Page 15 of Tore Up

I shook my head as my vision blurred.

I could hear him grinding his teeth.

“He’s dead.”

“NO!” I shouted, shaking my head and trying to pull my arm free. “NO!” My voice sounded like someone else. I didn’t recognize it.

He held me up until my feet barely touched the ground. “Your brother shot him. All because you spread your legs like a fucking whore!”

“No, no, no, no,” I chanted, feeling like the room was spinning.

A hard slap snapped my head back, silencing me.

“Shut up!” he roared.

Reality in all its horrific truth started to creep over me.

He began pulling me with him as he walked through the room,back toward the door, kicking Ronnie’s body out of the way. A strange numbness settled in my chest. I turned to look back and saw Nicco lying there. His lifeless eyes staring at nothing.

“Take a good look,” he snarled. “If the DNA test says that’s not my little brother’s kid inside you, then you’re next. Unless your brother wants to come home and take your place.”

Little brother.

I turned to look up at the man holding my arm. This was Crosby’s brother.

“Bane,” I said, remembering the name.

Crosby had talked about him more than once.

Emotion flickered in his eyes as he jerked me from the apartment and closed the door. He said nothing as we walked down the stairs, and he took me to a black Silverado truck. Although I got inside willingly, he still shoved me as if I were trying to fight him.

Ares had killed Crosby. I wasn’t dreaming. There was no nightmare to wake up from.

Seven

Bane

“Get the doctor here,” I told Linc, pacing outside the door of the small cabin he kept hidden on the back side of his property.

I’d called him thirty minutes ago. What had taken him so long?

“What did you do?” he asked me, his eyes narrowing.

“What I was supposed to do. Find out who’d killed my brother.” I pointed at the door where I’d left the girl responsible for his death. “She’s pregnant, and I need to know if it’s Crosby’s. I can’t kill her if it is.”

Linc stalked past me with a stern expression. “What the fuck, Bane?! I didn’t tell you to go take the girl. How do you know she’s pregnant?”

He jerked open the door to go inside the cabin. He stopped when he saw her. “And why the hell is she tied up like a goddamn criminal?” he barked.

There was no reason for that. She hadn’t fought me once. I’d just wanted to hurt someone. Knowing her pregnancy and lackof protection and common sense were why my brother was dead had made me fucking livid. I was mad at Crosby, too, but he wasn’t here to yell at. Fucking around with someone like her? He’d have known to use a condom.

“Tell him!” I yelled at her.

She blinked and lifted her eyes to Linc. “I’m pregnant.”

Linc looked back at me. “Seriously? That’s why she’s in there? She told you she was pregnant and you lost your shit? Why does the side of her face look like she’s been slapped?”

I glared at her. Hating that she existed. That she was what my brother had lost his life over. He knew the answer to that.

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