Page 9 of In the Shadows

I open my mouth to respond, but snap it closed again a moment later. Okay, so maybe the thought had crossed my mind, but it’s not like I think he’s going to do anything she doesn’t want. I’m just conscious that the last time we had a woman here, she had a new bruise after every session he had with her, and right now, the woman sleeping beside us has enough bruises to last her the rest of her fucking life.

“I don’t have any work to do.” It’s not entirely a lie. Things are slow right now, and I don’t have anything sitting on my desk that can’t stay there for a day or two.

“You always have work to do,” he points out.

I sigh and drop into the seat on the opposite side of the bed from him. It’s best I not touch her too much, because I have a feeling it won’t be long until I’m addicted to her, and I can’t allow that to happen until we work out a way for her to stay here with us. “You should go tell Kaos she’s here,” I say.

The two of them are far closer than I am to my own cousin. They’re the ones that go out on jobs together, who get to have all the fun while my father and I are cooped up here doing the talking side of our business. And they’ve gotten closer since my uncle died. Kovu understands loss more than the rest of us, and during that time, Kaos needed someone who understood.

“He’s going to flip.”

“Yep.”

Kovu looks down at the woman in front of us as she lets out a gentle snore, the corner of his lips tugging up into a small smile. “Do you think he’ll hurt her?” he asks.

I blow out a breath and lean both elbows on the edge of the bed. “I don’t know. You know how he was after her. She broke him just the same way she broke the rest of us, he hasn’t figured out that not all women are the same.”

He hesitates for a few more seconds before standing. “You won’t leave her?”

I shake my head. “No, I won’t leave her.”

He watches the gentle rise and fall of her chest for another moment before starting toward the door. I don’t envy him or the conversation he’s about to have with my cousin, but I am glad I don’t have to be the one to have it. Dealing with my father was one thing, but dealing with Kaos when it comes to women…no thank you.

CHAPTER SEVEN

KAOS

The compound is unusually quiet.

There’s always something going on around here, and anytime it’s quiet, it makes my skin crawl. The silence allows unwelcome memories to pool in my mind, each one making it hard to breathe. At least when Kovu’s playing violent video games to satisfy his need for blood and Bishop and Crew are arguing like siblings rather than father and son, it keeps the memories at bay. But when it’s quiet like this, there’s nothing to distract me from my own mind.

A knock at my door drags my attention from the television I’m not really watching, and when I look up to see a guilty-looking Kovu, I immediately know there’s something wrong. He’s changed out of the bloody clothes he was wearing when we returned from the De Marco estate, and he’s now wearing a gray hoodie and black sweatpants, his usual attire. He’s never been much for formalities, and the only time I ever see him in anything remotely nice, it’s only because Crew has threatened him into it.

“What have you done?” I ask.

“What makes you think I’ve done anything?”

He takes slow steps into the room, looking around the space he doesn’t often enter. We don’t spend much time in each other’s bedrooms in general, but I’m particularly anal about my space. The last person I shared it with ended up stabbing us in the back and almost tearing us apart. After she died, I had to change rooms and redecorate because I couldn’t stand the memories of her that clung to every wall. The mixture of dark wood and black fabric may seem depressing to most, but to me, it’s home, it’s where I’m safe.

“You look guilty, and you only ever look guilty when you’re about to ask for forgiveness for something.” We’ve been best friends for more than a decade, I know him almost as well as I know myself. Well, most of him, at least. There are parts of his past that not even I know, and I suspect I never will. I suspect he’ll never open up to anyone about the horrors he saw as a child.

He shuffles where he’s standing, his hands fisting and releasing over and over again. There’s definitely something wrong. “Bishop found a girl in the alley behind the garage.”

“And?”

“And Rogers patched her up. She’s asleep in the spare room, and she’s staying until she’s able to get back on her feet.” There’s more to the story, though. I know him well enough to know when he’s only giving me some of the facts, and that thought has uncertainty pooling in my stomach.

I blow out a long breath to settle the anger that threatens to escape from beneath the surface. I thought we were done with bringing women into our lives. If we need to get our dicks wet, none of us would have an issue finding a willing woman, so why would they think this is a good idea?

“Are you two fucking insane?” I snap.

“Crew cleared it.” Kovu shrugs like that makes any difference. I would put money on it having been Bishop to have that conversation, and he has the best poker face of anyone I’ve ever met. If Kovu had been the one to walk into that office and tell Crew we were harboring a wayward woman who was found bloody and broken, the conversation would have gone very fucking differently.

“Do you even know anything about her?” I snap. “How do you know she isn’t a fucking spy?”

Kovu sighs and rubs his hands down his face. My best friend is normally good at shielding his emotions, but right now, I have a window into his goddamn soul, and I don’t like what I’m seeing, because I’m having déjà vu.

“She’s not a spy, Kaos. She’s just a girl who was hurt real bad, and Bishop and I…” He trails off, but I don’t need him to finish the sentence to know where it was going. They feel something for her.

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