Page 57 of Mud

My heart became heavy as a rock when I followed the voice and found the face of the man who’d been calling me to wake up for a while now.

Instinct took over and I tried to get up, tried to move away from him, forgetting momentarily that I could feel the cold metal of the chains around my wrists.

My failed attempt at freeing myself made the man laugh his heart out. It was a warm laugh, straight from the soul, and it vibrated throughout me, made my eyes captive to his face until his met mine once more.

He looked familiar, though I had never seen him before. He was tall, wide shoulders, big hands that he rested on his hips as he looked down at me. His square jaw and long dark hair secured in a loose tail behind his head, his dark eyes and those thick brows…

Taland’s brother, though I had no clue which one. Thisman looked like an older, bigger, deadlier version of Taland, and I found I was having difficulty drawing in air.

“Apologies for finding yourself in our basement, chained to a chair, Miss La Rouge. But I’m sure you understand, what with being Madeline Rogan’s granddaughter and the IDD’s very own Golden Girl and all,” he said, but I had no chance to reply if I’d wanted.

“The girl who betrayed our little brother.”

Once more, every inch of me froze at the sound of another voice, this one coming from the darkness that surrounded me—darkness that wasn’t all that dark now that the fear of finding the other man had me focused.

He was there all right, stepping away from the shadows with his arms crossed in front of him, completely at ease as he looked down at me. He was slimmer than his brother, but with the same jawline and the same eyes. His hair was short, more salt than pepper, and wrinkles decorated his face, mainly between his brows like they remained narrowed most of the time.

And he wasn’t the only one in the room.

A bit farther to the right was another Tivoux, younger than the first two, with muscled arms and a big head that looked bigger from the buzz cut he sported. He was sitting on a chair half hidden in the shadows, elbows on his knees and a wide grin on his face as he watched me, bloodthirsty.Mad.

On the left was Taland.

I almost missed him standing there at the corner near an empty table, playing with something in his hand, legs and arms crossed, head down and a sneaky smile on his face as he watched me from under his lashes.

The way my heart beat like it wanted to shake my entire body could have been funny.

Fuck me,it wasn’t a dream.I hadn’t imagined any of it. I’d really come to the blue house behind the hill, and I was in the same room with Taland Tivoux again.

“Would you look at that. Prettier than you look in the pictures, little birdie,” said the eldest one—Radock Tivoux.

The youngest one, just three years older than Taland, who was sitting there in the darkness was Seth, and the one who’d woken me was Kaid.

Yes, I’d heard all about them from Taland. And now I was meeting them face to face.

“Tell us—how did you find us? Have you been looking for us, is that it? Because we’ve been looking for you,” Kaid said, leaning down until his face was right in front of mine, and I had nowhere to go. The chair must have been screwed to the floor because it didn’t budge even when I tried to push back with my whole body.

My strength was minimal, too. I was sweating like a pig even if my leg no longer hurt as much, and my magic…

“Speak,” said Radock from behind his brother, raising his chin so he could better look down at me. “Why did you come here, alone and bleeding?”

“How did you know where we’d be?” Kaid continued.

“Does the IDD know where Taland is? Did they send you here?” This from Seth as he slowly stood up from his chair and came closer.

Then all three Tivoux brothers were standing around me, smiling and telling me with their glistening eyes exactly what awaited me in the near future, possibly within the next few minutes. That’s when it occurred to me why Taland said that I shouldn’t have come here.

It wasn’t just because ofhim—it was because of his brothers, too.

Fuck, I’d been stupid to think he’d be alone here, that he’d see me, shoot me, and be done with it.

That had been all I’d wanted—a quick, clean death at the hands of Taland.

But apparently, the fates had decided that that was too much to ask. So now I was screwed even worse than I could have imagined.

What a day.What a fucking couple of days, in fact.

Things had gone south so, so quickly ever since I got that text…

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