Page 31 of Grave Games

“But no one’s ever been more motivated to back those words up than me.” Romeo waited a beat, giving the promise in his voice time to sink in. “To be honest, it’s a damn shame you’ve thrown in with Hades and the Chicago Gravediggers, because you and I seem to be focused on the same thing—protecting Shiloh. You want to protect her from me, and I want to protect her from you and all your fucked-up shit. If you actually gave a damn about her, you’d give some serious thought to changing your life, rather than running her out of town when she hasn’t done anything wrong.”

A bitter scoff ripped from Josh. “Changing my life? You make it sound as simple as going back to school or changing jobs. You know goddamn well there’s nothing simple about this. You can’tquitthe Chicago Gravediggers. You know this.”

“You can if you join our chapter of the Gravediggers. It’s in the bylaws.”

It was like a bomb went off in my little kitchen. Josh seemed staggered by the words, which in turn made me hold my breath. Anxiously I waited for him to explode or yell orsomething, but after a few moments all he did was slowly shake his head.

“You’ve got to be shitting me, pulling something like this.”

“What?” I looked from one to the other. “I don’t understand.”

“The Chicago Gravediggers was founded by Hades’s old man,” Romeo explained, though his gaze never left my brother. “Since he had aspirations of becoming as big as Hell’s Angels, he put it in writing that the Chicago Gravediggers must work out peaceful negotiations with whatever chapters the mother charter spawned, should any problems arise. Self-cannibalism can be a real thing in a club, given its nature, so the founder of the Chicago Gravediggers tried his best to guard against that. No violence is allowed amongst its own chapters. Just peaceful negotiation.”

“Like Hades is going to honor that,” Josh snorted.

“If he wants to keep his position as president, he will,” came the immediate reply. “Yeah, he’s got brothers who are loyal to him. But there are just as many who are loyal to the club itself and all it stands for. If Hades is stupid enough to openly tear down the foundation that the club is built on, he won’t be president for long. Come over to us, and then we can negotiate a peace that avoids open warfare.”

“And there it is, the reason you targeted my sister,” Josh said softly, his voice flat with cynicism. “You’re trying to recruit me through my sister so you can steal me away from Hades and his crew, yeah? Tyr wants me to cook for him now that he’s gaining in strength, right?”

My stomach clenched into a hard knot of ice, because what Josh said made sense. Horrible, horrible sense.

Romeo’s upper lip curled. “I don’t give a shit about recruiting you, or whatever the fuck that paranoid brain of yours has come up with. I didn’t even know what you did for Hades until today. What I care about is the position Shiloh’s in now, thanks to you and Radar making such a big-ass deal out of the two of us hooking up. If Hades values you, he’s probably keeping eyes on you. That means he probably knows you’re here at your sister’s, which might make that dick think she’s your Achilles heel. If that’s the case, the most expedient way to solve that problem, at least from Hades’s perspective, is to get rid of her.”

“What?” Suddenly my smoldering rage at the ridiculous scheming of the people in my life vanished, and I stared at Romeo in unvarnished alarm.“What?”

“Baby, I won’t let that happen, you hear me?” To my surprise, Romeo abandoned both his coffee and his chair to kneel before me, his hands coming up to frame my face so that I had no choice but to look him in the eye. “There is nothing on this earth that’s going to get to you, because it’d have to go through me.”

“But it would go through you, so that doesn’t make me feel better.” In fact, it made me feel a million times worse.

“Then I’ll burn the whole world down before it even gets to that point, so get that look off your face, yeah? I’m right here. That means there’s no reason for you to feel fear.”

That sounded beautiful. Better than beautiful. Except… “I don’t trust anyone to take care of me, but me.”

My voice was small, but steady. I had to be steady now. Life had taught me that no one was going to ride to my safety, no matter what Romeo said. For all I knew, he was just saying that to rub my brother’s nose in how useless he was when it came to protecting me. I couldn’t believe in Romeo. I wanted to. But… I couldn’t.

I just couldn’t.

“Shy. My Shy.” My inner defenses nearly crumbled when he leaned in to press his lips with aching gentleness to my brow, before resting his own forehead against it. “When I first met you, I figured out pretty quickly there was something broken inside you. Now I get what it is. It’s your ability to trust. You had assholes in your life who should’ve taken care of you. Cherished you. Instead they let you down and fucked you over. Left you to fend for yourself with no one to turn to. You survived, crippled, but you survived.”

His words… God, how they hurt. I couldn’t even begin to understand why. “I’m not crippled.”

“Baby, you can barely move. But that’s okay, because I’m here now. I’m going to make sure that the crippling blow they dealt you so long ago doesn’t become who you are. They don’t deserve that final win over you, and you don’t deserve to be shut down and alone the rest of your life.”

“She’d be better off alone.” I was so into those sea-storm eyes I almost forgot my brother was still in the room. I glanced over to find him watching us, or more specifically me, with eyes that looked like they’d never been alive. “Safer. You’re right. I brought shit into her life, but you’re not going to be any better. You might think I’m wrong on that, but I’m not. Maybe that’s why she doesn’t trust you. Maybe she recognizes that deep down, you’ll always choose your brothers over her. That’s how it is in the life—your brothers are all that matter. You’ll never—never—put Shiloh first.”

“Man, you really do need to get the fuck away from Hades.” Romeo spared him a pitying glance. “You’ve got this sad, beaten-dog way of thinking, but your sister’s not like that. Are you, baby?”

“I don’t know what I am.” That wasn’t quite true. I was pretty sure I was an idiot, because Romeo’s protectiveness—not to mention that sweet kiss to my forehead—was doing weird things to my pulse. “The only thing I do know is that I’m not interested in focusing on me right now, because I’m not the problem. I’m just over here trying to live my life, while the two of you come crashing into it like a bad biker movie.”

“I wouldn’t even be here if you had the sense to avoid anyone coming at you from the Gravedigger world,” Josh shot back, falling back to snarling. Apparently that was now his default setting. “But obviously you have a type, Shiloh. Or maybe you’ve just got a thing for being used and humiliated.”

“Motherfucker.” Before I could blink, Romeo went from kneeling in front of me to smashing a fist into my brother’s jaw, knocking him out of his chair.

“Oh, God.” I sprang out of my own chair, not sure if I needed to separate them or run for my life.

“I told you not to disrespect Shiloh again.” Chest heaving, Romeo tried drilling holes into my brother with the heat of his gaze alone. For his part, Josh groggily looked up at Romeo from his place on the kitchen floor, absently wiping the back of his hand at the blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. “You might think you’re some badass tough guy just because you’ve survived this long under Hades’s rule, but all I’m hearing is a whiny bitch who wants to make everyone as miserable as he is.”

“Fuck you.” Josh bared teeth smeared with blood as he staggered his way to his feet. “You have no idea what I’ve been through.”

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