“What was that?” she questions Crow. This girl has balls of steel, and it makes me laugh. “Selfies to taunt me to obey your commands?”
“Sit,” Crow responds, his cold exterior taking over once more. “We need to talk.”
I round the desk and settle in beside him. “We needed you to know the story behind our hatred of your father. You know Crow’s,” I tell her, watching her reaction. A slow, guilt-ridden nod. She was there the night it all went down. “Mine is a little different. We came home right after the first kidnapping which was my sister,” I continue as I go back in my memories to the day haunting me. “My mother was out, my father was at work, and I told my sister she shouldn’t go out into the garden while the security team were working on checks.”
“Falcon and I were out watching Hawk in a fight. The three of us had been inseparable since we got home.” Crow leans back, crossing an ankle over the opposite knee.
“It was only when I got to her bedroom and found blood and ripped clothes, did I realize she wasn’t there. The signs of a struggle were clear.”
“M-my father—”
“He was let in by our security team under the guise of being an installer. They checked his credentials,” I tell her. The guilt I lived with since then has slowly blackened my soul. I promised myself I would never let anyone hurt an innocent again.
“That’s when we became The Fallen,” Crow explains. “The idea of seeing families hurt like ours was not something we could live with.”
“Dark angels,” Lucille whispers as the name becomes clearer. “And you were out for vengeance.”
I nod. “We watched the trial from afar,” I explain. “If we had walked into the courtroom, we would’ve probably been arrested ourselves.”
“But patience was what was needed,” Crow says. “It may not be our virtue, but we knew if we waited, more would come to light.”
“Is that how you knew I would be here? Did you follow me to England?”
“For the most part,” I tell her before Crow can jump in. “We all wanted you dead.” My words cause her to wince, but I continue on, “We believed you needed to pay for his sins. His actions are and will always be inconceivable. It doesn’t matter who he’s working for, everyone has choices.”
“My father made his choice,” Lucille tells us adamantly. “He chose to do the wrong thing, even in court when he could have come forward and apologized, he chose to stay silent. When I looked at him, there was nothing more than satisfaction in his smile. He fucking smiled,” she insists, tears brimming her lashes making those golden orbs shimmer.
“I don’t know what happened to my sister,” I finally admit. “If she’s alive, I don’t even know if she’ll remember a life without the abuse she is most definitely suffering right now. The men who purchase these girls aren’t kind. They’re monsters.”
“I wish I could tell you more,” Lucille whispers. “I wish I could give you the closure you need, but he hid so much from me. Even while I stood in Hawk’s home, not knowing it was his, I couldn’t do anything. The moment he stabbed me, I knew I would be nothing more than a victim to him.”
She blinks and sadness trickles down her cheeks. I want to go to her, but I can’t bring myself to move. I’ve never been good at showing emotion, especially when women are crying. Tears of pleasure are very fucking different to the pain I see in Lucille’s eyes right now.
“I want to see him bleed,” I tell her, hoping it would distract from the heartbreak she’s currently experiencing. When she blinks at me and nods, I can’t stop myself from dropping to my knees at her side. I hold her face in my hands, keeping her steady so she can’t look away. “But you’re ours now,” I say with confidence. “There is no way you can escape us, even if you tried, we would find you.”
“B-but, I just—”
Crow joins me. “There is no debate.”
“Isn’t there?” Hawk says as he enters the room. He may be angry at our choice, but he will come to terms with it. I know he will. He takes time to get on the bandwagon, but he can also no longer deny she’s claimed. We may have stolen her, taken her exactly like her father kidnapped our siblings, but we love her.
The thought causes my breath to halt. The shock on my face must be evident because both Crow and Hawk ask, “What’s wrong?” I can’t tell them anything yet. We’ve only now managed to overcome the need to kill her. Even after fucking her, we needed to admit to ourselves she belongs here.
“Nothing,” I say before pushing to my feet. “We need to leave.”