Pulling on my dress, I nearly shook my head, feeling completely naked underneath because my bra had disappeared and my panties had been shredded. I scowled, wondering if I should call him out on ripping them, but somehow I felt like that would just turn into King ripping more of my clothes. I ran my fingers through my hair and then came back in the room, finding King dressed in a pair of dress pants and a fitted shirt, his hair messy and damp over his handsome face.
Goodness gracious. How was it possible to get this lucky?
“What?” he asked, amused as I blushed, caught staring. I shrugged as he flashed me a smile, clearly knowing where my thoughts had gone. Instead of admitting what I had been thinking about, I looked around King’s bedroom, trying to remember the last time I’d been in here. The space looked very much as I remembered it but with a few different features.
Mrs. Ross had styled her entire house the same as their estate in the Hamptons, which featured high white ceilings with beams, light wood floors, silver furnishings, and white granite. It was accented by blue throughout, and a similar style was reflected in King’s bedroom, the large windows bringing a massive amount of light into the space. On one end of the room was the door to the en suite, and on the other end was a sitting area that seemed to function as a workspace for him. That part was a bit newer.
I tilted my head, noticing how the linen couches were covered in papers from where he had sat in the armchair and spread everything out. A cup of coffee sat forgotten, and one of his high school hoodies sat discarded on the back of the chair.A hoodie that I should steal…
I wasn’t positive what it was about the scene, but it made me smile. When I looked back at him, he was crossing the room, his eyes locked on my expression. Reaching me, he cupped my jaw and pressed a hard, firm kiss to my lips, making me melt against him. When he pulled back, his expression was serious.
“Are you sure you want to meet with Callum?” he asked quietly. “We can figure out a way to keep you more separated—”
“If you guys are part of it, I’m part of it,” I said with quiet resolve. “I don’t want secrets anymore. I want to handle this together.”
His gaze was intense as he nodded and gently pulled me from his room. I looked around the clean and professionally decorated home, deciding that there were elements that I would very much want to pull into my own home one day. Maybe not everything, but something for sure. If it was possible to take all of the homes in Wildberry and make one home as a combination of them, I would have been thrilled.
Oh! I looked at King, wondering if now was the time to ask him about the comment he had made to Lincoln regarding purchasing a house together and ‘busting his balls.’ Unfortunately, the outside world had different plans.
As we walked out of the house, my eyes widened on the large amount of news trucks I could see and the sound of helicopters overhead. King cursed and kept me tucked to his side as we made our way to my house, the walk seeming far longer than normal. As we walked up the front porch steps and entered my house, I breathed out a sigh of relief, officially back out of the public eye.
“This can’t be just about the social media thing,” I told King. This was an extreme reaction, even for the nosy media.
“I would agree.” His voice was rough as we walked towards the kitchen, the sound of the news echoing through the space.
As I entered the room, I briefly noticed that all the boys were watching the television near the table with varying levels of concern. Yates sat in the breakfast nook, his gaze meeting mine almost immediately, his jaw tightening just enough to let me know that he was worried about something. It wasn’t a look I saw often with Yates because normally the man wasn’t worried about anything, supremely confident in his decisions, but this was different.
Lincoln and Sterling were sitting across from him, both offering King sidelong glances as the man behind me grunted. I would have turned to look at him, but I was a bit caught off guard by how Stratton and Dermot were watching the screen, one looking interested and the other looking frustrated.
Would any of them comment on my state of undress and wet hair? So far, they hadn’t, but I realized pretty quickly that was the least of our problems and why they were all riveted by what was happening on the news.
“We aren’t positive who the young man was that they were targeting, or if the Ross or Carter legal teams have been contacted, but this level of brutality is something I haven’t witnessed in years.”The female news anchor shook her head, looking upset.
“It’s awful,”the man expressed, looking horror-struck.“Our correspondent is currently outside of the gated community where both families live as we wait to see the legal recourse that will be taken. I imagine that local law enforcement will be sending someone over, although without knowing who the victim was of such violence…”
Their words became muted as I watched the video they were replaying, the screen split between the hosts and the footage. Occasionally, the correspondent’s viewpoint would pop up, showcasing the Wildberry Lane gates, our security having created a barrier that managed to block out most of their sightline. I could still hear the helicopters overhead, though.
“Is that…” my voice came across as confused as I neared the television, tilting my head slightly. A range of emotions ran over me, and none of them were nearly as confusing as the level of adrenaline I felt towards the darkness that I was witnessing. The anchor wasn’t wrong. This was brutality, and it was at the hands of my boys.
More specifically, Yates and King.
“Greg?” Dermot offered, sounding almost pleased. “Yeah it is, baby girl.”
I was starting to realize that my Irish man might have a bit of a darker side. After all, he did have cuts on his hands when he’d first arrived, and I’m sure they didn’t come from nothing.
“This wasn’t the first issue the Carters have faced. Only this past weekend, their son assaulted Ian McCaffrey at an event hosted by their families’ country club—”
“Dahlia.” King’s voice was strained underneath a layer of cool control.
I continued staring at the footage as I tried to piece together why I wasn’t feeling disgust or anger with what I was seeing. Wasn’t I supposed to? Wasn’t this type of violence supposed to disgust me? Instead, as I watched the dark video play out, King’s familiar, muscular frame bent over Greg as he beat the hell out of him, a dark flame grew inside of me.
It was so wrong.
Then again, was it? Greg was horrible.
I truly meanhorrible. I hated Ian, but Greg made a habit of doing Ian-like actions our entire time in school, and not just with me. A memory surged over me as I considered just one of the many times that the man had attempted to intimidate me.
“Stay right here until I get back,” Yates ordered, his scowl making me smile as I shook my head.