An ache forms in my chest, my stupid fucking heart pounding like crazy in my chest. Her words are dripping with pain. And I know that she means every word she says. Fuck, that only makes me want to kill her father more. What a fucking asshole. What a piece of shit. God, I can’t wait to end his fucking pitiful life. If anyone deserves death, it’s him.
I let her sink back down on top of me and wrap my arms around her small frame. For the first time since we took her, I worry if she’s okay. Is she eating enough? Surely Wes and Trey have been caring for her. I grind my teeth together. I shouldn’t care, but I do, because I truly do care. Her body molds into mine like it belongs here and nowhere else.
“Don’t go to sleep yet, you need to take your antibiotic,” I whisper into her hair. She smells like sweat, sex, and a lingering of strawberries.
“Okay.” Her voice is small, and sleep already clings to it. I roll her off of me and place her down on the mattress. Then I grab a blanket and cover her with it. Her eyes drift closed once more, and I know she’s barely awake. I want to tell her I’m sorry but I bite my tongue. I’m not ready yet. I don’t want her to know that I’m weak for her. Before, I was unsure of where she stood in mine and my brothers’ futures, but now, I know where she belongs.
“I’ll get it for you,” I tell her as I pull on a pair of shorts and slip out of the room. As soon as I enter the hallway, I can feel that the air has shifted.
“What did you do?” Trey almost yells at me, his eyes narrowing on me as I walk into the living room. I damn near roll my eyes. If anyone is overly protective of her, it’s Trey. He’s wanted her since the start, but one taste was all he needed to know she was it for him.
“Calm down. I didn’t kill her, nor do I plan to. I’m just getting her meds,” I respond. Picking up my jacket I take out the pill bottle from the inside pocket I had it hidden in. I make a pit stop in the kitchen and pour a glass of orange juice for her to take it with before returning to the bedroom. She needs to regain her strength before we mess with her anymore. I don’t want her health failing any more than it already has.
When I slip back into the bedroom, I find that she is already asleep. With a light shake of her shoulders, her big eyes open again. I hand her the pill and the glass of orange juice and watch her drink almost the whole thing before placing it down on the nightstand.
“Sleep. I need to talk with my brothers about what is to happen next. As it turns out, I think I want to keep you around after all.” A smile briefly paints her lips before her head falls back down onto the pillow and her eyes drift closed.
I lean down, and despite my wound screaming at me, I press a soft kiss to her forehead. I don’t understand why I kissed her, or even more so why I want to do it again. I want to taste her lips, devour her. The feelings are still virgin and hard to grasp onto.
I quietly exit the room and walk back out into the living room where I take a seat on the couch. Wes and Trey are already waiting there for me as if they expected me to come back out.
“I want to keep her,” I say, starting off the conversation. I’m sure they were expecting something different to come out of my mouth.
“No shit, welcome to the team. We had T-shirts made,” Trey snickers sarcastically.
“Took you long enough,” Wes gives Trey a look that says don’t push it. “What finally changed your mind?”
“I’ve realized that my revenge wasn’t meant for her. It was meant for her father and no one else. She is not like him, she is just another one of his victims. He needs to die, he needs to pay for the pain he’s caused, to us, to Jessa.”
I think about what she told me. How no one ever loved her or cared for her. It makes sense now. Her father never really wanted her, not as a father should want or care for his daughter. She was more of an asset than anything else.
“I don’t know that she’s going to be okay with us killing her father. I worry she still might not believe us,” Trey admits wearily.
I shake my head, “I think we tell Jessa the truth. The whole truth. We let her watch the video of what he did to our…” I swallow. “To our sister, mother, to our father. We show her that, and then we tell her what really happened to her mother.”
“Are you sure, brother?” Wes asks, his eyes mirroring the same adoration for Jessa that mine and Treys do, and for once it feels like I can breathe again. I’m not worried about her betraying us, about fighting with my brothers over what happens to her next. It’s almost like I’ve found my own little slice of peace.
“Yes. She needs to know the truth. Her father doesn’t deserve her love, and even if she does fight us on it, she’ll get over it eventually. She’s ours now.”
“What happened between you two that changed things?” Trey asks, and I know he’s curious to know if I hurt her, and I’m not even remotely mad at his questioning. He’s my brother, and he cares for her greatly, he also knows I have a darkness that lingers right on the surface and that when it comes to her, it could’ve gone either way.
“She asked me to hurt her. To cut her.” My throat tightens at the memory of her blood on that knife. There are other ways to hurt her, to bring both pleasure and pain, ways that don’t involve, drawing her blood.
“Did you?” Wes lifts a questioning brow.
“I did.”
“Seriously, Declan!” Trey growls, slamming his laptop closed.
“I had to do it. I had to find out if I really needed her blood or if I was just enthralled at the idea of getting my revenge on her. As soon as I saw her blood on the knife, I put it down. It didn’t give me the feeling I thought it would.” I shake my head. “I don’t know what the fuck happened, but it’s not her that I want to hurt anymore.”
Wes grins. “This is good, brothers.”
I push from the couch and go into the kitchen for a beer. I grab Wes and Trey one as well and hand them each a bottle once I enter the living room again.
“So we all agree, we’re keeping her?” Trey questions before taking a pull from the beer, his dark gaze flickering over mine as if I have the final say.
“Yes. We’re keeping her. We’re killing her father, and then we are keeping her. I think...after we get our revenge, after we end this, maybe...maybe we can find peace with her.”