Page 90 of Love Thy Brother
“Sure that ain’t true.”
Oscar shrugged and started demolishing the dish of Matherson Macaroni. I sank into the companionable silence, bopping along to the mediocre migraine pulsing in my temple. Honestly, I’d had worse—muchworse—but it was a fucking kick in the dick that it was happening today when, thanks to some mystery wannabe murderers, I was about to enter a two-person lockdown with the love of my life. A harder blow even than realising Oscar the Fisherman was about sixty times hotter up close.
Not as hot as River.
Hell, no. Of everything that was swirling around my head, that was the one thought I couldn’t escape. Maybe it was because we were about to be alone together again when the whole world seemed to have imploded since then. But then... no. That wasn’t it. The world imploded every other week. If I hadn’t learned to roll with the punches by now, I never fucking would.
“Who is that?”
Oscar brought me back to the present. I moved to the window where he stood and peered around him. He pointed at the black Transporter I’d seen in the surveillance photos Alexei had brought to the table, but it had been conspicuously absent since the morning of the pig-blood massacre. “No idea. You seen them before?”
“A few times. They have parked there since the summer.”
“During the day?”
Oscar glanced over his shoulder. “At night. Why? Who is it?”
“Dunno, mate. Someone desperate for their parking space, no doubt.”
“English people are obsessed with parking, it’s true.” Oscar faced me again. “But that is not why you are angry with this van, is it?”
“I’m not angry.” But as the words slipped out, the lie smacked me in the face. Rage vibrated through me, simmering in my veins, and I was away from the window and at the door before I knew what the ever-loving fuck I was doing.
“Stay out of sight.” Saint treated me to my second hug of the year. “Don’t do anything mad just because River’s under your skin.”
Too late. I wrenched the door open and stormed down the short path, socked feet soaking up the puddles, the limp in my sore knee forgotten. I had no idea who was in that van. Two blokes or ten, it didn’t fucking matter, I was over these cunts and their bullshit.
I hurled the gate open and stepped onto the pavement. The van was in my sights. Laser focused, I was gonna end these pricks and their fucking pranks and cartoons. They thought that shit was funny? They had no damn idea who they were pissing off.
Fists balled, I surged forward, aggression bunching in my muscles, adrenaline rising from the pit of the worst person I could be.Fuck this cunt. Killing people wasn’t my jam, but for the first time in a long fucking time, I felt like I could.
For themillionthtime in recent memory, I felt unhinged. But it didn’t scare me. Nothing did while these pricks were sitting pretty in their van, fucking with my life.
Fucking withRiver’slife.
“Boo.” Warm arms caught me around the waist, not strong enough to stop me, but they didn’t need to be. Not with the magic lips at my throat, soft hair tickling my jaw. “Boo. Stop. It’s not their time yet.”
It was hard to believe such reasonable,rationalwords were falling from River’s rough mouth. But no one else had such fucking power over my unstable soul.
No one else could drag me from this place I never thought I’d be.
His entire body collided with my back, arms tightening around me. He hauled me back as I sensed another brother in my peripheral, but I was too far gone to know who.
“Come on,” River coaxed. “Don’t fight me.”
I wasn’t fighting him, not consciously. But whatever he wanted me to do, somehow, I wasn’t doing it, and the murky parallel with our whole fucking story left me dizzy.
River dragged me to the gate and through it.
The mystery brother shut it behind us. As the red mist fizzled out, I recognised the stoic set of Decoy’s shoulders. The low rumble of his quiet voice as he murmured into a concealed radio mic attached to his jacket.
He blocked the gate and swept the clusterfuck I’d morphed into with his steady gaze. “You good?”
Not even close. How had I become this person that exploded with zero warning? Zero fuckingcontrol? I didn’t want to be that man.
Iwasn’tthat man.
Decoy couldn’t fix me, though. I nodded. “All good. Apologies. Ain’t had my dinner yet.”
