“He told you that?” I ask.
“I told him to bring her here. He called me earlier and informed me of this mission he’s on, whatever it is. Said it had something to do with the girl who’s been staying with you guys. I convinced him not to go ahead with anything until he brought her here and explained things more clearly. It was the best I could do.”
I’ll kill him. I’ll kill my own brother if he makes her shed a single tear.
Ace takes my heavy breathing as all the answers he needs, I guess. “Remember, he’s still our brother,” he says. “Get here, and we’ll figure everything out together. I know he’s on his way, too.”
Kane jams his finger against the console display, ending the call. “He’d better fucking hope he hasn’t hurt her. I swear to God, Cash.”
“You don’t have to explain it to me.” I can’t do anything but stare out the windshield, though I’m not seeing anything in front of me. All I can see is Payton. Smiling, laughing. Wounded, afraid. Crying. Writhing in ecstasy. I grip the door handle and squeeze until it hurts, but that doesn’t help center my thoughts any. I doubt anything could.
It feels like forever but can’t be more than twenty minutes before we roll through the familiar gates, past the familiar men who guard the compound. When we reach the house, I see Myles’s car in front, like he couldn’t be bothered to pull off to the side of the roundabout the way we normally do to make room for other cars pulling through. Such a small little thing, but it has my anger only surging.
It’s not only his car waiting out there, either. I recognize Archer’s and Knox’s, too. So everybody’s come home to witness whatever the hell Myles thinks he’s about to do.
We practically run inside, where Ace seems to have been waiting in the foyer. “It’s okay, take a breath,” he insists, palms out like he means no harm. Like he’s trying to talk us down or something. Well, that’s what he’s doing since we’re both poised to explode.
“Where is she?” Kane growls. “Tell us. If you don’t have anything to do with him taking her, we don’t have a problem with you.”
“He did what he thought was right.” Ace looks at me. “I believe that, and I need you to believe it, too.”
“I’ll believe what I want to believe, thanks very much. Where did he take her?” I look around like she’s hiding in the corner or something. It’s ridiculous how panicked I am, and I know it. But there’s no helping it, either.
I need her. She doesn’t deserve whatever it is Myles did to her.
“We promised to protect her, swore she’d be safe with us, and then he takes her, probably scarring her shitless.”
It’s obvious Ace sees no point in reasoning with us anymore. “The basement.” He sighs, defeated. “She’s down there with everybody else.” I guess that means our brothers. Great, he might have them on his side already. I run for the stairs and pound down them with every footstep echoing her name in my head.
Kane reaches me, and we both stand in mute horror for a second at the sight of Payton. Tied to a chair in what used to serve as our rec room when we were kids. With tears rolling down her cheeks, soaking into the red gag around her mouth. Not as red as the thin line of blood trailing down the side of her neck, though.
That’s what does it. It’s what sends me flying across the room, ready to kill Myles for this. Knox and Archer catch me before I can reach him, then Ace grabs Kane. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
“You’re saying that to us?” I point to Payton. “You’re telling us not to do anything stupid when Myles—”
“Myles did what he thought was right for the entire family. Not just for himself.” Ace shakes Kane a little. “Get what I’m saying?”
“So, what? It’s a fucking crime now to live with a woman?” Kane shakes free of Ace but stays put. “If that’s true, why don’t you have Madison tied up, too?”
“It’s not just that, and you know it.” Myles sounds just as furious as Kane and me for some reason. The fucker has the nerve to sound like he’s the one who’s been wounded here. If it wouldn’t potentially get Payton in trouble, I’d take another lunge at him, and this time nobody would stop me.
“What is it, then? Why don’t you tell us why you tied this, what? Five-foot-tall girl to a chair like she’s any kind of threat to us?” I look at the rest of my brothers in disgust since they let this happen. “What kind of men are you, standing around while something like this is right in front of you?”
“I’ll fucking kill all of you.” Kane hits them one by one with a murderous glare. “Every one of you for what you did here today. You’ll die for this.”
“Enough of the bullshit, all of you.” Ace folds his arms and stands between Payton and us. “I was willing to let it go, you two having a girl over there for an extended time. But you know we can’t let outsiders get that close to us without us knowing who they are. We all have to be in on it. We don’t make these decisions on our own. She knows too much about us, and we don’t know the first damn thing about her. I’m as concerned as Myles is to tell you the truth. So start talking. Who is she? Why is she living with you?”
He steps aside like he wants us to look at her while giving him the explanation he wants. Like she’s incentive for us to tell the truth—or if the truth is a no-go, to tell a convincing lie.
I don’t have to lie. “She’s a girl who needed our help when a guy who tried to rape her jumped in front of her car because he didn’t want her to get away from him. The reason she’s with us is we wanted to protect her and make sure she didn’t take the rap for that prick’s disappearance.
“Her mom got her arrested as an accomplice to a robbery when she was a minor, which is why I’m sure you couldn’t find much about her when you looked her up.” He instructs them to check out the story the way she told us to. “She changed her name to keep her mother away from her.”
While they’re confirming the truth, I can’t stop staring at her. She’s the most precious thing in the world, and my own brother hurt her. How could he? How could anyone? A glance at my twin tells me he’s feeling something similar, though there’s still an almost murderous energy coming off him.
Knox lowers his phone first. “It checks out.” Does he sound sorry that it does? Probably, knowing him.
“She’s just a girl who’s had a lot of shit happen to her. She’s a good person. Much better than any of us. And we trust her.” I make sure she’s looking at me when I say it. “She’s no threat to us.”