Page 45 of Yours to Break

“I’m taking him to the hospital. The guy who did it is inside. Single gunshot wound to his left calf. Keep him alive and contained. I’ll deal with him later,” Greyson snarled, walking past us back into the woods.

“Of course, brother. We’ll keep in contact,” I called. We shared a look of concern before turning and setting our attention on our new ward.

“What do you think happened?” Hayes asked me while we stared down at the man in disdain. I shrugged, using the toe of my shoe to poke at him.

“Hey, you. What happened?”

“What happened? That guy just fucking shot me!”

I sighed, “That’s pretty obvious. I meant, what did you do to that little ginger?”

“Nothing that he didn’t deserve,” he spat out.

Hayes said, “Yeah, I get why he shot you.”

“Not very smart, are you?” I wondered, kicking him a bit harder. Did I care all that much about Lane? Not really. But that didn’t mean I wanted the guy hurt. Greyson’s expression as he was leaving the barn had been wrathful. This man was already marked for death, and I imagined it would not be a peaceful one.

“Are you the cousin?” Hayes leered down at him. My eyebrows raised. Hadn’t Grey already taken care of him?

The man sputtered, “How do you know that?”

“Well, we didn’t, not until you just said so,” I retorted.

“Are you going to kill me?”

“Possibly. Probably not. It’ll most likely be either Greyson or Lane. We might get to torture you, though. Wouldn’t that be fun? How do you feel about battery acid? What about your eyes? I think tattooing them could be interesting,” I prattled on.

“Shit. You’re all fucking insane!” He wiggled, shouting in pain whenever his injury caught on something or rubbed against the ground. He began trying to army crawl away from us, but he was so slow that we just walked along beside him and continued to list off fun ideas for our evening.

Hayes snickered, landing a hard kick to Lane’s cousin’s side, “You should’ve stayed dead.” He shook his head, face suddenly turning serious, as he swore, “I just thought about if this bastard had hurt our Oliver. I think I understand how Grey must feel.”

“We’ll just need stricter rules for our pet than Grey had for his boy. Obviously, it’s not Lane’s fault for being attacked—that’s not what I’m saying—but he probably would’ve been safe if Grey hadn’t let him go out alone.”

Hayes replied, “Don’t say that to Greyson, but yeah, he needs to keep a tighter leash on Lane. We’ll keep Oliver safe.”

“Agreed.”

“Are you calling a man your pet? You better not think I’ll let you do that to me. Damn psychos!” The cousin wheezed, having crawled almost all the way out of the barn.

Hayes belly-laughed, something I’d rarely ever seen him do. He snorted, “Listen, man. Not only do we not want you as a pet, but I highly doubt anyone would. I’m not sure if you’ve looked in the mirror lately but you’re ugly as fuck. You literally look like you live underground or some shit. You’d probably scream real nice for us if we shoved our cocks into your hole, but we wouldn’t want to touch your disgusting body even if you begged us to.”

* * *

“We’re home!” I sang as we walked in from the garage, eager to see if Oliver had been good or if we had a pup to wrangle.

“I’m in here,” he called back, his voice light and chiming. Hayes and I shared a smile, both of us slightly surprised that he was still here.

Hayes elbowed me, turning around to head back to the car. “You go check on him. I’ll get the idiot set up downstairs.” I agreed, following the faint noises coming from further within our home. I went from room to room searching for Oliver.

Finally, when I entered our large kitchen, my eyes landed on him. He was facing away from me, messing with something on the counter. He hummed a familiar tune as his hips swayed in time with the melody. Clocking the flour container and various other ingredients strewn across the kitchen island, it was obvious he’d been baking while we were out. He never ceased to surprise me.

I was quiet as I walked up behind him and slipped my arms around his chest to pull him flush against me. He screeched at the sudden disturbance and attempted to swing the wooden spoon he was holding at me.

I laughed, “It’s just me, pet. Although I hope you’d fight better against an actual assailant.” A frustrated huff came from him as he relaxed in my hold.

“You shouldn’t sneak up on people like that,” he whinged, looking up at me with a furious blush staining his cheeks. His pink lips formed a pout, which had to have been one of the cutest things I’d ever seen. I tilted his head back even further so that I could lean down and taste that pout for myself. He opened readily for me, a soft exhale leaving him.

I pulled back, ending the kiss before I took it too far. Hayes and I already had a plan for how we would spend the time waiting for our brother to arrive.

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