snap at his boss, but Marc was already shaking his head. “I’m sorry. I don’t know. I don’t know why someone is fucking with my life. I can’t even guess as to who hates me enough to want me dead. Why do this? A fake alarm. Just to fuck with my livelihood?”
“Could it have been a test?” Noah suddenly said.
“Like a fire drill?” Rowe asked.
“No.” Noah grinned at his boyfriend, and with just that smile, Royce watched the tension flow completely out of Rowe. Whatever problem Rowe had with Marc, it was forgotten. “It could have been a test to see how Royce would react. Would he get in the way if there was an opportunity to kill Marc?”
“Whoever pulled the alarm has a very clear answer to that question now.” Royce reached across and grabbed Marc’s wrist. “No one is getting between us.”
But instead of being reassured by his words, Marc’s expression only grew more worried.Chapter Seven“Why didn’t you answer your goddamn phone?”
Lilah’s yell hit them the second they walked into the house. Royce’s temperature boiled at the thought of dealing with her yet again. Her blatant disregard for her brother’s privacy was a real issue.
As was her fucking tone.
He scowled as he followed Marc, who turned right toward her voice.
“I had a small crisis—if you hadn’t noticed,” Marc said as he abruptly stopped in the arched entrance to the formal living room.
Royce got why instantly. Gabriel stood next to the window that led into the small courtyard. Shorter and broader than both brothers, Royce saw his resemblance to Marc more clearly here than he had at the gallery. Richard, the oldest, sipped from a wineglass as he leaned on the wall beside the fireplace, his features still sharp, his soft belly not. Lilah held her glass with fingers that had turned white, her features so scrunched up, Royce wondered if she was giving herself a headache.
She sure gave him one every time she waltzed into the house.
Of course, part of that could be from the act they had to put on each time. His dick no longer trusted him after he’d made it go up and down like a fucking piston all week. Just being in the same room with Marc now had his mouth watering and his blood racing south so fast, he got dizzy. He didn’t know which part of his body he wanted on Marc the most: his mouth, hands, or cock. He just knew he wanted the long and lean beautiful man with a ferocity that scared the shit out of him.
It was potent, this insane…need, and that kiss earlier in Marc’s office had told Royce all he needed to know. Marc may have said they shouldn’t have done that, but he wanted Royce just as much. Fuck, the faint trembling Royce had felt in that stunning body had gone to his head and brought out every predatory instinct he kept under tight, tight wraps. He’d nearly bent the man over his desk and bit down on the back of his neck.
After a moment of tense silence, Marc’s siblings began to shout. Startled, Royce had to force himself not to charge into the room with his fists at the sheer explosion of antagonism coming out of the formal living room. As an only child after the age of twelve, his family had consisted of him and his mom, and they’d never been this loud. His mother was hardly ever vocal though. The death of his father and brother had broken her.
He looked at Marc’s family now, as they squandered their luckiness to have each other, as they laid into Marc all at once. And he just took it in. Like he was used to it.
What the hell?
None of them bothered to acknowledge Royce as they barked questions and complained at the speed of light.
He took the time to watch them. To look for any hint that one of them hated Marc enough to kill him. Just the thought made his muscles tense, made his stomach tighten. He would have given anything to keep his younger brother, so it was hard for him to compute something so vile. There was nothing in their expressions that gave them away. No tightened lips of guilt, no shifting eyes. Corner lips curled in contempt, though, especially when Lilah glanced at Royce. But mostly, he saw only anger.