Page 84 of Brutal King

I tell her about the night that Scarlet arrived, beaten and with fresh lash wounds on her back. Of how the police had been searching for her after she killed her adoptive father who physically abused her.

My father had been on a long trip and I’d been alone. But the staff were still here and they’d give her away in a heartbeat. So I hid her to keep her safe.

I tell her how I became her protector and she was the sibling I’d needed. How I renamed her Scarlet, not for the marks on her back, but for the fire and courage she possessed even at such a young age.

At first, I confined Scarlet to my room. But as her back healed and she regained her strength, I showed her the way to remain out of sight by using the passages built into the walls.

“Secret passages?” Sofia asks. “So that’s how you got into my room. It wasn’t a dream. You were there!”

“I was,” I admit, though I hate to give way my advantage.

“How do you get in?”

“I’ll show you, if you’d like. But you must promise not to use them on your own. They’re quite extensive and even I get lost. Scarlet is the only one who can navigate them well enough.”

Sofia clasps her hands and stares out in silence for a long while as she processes what I’ve told her. Then, she shifts her attention back to the carved name. “Did your father ever find out about her?”

“He did.”

“What happened.”

Suddenly, the past becomes unbearable and I shut the door to the memories. “He taught me a lesson,” I say. “One I learned very well.”

21

GIDEON

I was five when my brother was born. As he got older, he resembled his mother, Shannon— her blond hair, nose, freckles. But he had Father’s eyes. My eyes.

I liked it when they lived with us. It wasn’t so lonely anymore. For five years, I had someone to look after. From the moment he could toddle, Rowan followed me around.

“Dionne, wait for me!” Everywhere I went, he followed. “Dionne, play.” “Dionne, tell me a story.” “Dionne, I had a bad dream.”

I took my role as an older brother serious, and taught him everything I knew, even if it wasn’t much.

He was my brother, and I loved him.

Rowan beat me to the punch. As planned, my men swooped in with the intent of taking Louisa and using her as leverage for Rowan to leave the alliance. In turn, I’d help him negotiate a partnership with her father. He’d have more power in Boston than his uncles could have ever dreamed of.

But the sting didn’t go quite as we thought when Rowan himself intercepted. He took Louisa while she was en route to the church on her wedding day. My little brother has surprised me. Bryan and James McKenzie might have been traitors to my father, but they taught Rowan well. He’s expanded his territory and entered into a treaty with Don Fernando Duran.

However, nothing is as it seems. There have been raids on his shipments for months, raids he believes I’m responsible for. Since I’m not, it points to a traitor in his midst.

“I don’t trust her,” I tell Scarlet. “She had her own ambitions before all this.”

“She’s his wife,” she replies. “They would have been married already if it hadn’t been for his uncles’ interference.”

“A long time ago, perhaps. This time, Rowan took her against her will. Not to mention that she was vying to be her father’s underboss. Everyone in Boston knows she wanted to be his next in line. I don’t believe for a second that she would have let that go without a fight.” I tap my finger against the desk. “She’s behind the raids.”

“How? She’s practically a captive in his house.”

“Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

“Pfft.” We turn to Sofia, who has taken a sudden interest in the conversation. She looks up from her dinner plate. “I’ve been of a mind to leave for months now. Yet here I am.”

I give her a charming smile. “Perhaps it’s not what you truly desire, Little Bird. You’re quite vicious when you wish to be. You would have figured a way by now.”

Sofia sticks out her tongue at me and I chuckle. It’s been a few weeks since she met Scarlet. My second has taken this as permission to come and go as she wishes, which mostly coincides with mealtimes.

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