“Fucking hell,” he murmurs, shaking his head in astonishment. “Look at that splatter and positioning. It’s like a fucking work of art. This is incredible. I couldn’t have done it better myself.” His gaze drops to meet my stare, his brow furrowing, and for just a brief moment, I could have sworn that a flicker of nervousness sweeps through his gaze. “Did you …” he cringes, pausing for the quickest beat. “Did you want me to box up the calf? I can preserve it for you like a fucking trophy. I know that tongue in my room freaks you the fuck out, but this … fuck, babe. If you don’t want it, I’ll take it.”
I arch a brow, the need to feel guilt over what I’ve done quickly fading away. “You know, the sincerity in your eyes sometimes makes me forget just how fucked up you really are,” I tell him. “Have at the calf. It’s all yours, but just so you know, that thing is not coming home with me in the car. You can strap it to the roof.”
Marcus beams at me as though all his Christmases have come at once. “I’m going to etch your name into his skin and put it on display,” he tells me as though it’s the greatest honor. “Have I ever told you how fucking incredible you are? Every time you’re thrown into some bullshit situation and I think you’re about to break, you go and do something that blows me away. Holy fucking shit, babe. If you don’t let me worship you for the rest of your goddamn life …”
“If you’re done getting hard over the guy’s leg,” Roman mutters, done with his brother’s overwhelming adoration. “We have a house to check.”
Marcus rolls his eyes but nonetheless, takes my hand and leads me through the house. I watch the boys carefully, seeing how they silently take in each room, making sense of everything that went down just by looking at the mess I left behind. They don’t ask questions, and I sure as hell don’t offer any answers, but I don’t need to.
They look behind every door, not leaving a single stone unturned while checking over every little detail that I missed. Phone numbers scrawled on torn paper, the amount of dishes in the sink, the trash sprawled throughout every single room. The disappointment torn across each of their faces tells me that they didn’t find what they were looking for.
“Come on,” Roman finally says. “Let’s check out the basement and then we can get out of here. Shayne looks like she could use a decent meal, a shower, and her own fucking bed.”
The boys nod and as Roman reaches for the small handle of the basement, my heart breaks recalling exactly what—or who—he would see down there.
Breaking free of Marcus’ hold, I race toward Roman as the door swings open, my heart pounding wildly with desperation to save him from the horrors he’ll find. “WAIT,” I rush out, barging out in front of him and squeezing myself between him and the door, bracing my hands on either side as the overwhelming smell of her decaying body rushes through the open door.
Roman stares at me, reading my body language as though it was scrawled across my forehead in bright red marker. “What don’t you want me to see?” he demands, his eyes narrowing to slits as that terrifying scar reminds me how careful I need to be when it comes to Felicity.
“Can you smell that?” Marcus murmurs, quickly glancing toward Levi as the three of them crowd around me, their interest piqued.
Levi nods and I glance up at him, my distraction only frustrating Roman more. “Shayne,” he snaps. “Tell me what the fuck is going on. Now.”
Fuck.
I let out a shaky breath, my heart falling right out of my chest and landing in a messy heap on my sleeve for the whole fucking world to see. I know he sees the pain and regret stretched over my face, and judging by the terror starting to form in his eyes, he knows exactly where this is going. “When I got here … she … I couldn’t …”
“Who’s she?” he growls, the sound vibrating right through his chest and sending a wave of unease sailing through my bones.
A heavy lump forms in my throat and devastation washes over me, but the longer I take to say it, the worse it’s going to be, so I suck it up, knowing that he needs this so much more than I do. “Felicity,” I finally say, my voice breaking with regret.
Roman doesn’t even give me a chance to explain before he grabs hold of me and throws me back toward his brothers with a ruthless force that knocks me right off my feet. And just like that, he’s gone, his footfalls echoing through the massive basement as he races toward the woman he loves.
The woman who will never be me.
7
Roman
Shayne’s body flies from my hands. I’m distantly aware of my brothers catching her before she falls, and fuck, I know I pushed her way too hard, but the moment Felicity’s sweet name came trembling from between her lips, all train of thought left me.
Nothing else matters except getting to her.
Taking two steps at a time, I race down into the basement that looks like a fucking whore house gone wrong. Cells line every fucking wall, half of them open, half of them with random women, their backs against the hard concrete, but the void of color in their cheeks tells me they’re long gone.
Two guards lay at the bottom of the steps, one with a gaping hole in the side of his neck while the other has a slit throat, but the way the blood sits over his body makes it clear the fucker was already dead before she cut him.
Without skipping a beat, I launch myself over the side of the rusted railing, not wanting to waste precious moments scrambling over their bodies as I try to find my girl. The guards aren’t important. We can circle back to that once I’ve got Felicity back in my arms.
My feet slam against the concrete ground and I barely notice the soft splash beneath them before glancing down to find the basement floor soaked with water, not even the desert heat doing enough to dry this out. I want to pause to ask what the fuck is going on, but there will be time to answer questions afterward.
I look over every fucking cell, desperate to see those rosy cheeks and that beautiful long blonde hair, but I find nothing, and the desperation quickly sets in as I hear my brothers and Shayne on the stairs. How the fuck could Shayne do this? She just left her behind to rot in a fucking cell. I know she was fighting for her life, but leaving her? I thought Shayne was better than that. I know we had a rocky start, but we moved past that. I thought we were cool now. I’ll never let her live this down. Something else has to be going on. There has to be more to the story.
“FELICITY,” I call, my panic starting to overwhelm me as I find myself spinning, looking back and forth, trying to get to her. There’s a woman at the opposite end and she gapes at me in horror before hiding her face and scrambling back in her cell as though I’m here to rain hell over her, but to be completely honest, I couldn’t give a shit about her. The cell is open so she’s free to leave whenever the hell she wants.
I was so sure that Felicity was dead when her body gave out in my arms, but Marcus was right about her being his shooter. I just couldn't entertain the idea that the love of my life was still out there, fighting for hers in a world I was supposed to protect her from. She was so innocent, thrown into this bullshit just like Shayne was, only she wasn’t as strong as Shayne. Felicity needed me; our baby needed me. The girl I once knew would have never shot my brother. Our father put her up to it; there is no other explanation.
But there’s still time to turn this around. I’m here now, and I can bring her home, protect her, start over again in the hope that one day she’ll forgive me for abandoning her here for so long.