Lucas jerks back. “What?”
“I’m telling you he’s a liar. He abused her, Lucas.” I grit my teeth. “I’m not letting her go back to him.”
He stares at me for a handful of seconds. “You’re not letting her go back to him,” he repeats as if I’ve suddenly broken into French. “What makes you think you have a choice in this? You’re my brother, and you’re only a part of Aidan’s crew because of that—”
“Nice to know how you feel about me, Lucas,” I snap.
He shrugs. “You know it’s true. Your head’s never in the game, Cade. When Aidan drew you into this, I knew you’d fuck up sooner or later. Why do you think I’ve been riding your ass hard about it? Trying to keep you on the straight and narrow—” He breaks off then slaps his palm against his forehead. “Isabelle. Belle. Please tell me that the broad you were just fucking isn’t Cindy Davis?”
I lift my chin and retort, “I wasn’t fucking her.”
He knows me too well and reads between the lines with ease. “Sure sounded like you were to me, what with how she was wailing like a banshee.”
That’s when I hit him.
It doesn’t even register that I’m close enough to smack him until my fist meets his cheekbone and he’s falling back on his ass, my attack unexpected enough that he’s not prepared for it.
When he surges forward, arms curving around my legs to haul me to the floor, I let him because I want to have an excuse for beating the fuck out of him.
I land heavily on my hip, but I don’t care. I’m straight into the fight, ready and raring to goddamn go.
“Decades of you talking down to me,” I snap, ramming my fist into his face. “Decades of you thinking—”
Fuck.
He gets me in the gut. Once. Twice. A third time.
“You’re the one who’s a mess, Cade. You can’t do anything right, you asswipe—” That’s when I grab his hand and jerk it backward, oddly satisfied when I hear a hard crack.
When he snarls in pain, I shove him away only so that I have enough room to hit him. “I made one fucking mistake and you condemned me for it forever.”
“You killed Vinny. That wasn’t just a mistake, Cade,” he roars. Even with his sprained wrist, he’s strong enough to fight back. “And you’re doing it again. I can’t believe you fucked her!”
“I think I love her, Lucas!”
My declaration freezes him in place. His snarl of exasperation twists into a bitter laugh that hurts to hear. “Of course, you think that. Why wouldn’t you?” he scoffs. Then, he’s shaking his head and getting up off the floor, using his good hand to stand tall. Cradling his bad wrist against his chest, he clips, “Unless you’ve got evidence that Davis is a liar, Aidan won’t want to hear it. He’s doing this as a favor. Saving some poor bitch from her fate tied to an MC that’s got her imprisoned—”
“I’m telling you that’s not how it was. She ran away from her dad! They gave her shelter.”
“No proof, no truth,” he dismisses, his cool demeanor frustrating me as nothing else can.
“You’re a fucking disgrace,” I bite off. “You want to send a woman back to her abuser. How the hell would you feel if Róisín, Kitty, or Neev were in a similar situation? Wouldn’t you hope that someone could help them?”
That’s when my words hit home—his shoulders slump. Thank Christ.
Lucas, as much as we don’t always get along, is a good guy. Too good. That he was being callous tells me one thing and one thing alone—he didn’t believe me.
Me. Not Belle.
He thought I was selling him a story to cover up my inability to bring Cindy to New York without drawing the attention of the Disciples and triggering some kind of war over her.
He rubs at his eyes, his fatigue clear. “If you think she’s in danger from Davis, you need to get her to tell Aidan that.”
I swallow. After all, that’s not as easy as it sounds. Not when she thinks I’m a nomadic businessman.
“Fine,” I rumble. “I’ll call him later.”
“You’d better. And before he finds out for himself that you’re in the city and didn’t check in with him first.”