Page 5 of Bound By Ruin

“They’ll already be processing the scene.” Rage rubs the back of his neck. “We’ll have to see who’s on bratva payroll to keep things quiet.”

“No, I mean to find Sara.” I try to rub off some of the soot from Rebel’s hands onto my pajamas. “I have insurance for the boutique.” Thinking about the headache that awaits forthatdebacle makes me uneasy, but so does everything right now. In order of priority, fixing my business now seems firmly planted at the bottom of the list. Looking around the room, I frown. “Where’s Thanatos?”

Rage removes his oxygen mask to answer. “Likely cleaning up our mess.”

“As usual,” Rebel snickers. “He’s good at it, too.”

“What do you mean?”

“When we were kids, he used to come to our conferences at school. You know, the ones when you get into trouble. Our dad couldn’t be bothered to care, and our mom wasn’t always reliable, so Thanatos handled everything.”

I look between the brothers, puzzled. “I thought he wasn’t that much older than you.” Surely, they didn’t allow a teenager to attend meetings for their parents.

Rebel clicks his tongue. “Haven’t you seen those grays? He’s always looked older than he is. When he was fifteen, he could grow a full beard. He’d pretend to be our dad in all the meetings.”

“There were a lot of meetings,” Rage muses, “becausesomeonesold cigarettes in the bathrooms.”

With a grin, Rebel winks. “What can I say? I’ve always been popular.”

Heavy footsteps sound down the concrete hallway, and Thanatos appears. He looks between us and the curtained room, his expression unreadable. “How is Ruin’s condition?”

I grip Rebel’s hand tighter while Rage slips an arm around my waist. Standing between the two of them gives me strength that I’m not sure I deserve. I’m not the one who walked inside of a burning building and made it out alive. “They didn’t say,” I answer, pinching my bottom lip between my teeth. “But they sure didn’t want me in there.”

Thanatos runs a hand through his salt and pepper hair. “That’s typical for doctors.” He paces the floor in a tight line and repeatedly flips a pocket on his tool belt open and closed with every other step. “I talked to Ezra. He isn’t thrilled about the fire, but he’s even less thrilled about our father. It’s easy enough to blame faulty wiring for an old building going up in flames, so we’re covered on that front, but someone called inanotherfire across town, and they found a body this time.” He takes a breath and looks at me. “It’s female. No ID yet.”

My blood runs cold.Sara.What if it’s her?

“Oh, God,” I moan, nausea creeping in. “Did she—did she burn alive?” I take a quick breath. If Sara dies, I’ll already blame myself, but if she dieshorrifically,I’ll never be able to look myself in the eye again.

“We don’t know that it’s Sara,” Thanatos says slowly.

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” I snap, glaring up at him.

The three brothers share a moment between themselves before Rebel finally says, “well, yeah.”

“None of this is your fault.” Rage rubs soothing circles into my lower back. “It’s our problem, so we’re going to fix it.”

I shake my head. “It’sourproblem.” Meeting each of their eyes one after the other, I make sure they’re listening. “We all need to work together on this. No more late night excursions with only two of you at a time. All five of us need to be tracking him down as a team, or we’ll never catch him. It’s like he’s slipping through the sewers or something.” I crinkle my nose,definitelynot liking the sound of that. “But if I’m with you, maybe he’ll get closer.”

Rage grinds his teeth. “No.You aren’t taking a single step outside. You’re going straight home.”

“Back to the cage?” I pull away from him and turn to glare at his stubborn self. “I heard you on the phone, Rage. You wanted me locked up again.Fuck that.” Rebel reaches for me, but I smack his hands away. “Andyou, handcuffing me to the car! I swear to God, it’s like the two of you think I’m made of glass.” Walking over to Thanatos, I grab his arm and pull him into the conversation. “I’ve been doing well with my training, and if you’re so nervous about it, I can stick with Than the entire time. He’ll watch over me to make sure I’m safe while you two search another part of the city. And Ruin—” I pause, unsure how he will fit into the picture while injured. Sighing, I shut my eyes. “He needs time to heal.”

Thanatos clears his throat but doesn’t pull his arm free from mine. “Even injured, Ruin is fantastic with surprise attacks. We need him on standby for when we catch Dad. He can come in for the kill.”

“I’mgonna kill him,” Rebel protests. “He tried to blow Ruin up!Again!He came after my girl!” His eyes lock onto me. “There’s no way in hell that I’m not gutting the bastard.”

“We canallclaim our pound of flesh,” Rage rumbles, “but Celia isnotgetting involved.”

“Like hell I’m not! I want my pound, too!” I smack Thanatos’s chest. “I’m bulletproof with Thanatos beside me. Besides, I need to make sure Sara is okay. We need to put her under witness protection, or something, while we get rid of your father. Maybe she can stay at the Baranova estate with Valentina for a while.”

IfSara is still alive.

I swallow the lump in my throat. “So first things first, we find Sara, get her somewhere safe, work as a team to find your dad, and then we kill him.Together.”

Rebel’s eyes glitter with excitement. He drops his oxygen mask behind his back and ignores Serena’s frown of disapproval. “You’re so hot when you’re fired up, baby. Come get a kiss.”

Rage grabs his shoulder to keep him from getting up. “Sitdown.We’re not going anywhere until we learn more about Ruin’s condition.” His eyebrows pinch together as he looks across the room to the curtain separating us from his youngest brother. “This should be a family decision since it involves all of us. He needs to be a part of this.”

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