Page 22 of Tempted to Rebel

“Are you crazy?” She looks between the two of us before following Rebel up the slope toward the top of the hill. “You just said he needs to walk it off!”

“It’ll go faster if he has a punching bag.”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!”

I follow the two of them on foot, keeping watch of our surroundings. All three of them are so wound up in each other that they’re forgetting who and where we are. Bratva families will keep their distance if they recognize us, but we’re on North Side. Many civilians live here, and their daily commute is about to start. We’ll be a walking spectacle within minutes.

As the sun rises, the sky turns a deeper shade of pink, bleeding all around us. Only when we reach the top of the hill does the sun break over the horizon. A crown of gold shoots into the heavens, and standing at the hilltop overlooking the city is my oldest brother Rage. His fists are clenched tightly by his sides, his gaze absorbed in the waking city below.

“Brother,” Rebel calls out, jogging toward him. “Listen?—”

Rage spins, throwing his body weight into a punch that lands square on Rebel’s jaw. Their weight classes are different, and Rebel can’t take hits like that without consequences. He tips backward and stumbles, gravel spraying around his feet as he catches himself. Straightening, he throws his arms out and spits blood onto the ground. “Come on, you call that a hit?”

I grab Celia as she lunges toward them. “Don’t,” I warn, “or it will be your blood on the ground instead of his.” She struggles in my arms, and I lock her in a loose chokehold to keep her from squirming hard enough to actually get loose. I can’t let her throw herself into the fight. I doubt they would intentionally hurt her, but if Rage throws a punch and she jumps in the way, even if he pulls back, she won’t get out unscathed.

Rebel can take a hit without passing out, but I’m not sure about Celia. If she gets injured, things are only going to get worse for all of us.

Rage lunges. Rebel deftly dodges to the side, using his speed to his advantage. It’s been years since they’ve gone at each other and longer still since they’ve honed their distinct fighting styles, but their best techniques fly out the window as they slip back into old habits. It’s like I’m watching a replay from fifteen years ago when Rebel got his ass handed to him for coming home drunk after a high school party. Only this time, he’s drunk off of a woman instead of liquor.

Still, he’s grinning even when Rage’s fist connects with his ribs. He groans, then quickly kicks out at Rage’s shin and covers his pants in dust. “You mad, bro? What, because I fucked your girl?” Shaking his head, he laughs again. “Or is it because I broke your precious rules?”

“I locked her in there for a reason!” Rage shoves Rebel back a few steps. “You can’t take her out whenever you damn well please!”

“She was starving!” Rebel’s smile hardens and he jabs Rage in the throat without doing enough damage to repel him. They grapple each other and tumble to the ground, Rebel landing on top. “You didn’t fucking feed her! You lock her up, knock her the fuck out, and then you don’t actually take care of her! You should have stayed with her until she woke up! Made sure she was okay! Called the fucking doctor!” He punches Rage’s face, growling, “how can you say you want a child if you can’t even take care of its mother? You’ll kill any kid you have!”

Grabbing Rebel’s hand mid-punch, Rage squeezes until Rebel yelps. “Becausefucking heris so much better, huh?” He rolls them over and pins Rebel to the ground with a knee on his chest. “You couldn’t wait to get your dick wet, so you bribed herwith dinner to win her over. Father of the fucking year, right here.”

“I’m not the one trying to knock her up!”

“You will, though!” Rage slams Rebel’s shoulders into the ground. “She’s ovulating, you piece of shit!”

Celia stops breathing. I unwind my arms from her neck and spin her around, grabbing her face to keep her eyes on me. “Krosotka.Breathe.”

She tries to shake her head. “Let me go. I need—I need air.”

“No. You breathe here, with me.” There are too many layers between us for me to feel her body heat, but I can feel the flush of her cheeks in my palms. I squeeze her face until I feel the cut of her teeth. “You are safe,krosotka,I promise.” She can’t open her mouth to argue because of how I’m holding her, so I drag her toward the overlook facing the sunrise. “Look.” I slide my hands up into her hair and tilt her face toward the sun. Clouds cover its face, but the light remains warm and bright, shining like a beacon. “That glow is you. All the red around it, the parts that bleed, those are us.You cut through the red,krosotka.Watch.”

Slowly, the sky starts to transform as dawn breaks. The streaks of gold from the sun blend into their harsh surroundings, muting the reds and turning them orange, then peach, then lavender. As the sun rises, the landscape around us changes, too. The shadows lurking beneath trees and cars disappear as night shifts to day and the entire world awakens.

Celia’s like that, too. She wakes up our world.

I press my chest to her back, wanting to feel what it’s like to be as close to her as my brothers are. “You make our shadows disappear,” I tell her, hoping that she understands. We’re flawed men. We won’t get everything right. We’ll try to be better, but when we’ve cut our teeth on bullets and bone our entire lives, it’s hard to remember how to be soft.

But Celia makes me want to remember.

She reaches up to touch my face, her fingertips ghosting across my mask. When they reach the edge, she hooks them underneath, tugging gently to pry it off.

I stop her before she succeeds. Grabbing her hand, I pull it away from my face and hold it by my side.

Her voice is as soft as her skin. “I deserve to know what kind of shadows I’m dealing with, Ruin.”

My scars itch, the worst ones begging to be peeled off and left bloody. I don’t reply, because what can I say?

I don’t want her to shine her light so close that there’s nothing of me left.

Rage and Rebel, on the other hand, crave it. They want her to obliterate every dark thing inside themselves and replace it with something worth holding onto—a future born of love instead of bloodshed.A familyand all the unconditional love it provides.

But I can’t live in that world, and pretending otherwise is dangerous.

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