Page 39 of Forever Filthy

“Why are you smiling?” I shriek and nearly jump a foot in the air. I glare at my brother who is leaning against the wall in the corner, shrouded in darkness.

“Could you be any more of a cliché?” I snap.

“What?”

“You’re hiding in a corner acting like I’m breaking curfew and you’re here to bust me!”

He comes toward me and the instant he steps into the light my eyes widen. His cheek is bruised and he has a cut above his eye. “I guess you four had a disagreement when I left?”

He scoffs and rolls his eyes, then stalks off into the kitchen with me hot on his heels. I dart my gaze around the living room hoping to spot one of my guys.

“They’re upstairs.” I swing my gaze back to my brother who looks like he wants to break something.

“I wasn’t looking for them.”

His eyes narrow. “You’ve always been a shit liar.”

“And you have always been an overprotective jerk but you don’t see me complaining!” I bite back.

“A jerk that devoted his life to trying to save you from the very fucking brotherhood you now lead.”

“What are you more pissed about, Vox, the fact I am the lordess or the fact I am screwing your friends?” He reels back and smacks into the edge of the counter. I pull a stool out at the breakfast counter and sit my ass on it while still glaring across at him. The asshole doesn’t answer, instead he turns and opens the fridge and pulls a beer out. Clearly one of them went to the store because I didn’t have any beer in there before. He pops the top and chugs back half the bottle before finally facing me again. Only this time when he looks at me, I see resignation in his eyes.

“When we were little, I thought you would always be by my side. It was supposed to be me and you till the end, Vi.” The hurt that laces his tone robs me of air.

“What does that mean?” I whisper.

“It means, you aren’t that little girl anymore and I’m not a little boy who thinks that our dad is going to come home.” Sadness envelops me for my brother, I may not think of our father as a hero anymore but he still does. “I want to be mad at you but I can’t.”

“Why do you want to be mad at me?”

He shoots me a sad look. “I want to be mad at you, so then I can displace the guilt of admitting it was me that broke us first.”

I recoil. “You didn’t break us.”

“I did. I broke us when I kept shit from you because I thought I knew better. I didn’t include you in our plans to take down the Saints because I thought I was doing the right thing by you. Turns out, I was wrong and I should have trusted you, but in my mind I was protecting you from the horrors of what the world was really like.”

“You did protect me?—”

“No, I didn’t. It’s my fault you married my best friend and became the lordess. I left you no other choice but to go behind my back and take matters into your own hands.”

“Vox, that isn’t true. I did what I did to protect you and save you all from living in hell. Helping Nikoa gather the intel I did helped me to see what the Saints were really like. I never wanted to be a part of them but when I was faced with a choice of you four dying under Thomas’s rule and my best friend being forced to marry his cunt of a son, I did what I had to in order to ensure we all made it out.”

“You still wanted to save me even though you thought I killed Ezekiel?”

Bitterness swells inside me at the reminder of what he did. “Yes, even then I still wanted to save you,” I force out through clenched teeth then take a breath to tamper down my feelings ofbetrayal. We’re both silent for a while lost to our own thoughts until he breaks it.

“Vi?”

“Yeah?” I say quietly.

“Why didn’t you come to me when you started getting letters?” A whoosh of air escapes me. “Believe it or not, Nova and I actually have a bit of experience with getting random notes and shit.”

“Because I didn’t need you to fix this one for me, Vox. I know this may shock you but I am a big girl and I can handle myself.”

“I know you are but you also have to know that I can’t just let this go. I have to get answers, Vivian.”

“Don’t fucking?—”

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