Page 40 of Wicked Revenge

“No!” I whisper shout at him, grabbing Royal’s fingers through the bars. Maddox crawls next to me, latching onto the bars as well. “They will just punish you too. We will be okay. We can take care of each other. I’ve got Maddie. Just bring some water back if you can, but don’t get caught.”

“What did they do to him?” he asks, a horrified look on his face when he gets a good look at Maddie’s bruised and blood-coated body.

“Punishment,” I say as rage fills my body like nothing I’ve ever felt.

He didn’t do anything wrong. These are just bad, evil people. I’ve been around enough to know them when I see them. They have that look in their eyes. The same look I saw in my mother’s eyes when she would take me to visit her ‘friends’. They had the same look, too. Pure evil.

“We will get out of here soon. I’m working on a plan.” I know what he’s talking about and it makes my stomach hurt. It doesn't feel right. I don’t trust them.

“Don’t do anything stupid, Royal. We will figure this out together when they let us out. Promise me.” I am begging him. I just have a bad feeling.

“I promise. Take care of each other. I’ll be back.”

Pulling myself from that memory, I see Royal still beating the shit out the bag. Enough is enough. He’s going to hurt himself if he keeps on like this. He isn’t even protecting his hands.

Pulling myself up from the floor, I walk up behind him and touch his shoulder. He immediately turns and swings on me. I barely miss his right-hook before I twist out of the way, grabbing him and flipping him to the mat.

“Fuck, man. You almost got me. Chill the fuck out,” I growl at him, pinning him down beneath my massive body.

The struggle leaves his body almost instantly, and he shakes his head to clear the fog from his mind. He was completely lost inside his head.

“I’m sorry. I just reacted,” he murmurs, rubbing his hands down his face before looking up at me. “I’m fine now. Get the fuck off me, man.”

Rolling off him, I sit on my ass next to him as he sits up and hangs his head.

“We’ll get him, Royal. I promise you that. He won’t ever touch her again. We’ll find Em, bring her home, and kill that evil bastard.”

“I just don’t know how to protect all of you. He has Em at his mercy. You fucking saw Raena’s body. What has he done to Em?” Fear is rolling off him in waves as he speaks.

“It’s not your job to protect us anymore, man. Don’t you get that? I know you feel like you have to because it’s all you know. But we aren’t helpless little kids anymore,” I remind him, turning my body to face him.

“Look at me.” I wait for him to pick his head up and look me in the eyes, his own icy blue ones filled with so much worry that I know he’s drowning. “You were just a little kid yourself. But we are all grown up. We take care of each other. Always. Brothers bound in blood.”

I grab his bloody right hand, turning it up to trace the long scar on his palm from our childhood. We might not be blood related, but we bound ourselves with a blood oath when we got adopted together. All three of us have the same scar.

“Brothers bound in blood,” he repeats the words of our past.

“Brothers bound in blood.” The words startle me. Looking up, I see Maddox leaning against the door frame in a pair of black sweats now. Pushing off, he walks to the mat, all of our phones in his hand.

“I hate to interrupt this brother bonding session,” he starts, molten rage in his still sleepy gray eyes as he hands them over. “But we’ve got a problem.”

Motherfucker.

Chapter 24

The sound of a door shutting jolts me from my sleep. The warm bed cocoons my aching body. I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck, my muscles protesting when I stretch out like a cat.

Groaning, I open my eyes and immediately recognize I’m not in my cottage. I sit up, allowing the covers to fall down my body, pooling at my waist. I’m completely naked.

Where the fuck am I?

The memories come flooding back to me instantly. Jackson’s house. Stabbing. Running. Hiding. Panicking. Falling. Then, them. They saved me.

Royal.

Alek.

Maddox.

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