Levi
Losing a battle doesn’t mean ending the war.
* * *
The moment Aiden strolls into the locker room, I throw him against the wall with my forearm crushing his trachea.
“What the fuck were you doing?” I snarl in his emotionless face.
Murmurs break out around us from the rest of the team members. I should’ve left it alone until we got home, but the fire inside would’ve consumed me by then.
I was barely able to stop myself from climbing the fence and smashing Aiden’s face to the ground during practice.
He dared touch her.
He put his fucking hands on her.
The corner of his lips curls in a smirk. “It didn’t fail after all.”
I grab his arm — the same fucking arm he had around her shoulder — and twist it. “Do you want a cast?”
“Captain…” Cole approaches slowly. “We can talk it out. No need to break things....or bones.”
“Tell. Me,” I growl in my cousin’s poker face. “What the fuck were you doing?”
He remains silent, meeting my stare with one of his own. My hold tightens around his already twisted arm. I’m going to fucking break it and to hell if Jonathan makes me his slave.
I am, anyway.
Xander kicks Aiden’s leg. “Whatever it is, tell him, you little shit.”
“He’ll really break your arm,” Cole hisses.
Aiden’s expression doesn’t change no matter how much pressure I apply. The fucking psycho has become abnormally resistant to pain since that incident nine years ago.
“Yo, King.” Ronan stares at him with bugged eyes. “Mais tu es fous ou quoi? Do you want your arm broken?”
He doesn’t. But if a broken arm gets him what he wants, he wouldn’t mind.
“Who told you to keep your conversation with my father a secret?” Aiden finally speaks.
“Go near Astrid again, and I’ll fucking kill you.”
“Tell me the secret.”
“Pass.”
He smiles in a taunting way. “If you don’t give me what I want. I won’t give you what you want, either. Guess what, Lev. The game always starts with two kings on the chessboard.”
“One to nil, Aiden!” Ronan shouts, then says, “Ouch,” when Cole smacks the back of his head.
I smile and push Aiden against the locker with a shove.
I can punch him to death and cut him limb from limb, but physical strength doesn’t work on this little shit.
He said it himself, Smarter, not stronger.
To win, I have to play his way.