Footsteps echo across the marble, and I turn to watch the second hooded intruder stiffly approach me. I struggle to scramble to my feet, trying to get leverage, to calculate my odds, to figure out a move.
But I can’t get my body to work right. Whatever that bitch shoved into my side has knocked me all off kilter. Nerves shot.
Electricity. That’s the source of the heat in my side.
I’ve been tased or something.
Motherfucker.
The shiny tips of the guy’s shoes gleam as he stops, looming above me. “I’ve got him,” he says, voice muffled by the mask. “Go do what you need to.”
It’s the gun that I see in her hands as he grabs my arms and drags me down the hall, not even attempting to get me on my feet. “No!” I shout. “Killer! They’re—” but a gloved hand slaps over my mouth, replaced a second later by the glove itself.
30
Killian
I’ve always had a nebulous concept of what a family is. My mom was family. When I think of her, I think of Sunday mornings in the garden, getting muddy until she yelled at me. She wasn’t an angel or anything. She almost always smelled like one sort of alcohol or another. She never wanted to go places with me. She cooked and cleaned, but she always let everyone know how unhappy she was about it. But she’d play games with me. She’d tell me I was handsome and strong and smart, and when she smiled at me, it felt like a ray of sunshine. For a short time, she was the only thing in life that didn’t seem unbearably bleak.
My dad was family. Maybe the hardest pill to swallow is that he wasn’t the devil. He loved me, in whatever twisted, fucked up way he was capable of, more than anyone else in this world. It was a burden to be that—the one thing he held close and worth caring for—but I coveted it almost as much as I resented it, because I figured I’d never be that to anyone else.
My blood family was never much, but it was all I had.
Until it wasn’t.
One day, there was Ms. Crane. She was the first person I met who was as pissed off as I was, the first one to really understand and confront the crazy napalm filling my chest all the time. And then Rath appeared, and just…never went away. He was the first kid to look me in the eye and say he wasn’t impressed. That’s scary as fuck for a ten-year-old who didn’t have anything to offer the world except two fists and a legacy to follow, but Rath? He stuck to me. That’s the only word for it. Tristian came along soon after, with his quick wit and icy grins, and he wasn’t like Rath. I had nothing to give Tristian. He already had it all. The name, the money, the legacy. But while our dads were deciding they liked the idea of us growing connections—for business, for our family’s interests—we were setting shit on fire and making our own decisions.
And now there’s her.
We’re perfectly still as the water beats down on us, foreheads pressed together. I’ve already forgotten why. I think after she washed her hair, I meant to kiss her, but ever since that night she let me into her room, I need to stop, and just… warm myself in front of this new reality.
Against all odds, and on account of nothing that I can see, Story Austin loves me back.
If I had a morsel of optimism inside me, I might even say I was happy.
“Brr,” she says, giving this little shiver I can feel down to my marrow.
With a start, I realize the water is going cold. Shooting the showerhead a useless glare, I reach out to turn it off, swiping the wetness from my hair. I’m surprised Tristian and Rath didn’t come in to join us. They could have—I wouldn’t have minded sharing, packing us all up in here like sardines as we pressed against Story’s wet, naked body.
Fuck, how am I already getting hard again?
I grab two towels from the rack, watching idly as Story wrings the water from her hair, accepting a towel with a grateful smile.
“I like it when you’re like this,” she says, shooting me a quick glance.
I wrap the towel around my waist. “When I’m like what?”
She seems to think pretty hard about the answer as she dries herself. “Nice,” she answers, ducking her head to hide the bloom of pink on her cheeks. “Sweet. Not a jerk.”
There’s a pang in my chest at her words, knowing that I’ve caused hurt. I’m not stupid or anything. I know I’m a hard person to care for, let alone love. Chances are, I’m going to blow it at some point. Maybe that’s why it has to be this way—the four of us. Because when that crazy napalm knocks me off course, Tristian will be there to guide me back. Rath will be there to sneeringly inform me that I’m not hot shit. Ms. Crane will be there to slap me upside the head and demand more of me.