We sit together on my old couch, both of us lost in our thoughts, and while I’ve come to learn that things like tonight are common in the brother’s dark world, I can’t even begin to imagine what’s going through Jasmine's head.
Hours pass as we each stare at the blank wall where my good TV used to be before my father stole it, neither of us able to clear the horrendous thoughts to allow us to sleep. “You can take my bed if you want to,” I tell her, knowing damn well that I’ll be sitting in this same spot until I know the brothers are alive and coming for me.
“No, it’s fine,” she says, looking completely exhausted. “It’s your bed, you should—”
BANG.
My door barges open, the handle slamming straight through the drywall before it rebounds and catches on a heavy boot.
Jasmine screams as my eyes widen with fear, snapping up to the face that’s haunted me my whole fucking life.
My father.
He stands imposingly in my doorway, his filthy stare locked on mine as I slowly shake my head, unable to believe how he’s here right now. The boys let him out into the woods with the wolves. He should be dead.
My heart races as I take him in. He’s got a crutch under his arm, holding himself up after I shot out his knee cap. Thick, red gouges cover his arms and legs and I don’t doubt that they belong to the wolves, but how did he get free? Those wolves are natural hunters. It shouldn’t be possible … not unless they were recalled or instructed only to play with their food.
FUCK.
My feet hit the ground and I start backing up as he steps over the threshold into my small apartment. Jasmine whimpers on the couch, her eyes flicking back and forth as she tries to work out what the hell is going on, fear of being taken again clear across her bruised face.
My father walks with a limp, dragging his leg behind him as he slams the door shut, the sound echoing through the whole apartment complex. His lips pull into a sickening smirk, and as he draws an old, rusty knife from the waistband of his pants and stalks me through my apartment, I know without a doubt that he’s after revenge.
Only one of us is going to make it out of this alive, and after the bullshit I’ve been through tonight, this motherfucker better fucking bring it because this bitch is not in the mood.
“Jasmine,” I say, refusing to take my eyes off my father while knowing that my two training sessions are nowhere near enough to teach me how to come out of this alive, but with my father’s injuries, luck might just be on my side. Either way, it’s a risk I’m willing to take. “Stand behind me. I’m going to teach you what it truly means to survive.”
25
MARCUS
“Well, that didn’t quite pan out how I expected,” I mutter as I rub my raw wrists, the anger slowly boiling beneath the surface. Those motherfuckers must get off on cuffing us because they sure as fuck made it count. I’ve got to be honest, it’s not the first time I’ve been in handcuffs, but it’s sure as fuck the first time I didn’t get hard over it.
“I told you I smelled a fucking rat,” Roman spits, wiping his forearm across his face to mop up the blood staining his skin.
Levi hashes in the pin code to release the back door of the prisoner transport vehicle and the automatic lock unhinges. It was all too easy getting the transport officers to give us what we needed, and I can’t lie, I might have enjoyed it too. They should have been smart enough not to transport us together. Everyone knows that the three of us work best when we've got each other's backs.
It’s been a shit of a night for too many fucking reasons, but for the most part, I think we actually had nothing to do with it. We weren’t supposed to be there tonight. We weren’t on any guest lists and sure as fuck didn’t warn anyone of our surprise visit. The FBI raid was meant for someone else—someone who just happens to already be dead in the back of our Escalade. They got lucky that there happened to be so many other big names for them to arrest, but when there are big names, you better bring big guns.
The FBI were severely understaffed for such a big operation. They were out of their league, but they couldn’t have known there were going to be so many players there tonight. Hell, we didn’t even fucking know, and if I were given another hour to play, I would have evened a few more scores while I was at it.