“I won’t show you anything like this again, you need to know that too. MC business is kept between brothers, and I don’t want you held accountable for anything. Unfortunately, this involves you and I need your help.”
“I understand.”
He pulled me fully into his arms to hug me.
“Made from me, for me,” he murmured into my hair. “The perfect Queen.”
I kissed him, my mouth open and soft because it hurt to kiss, but I needed to kiss him more than I cared about the pain. Gently, he pinched my chin so he could control the movement and he kissed me back.
When we parted, I slid silently down his body and took his hand so he could lead me to the garage.
They were in the last bay, the garage door pulled down but the industrial lights on so everything was in stark white and yellow relief. This included my brother, who was bound to a hook in the ceiling that normally hoisted cars. His hands were shackled with chains and his feet dangled just off the floor. There was blood on his face, down his throat and in the weave of his shirt. They had clearly already gone over him once or twice.
My eyes flicked to Bat, Buck and Zeus, who stood closest to Lysander, still wearing brass knuckles that were wet with blood.
I looked up and caught Zeus watching me, his face cruel and guarded. He was waiting for me to freak out, I realized.
So, to prove him wrong, I turned to my brother and walked closer, aware that he watched me between the slits in his swollen face.
“Why did you do it?” I asked simply.
His answer was not so simple.
“I owed them money,” he warbled through his split lip. “Lied to you about the gambling but it’s the same story. Took their money to get on my feet after getting outta the slammer and with the interest, I just couldn’t get back out from under it. I won pretty good at the races one day a while back but you needed the money for the house, so,” he tried to shrug but grimaced when the movement was cut short by the chains. “They found out you were my sister. My fault, I don’t keep much but I got that picture of you from your graduation in my wallet because I’m an idiot. They knew you were datin’ Zeus so they had an eye on you, but I was keepin’ my eye on them and they didn’t care about you in a big way.
Then fuckin’ William. The crazy motherfucker talks to some of his fucked up clients and asks one of them to kidnap you for him. Wanted to run away with you to fucking Indonesia or some shit. The Nightstalkers heard, took the job and the ridiculous fucking payout, and decided to kill two birds with one stone. They knew you’d probably have information they could use, and if you didn’t and they ended up killing you, it would drive Zeus into making a bad mistake.”
Wow.
I had trouble digesting everything that he was saying, had trouble believing that my soon-be-ex-husband could ‘love’ me enough to pay for me to be kidnapped, that my brother could have kept such a massive secret double life from me.
“Why did you need the job at Hephaestus, to spy on my friends?” I asked.
“I told them no like six hundred times but they were having too much trouble cracking into the drug trade up here, so they got desperate and threatened me.”
“The morning you showed up at my house,” I whispered.
He groaned miserably. “Yeah. Decided it wasn’t worth it, involving you, but then King got involved and it was so easy. I figured I would take the job but wouldn’t give them anything important and I swear to fucking Christ, I didn’t, Cress. I would rather die than put you in danger. You know that.”
“Do I?” I asked softly. “You killed a man for me once, Sander, but does that mean I need to forgive you for every other bad thing you ever do?”
He was quiet. A smart move because there was nothing he could say to save himself from my condemnation.
“They won’t kill you,” I said, gesturing to the mean looking bikers with Sander’s blood on their hands. “You’re my family and I’m theirs so they won’t kill you. What they’ll do to you otherwise, I don’t know and I don’t really care. You almost got me and the people I care about killed. I can’t—I won’t—forgive you for that. I hope you get your act together, Sander, I really do, but I don’t want to see you ever again.” I ignored the gurgle of hurt that sounded in his throat, the way he flinched so hard against his bounds that his body rocked in the air. “I’m done with people who take from me and don’t give anything back. I’ll always be thankful that you saved me, but this is goodbye.”