Page 110 of Three Stepbrothers Save Christmas

“Yes, Sir,” she replies like the perfect sub she is.

“I’ll decide on your punishment later. But first, I want to know everything that’s happened.” I look between Verity and Travis, who is talking to Maximus and Ryan.

“I need to go. I shouldn’t be here. But you good for a car?” Maximus asks.

“Yeah, we have two here,” Travis answers, shaking his hand. Maximus turns his attention to Verity, who pulls a car fob from her pocket and walks up to him, holding it out.

“Sorry, Maximus.”

He looks at her for a moment before letting out a sigh and pulling her into his arms.

“You are lucky. I’m too relieved to see you unharmed to scold you. What you did was reckless and stupid.” He holds her at arm’s length and smiles. “Also, please don’t tell Shorty how you did it. She would try and do it herself when being a brat, and I like my car in one piece.”

Verity giggles, nodding at him as he hugs her again, kissing the top of her head.

“I’ll see you all in a week or two; I need to go,” he calls, hurrying to his car. We all wave as he drives towards the estate entrance and out of view.

“I need to know what’s happened and where we go from here. Why are you staying?” I ask Travis as he wraps an arm around Verity’s shoulders and lets out a sigh.

“Come inside, and I’ll explain everything.”

Travis and Verity share a look before taking the lead and guiding us into the house.

56

Verity

We walk into a sitting room that Mr Nicholson said we could use to talk about everything before I’m forced to leave Travis here with him. Nicholson has sworn to me that no harm will come to him, and I can call and message him as much as I like. But that doesn’t stop the feeling of unease. I want him with me. I want all three men with me, the way it should be.

Travis sits on a sofa chair and pulls me onto his lap, where I curl up small. I’m exhausted, but my mind is on overdrive, and I know I won’t be able to sleep any time soon. There has been so much to process.

Ryan closes the door behind us and sits in one of the other chairs as Ethan paces as he usually does when on edge.

“Want to tell me what the fuck has been going on?” Ryan asks. I can hear the anger in his voice, but I know some of that would be from the fear he would have felt when I ran. He would have been at his wits' end with two of us being Awol.

The need to remind him that I’m okay and safe overwhelms me. I climb off Travis’s lap and move to Ryan’s. As soon as I’m on his lap, I feel him relax a little as he wraps me in his big, protective arms.

“I’m sorry, Papa Bear,” I whisper again as I lean against his chest.

“I know you are Little Kitten. But that doesn’t change the fact you scared the shit out of us. Do you have any idea what we would have felt if something had happened to you?”

I look up at him and nod.

“The same as I would have felt if anything happened to Daddy.”

Ryan looks into my eyes for a moment before letting out a sigh and nodding. He knows I would have never recovered if we had lost him. I wouldn’t have recovered if I lost any of them.

“Did they hurt you at all?” Ethan asks from beside us as he sits on the sofa.

“No, I’m relatively unharmed,” I reply, leaning into Ryan.

“Relatively?” Ethan asks, his eyebrows disappearing under his cap. I nod and look at Travis.

“I want you to tell them everything. I’m ready to hear it now.”

Travis looks at me and nods before sitting back in his chair.

“As you know, I’ve been suspecting that Henry has been hiding money. Especially after I learned the staff he was paying for didn’t exist. So, I’ve met Logan each morning and used his laptop to hack Henry’s banks. What I found was a lot of money in different offshore accounts, which I knew nothing about. The ones I couldn’t get access to, Logan could. There is nothing that man can’t hack.

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