Page 58 of Toxic Things I Love About You

“Fuck,” I walked over to him and wrapped my hand around his neck and dragged him off the bed.

“If you can’t get a woman by her own choice, you’re a bigger fucking dickless douche than I’d labeled you as. Untie her, pay her, and you better fucking hope I don’t have to clean up after you, because I’m really fucking done.”

He sneered at me.

“Gee, my morally gray brother. Murder whoever he wants but dare hurt a woman and he’s all knight in shining armor. Oh, yeah. Where does that put you on the spectrum of gray when you are fucking engaged to my fiancée?”

Parks was cutting through the ropes of the girl since my brother was standing here in all his glory. I laughed as Emilee’s small hands comment came to mind. She’d have something shitty to say to him if she were here.

“She was never your fiancée. She was a business transaction that dissolved when her father died.”

He grabbed a pillow, finally realizing we weren’t leaving.

“So what? You decided to figure out a better way to get to them? She was mine to punish, brother. Not yours.”

Punish?

“Dorian, whatever you think you can do, fucking get it out of your head. You are mixed up in this whole Lords shit and you’re upset that I’m marrying our enemy’s daughter? One brother to another, what does it matter?”

I’m sure this was his scary face, but frankly, I couldn’t see beyond the petulant little shit he’d always been.

“Fuck you, Roman. I want her. My deal with the Lords? She will be mine.”

Ice ran through my veins.

“What do you mean?” I forced my voice to remain calm and steady.

“I mean that her uncle, he needed some help. I helped him. He gets me what I want.”

The girl on the bed had found her clothing and was currently running from the room.

“Parks, she good?”

He glared at my brother.

“Probably not, but not our problem, is it?”

My brother looked between us.

“He’s her guard? You brought the enemy into my house?”

This was about how I saw anything with my brother going ever. Except he didn’t seem drunk or high for once.

“He’s with me, and she isn’t the enemy. So explain to me, what does the uncle have to do with all of this? The Lords?”

Dorian couldn’t seem to focus on me with Parks here. Oh fucking well. Parks threw a robe at my brother.

“Put that on, you twit,” Parks said.

Dorian must have seen something that scared him because at least he listened and put the robe on and finally he started to answer something.

“I don’t know. He seems to have access to everything. He knows when they will move. He knows where distributions will take place, and he’s gotten me on the payroll. They promised me her too.”

I exchanged a look with Parks.

“So you know that she’s been kidnapped by said uncle then?”

His reaction was slow, and maybe it was just too many years of numbing his life, or maybe it was him processing the information. He really was stupid.

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