Page 26 of Breaker

Cora’s underwear. Tossed aside and discarded like they didn’t hold her most intimate places, covering them up and keeping them from us. But then we stripped them off and tossed them aside like they were nothing.

Likeshewas nothing.

I squeeze my eyes closed, my shoulders slumping.

I was trying so hard not to hurt her. All of us were. The thought of our Little Red scared and confused—alone— was so unbearable that none of us could follow through with Reaper’s orders. Not even he could, the manipulative ass.

Cora is tough, but so delicate in many ways, and so different from Delilah. Parchment paper skin covering steel bones. But I think when I was trying to keep from scaring her,or harming her even more, I forgot that that this all we know how to do. We take. We consume. We break apart and rip away and fucking ruin lives. We don’t protect. We aren’t given jobs to rescue people. Fallon trained us from an early age to be brutal in every single way. Every order meant to destroy.

That’s all we’ve done with them. With Delilah and Cora. We stripped them bare, forced them to accept us, trust us, then fucked them over in every sense of the word. And those pretty pink panties I loved so much symbolize all we’ve done to them.

In my need, in my total desire to consume them, I didn’t even hesitate to break them in ways that maybe aren’t repairable. All I wanted so badly was to have them. Taste them. Own them. And the worst part is, they let us.

And now this.

Cora gone. Delilah devastated.

And imagine, just yesterday morning I was fucking content with who I’ve become.

Breaker.

Of things, of men.

Of pretty, innocent women if it means I get what I want.

“Breaker?”

My eyes dart to his, the turquoise blue so vibrant against the dull gray in the room. Like he shines with star-kissed life.

His brows knit. “Care to share with me where that mind of yours just traveled to?”

After everything we’ve been through, Viper can read me so clearly. And I him. We all can. When you survive hell together, the bond that’s created is more than a brotherhood. It’s a metal chain linking us together, sewn to our bones with the vile things we’ve survived and other people’s blood.

Viper’s plush lips turn down. The urge to lean over and suck that top lip into my mouth, taste his breath as it fans my face makes me look away.

I’m so rattled, so upset that I feel out of control of my body and my mind. When I feel like this, that tight strangled stretching under my ribcage, I know I’m too close to the edge and need some space.

“Where’s Strike?” I ask, avoiding the topic of my scrambled thoughts.

My stomach lurches.Shit.I still haven’t gone to check on him. He’s probably a mess. When Striker makes a promise, he keeps it even if it costs him more than he’s getting in return. And the fact he promised our Little Red she wasn’t going back must be ripping him apart.

On top of the fact, we just went her back to the man who killed Hunter. The one man Striker refused to admit to himself, to Hunter, to anyone, he was completely in love with. Part of me wonders if that’s why he’s thrown himself in so deep with Delilah and Cora. He knows what it’s like to lose something before you can make it yours.

Maybe we all should take a chance and dive in. Truly take our girls and everything they could be to us. Not just a means to an end, not just a mission, not just an obsession we’d fed and fed and fed.

But reallyhavethem. Really give ourselves over to them too. However that may look.

Viper groans, scrubbing a hand over his jaw. “Last I saw him, he was trying to talk to her, but she was screaming so loud, I dared not go in the room.”

He rubs his eyes and stretches. With bags under his eyes, and face drawn tight, he looks just as exhausted and upset as I feel. My hands itch to reach for him. But I don’t. I don’t because I think he’d let me touch him, bury my face in his neck. And I’m not sure I’d stop there.

Neither one of us deserves the luxury of comfort right now. Not when Cora is enduring god knows what.

Pushing up from the sofa, I snag Cora’s underwear from between the cushions and pocket them before walking toward the door.

“Where are you going?” Viper asks.

“I need to check on Strike.” I pause in the doorway, looking back over my shoulder. “Have you seen Reap?”

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