Page 54 of Pray for the Damned

Iyawn as I lap the block surrounding Waverly’s apartment building for the third time tonight. Seeing her cry has me on edge, and protecting her seems to be the only way I can stop myself from going to find my brother and disemboweling him for hurting my girl.

It also helps that I’m not even positive it was him who hurt her, but when I saw her get out of that taxi, her cheeks pink and smudged with running mascara, I was more murderous than I have been in years, and that’s coming from someone whose literal job is to kill people.

The streets are quiet tonight, which isn’t uncommon for a weeknight in this area, but I don’t like it. The silence is unsettling.

By the time I make it back to my bike, I find my brother parked out in front of the building, his head resting on the steering wheel.

It would be so fucking easy to end him here and now. I could just stroll up to the car, pop him in the head, and dump his car somewhere out of the city before assuming his life.

Or parts of it at least. Namely the part where I get to keep Waverly all to myself. The religion shit he can keep.

If I believed there was a higher power, I wouldn’t spend every waking hour protecting a girl that did nothing more than being born to the wrong parents from my own father and the man that hired him.

But alas, as much as I would love to simplify things by ending my brother’s life, it would complicate things in other ways. Mainly our twin bond.

People swear it’s bullshit, but anytime he’s been in real danger, I’ve known. I always know, and I can’t imagine him dying would do much for me.

Instead, I stalk to the passenger seat and climb in, settling into the leather seats. I don’t care much for cars, always preferring my bike when possible, but I can see the appeal on nights like tonight.

“What do you want, Kade?”

“What did you do?” I ask.

His eyes flick up to meet mine, and I’m struck by how miserable he looks. The poor motherfucker has it just as bad as I do, or maybe worse because he knows what her pussy feels like around his cock. “What makes you think I did anything?” he snaps.

“Because Waverly came home crying and hasn’t stopped since she got here.”

“How the fuck do you know that?”

I raise a brow at him, waiting for him to remember that the two of us have known how to break into a house since we were seven years old. “Which brings us back to what you did to upset her.”

He glares at me before focusing on the dark window above us. “I didn’t do anything. Everything was fine, she was fine, happy even, and then she just wasn’t.” He pauses for a moment as he turns back to me. “She’s running because she doesn’t let people in. I assume you know that just as well as I do.”

I nod. “I do.”

“I’m not going to let her go.”

“Neither am I.”

He huffs out an irritated sigh. “And how is that going to work, Kade? You going to make her choose between two people who look exactly the same?”

I shrug. “Maybe she wouldn’t have to choose.”

He stares at me for long seconds, but I don’t elaborate further. The thing about Levine men is that we can’t be talked into anything. We have to find our way to the idea by ourselves.

“Kade,” he warns.

“What? It solves all our problems, does it not? It puts Waverly under undoubted protection, we both get the girl, and she gets double the dick.”

Emmett opens his mouth to respond but snaps it shut again, shaking his head. “No. Absolutely not.”

“Why not? Give me one good reason why we can’t share her.”

“Because she doesn’t even know you exist?”

“So? Just because she doesn’t know yet doesn’t mean she can never know. We could run into one another while she’s with you. You could introduce us, have lunch, or whatever. I don’t see the problem here.”

He groans and drops his head back to the steering wheel like when I walked up. “You’re impossible, you know that? Being Dad’s favorite really made you believe you can have anything you fucking want when that’s not how the world works.”

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