by M. Sinclair
It had taken me off guard how happy she had seemed to make him whenever they talked during the summer, but after today? I understood it completely. It was like the woman warmed and softened everything around her into a whirlwind of sweetness. It should have disgusted me, but instead I found myself craving it.
Craving her. Craving the soft affection she seemed to offer those around her.
Turning back towards their conversation, I didn’t even bother trying to pretend I wasn’t listening to them. Hell. Every time she and King had talked on the phone this summer, I’d found myself listening to the sound of her sweet, intoxicating, sleepy voice. I should have predicted the problem then. Unfortunately, I hadn’t taken the warning my subconscious had offered when I’d been so attracted to her mere voice… so here I was.
“I don’t know.” Sterling ran a hand through his hair and offered him a concerned look. “I want to say better, but I have a feeling she’s still getting those bullshit messages. She said she shut down her personal social media accounts, but whenever we try to ask her about it, she changes the topic.”
“We tried pushing it a few weeks ago, and I swear to fucking Christ, King, she almost cried,” Lincoln added, his face paling at the concept of her tears. I didn’t blame him. My chest squeezed, feeling uncomfortably tight at the idea of her crying, even though it was only in my imagination.
Trying to distract myself from my obsessive thought pattern revolving around Dahlia, I mentally noted that Lincoln’s talking cadence was slightly slower than his brother’s. I thought I could detect a very small, barely noticeable stutter that he had clearly worked on getting rid of for some time. It was possible I was imagining it, but it gave me something to focus on figuring out… until his next words had my thoughts sliding right back in Dahlia’s direction again.
“I can handle a lot, but not her crying,” he admitted, his jaw clenching.
My eyes moved back towards Dahlia’s house once again, almost involuntarily, hoping to catch another glance of her. Fuck. I needed to stop. I’d always had a slightly obsessive personality—it was something King and I had both inherited from our fathers’ side—but never in my life had it been focused on a goddamn person before. I could already see me excusing myself to do crazy shit in the name of either figuring out more about her or keeping her safe.
I needed to hop back on the family jet and get the fuck out of here. I wouldn’t, though. I knew I wouldn’t. Shit. I wanted to be angry at her for inspiring this, for bringing me to this level. I knew it wasn’t her fault, though—she’d barely said a few words to me. It wasn’t her fault that I had fucking problems.
Reaching into my worn jean pocket, I pulled out a pack of cigarettes, lighting one while watching my cousin seemingly think something over. Finally, he let out a frustrated noise and shook his head.
“She’s not going to admit anything is wrong unless there is literal proof right in front of us. We know that. This is the same woman that wouldn’t even tell us when she sprained her ankle in grade school because she was concerned it would ruin our goddamn playtime at recess.”
Why did that bother me so much? I needed to watch out for shit like that. You know, just to make sure she was staying safe… not because I wanted to slowly integrate my life with hers until she had no choice but to accept my presence.
Bloody hell. I was so fucked.
“What the hell is going on?” I finally asked, because I was seconds away from losing my mind. Apparently, the concept of Dahlia getting hurt didn’t sit well with me.
Weird.
All three of them looked at me, then Sterling let out a small sigh. “He really should know. Also, someone needs to make sure Yates keeps his mouth shut tonight at their dinner. His head is too far up his ass to realize he has to be tactful instead of acting like a dumb fuck.”
I smirked slightly at the anger there. What? I had a bit of a temper. So did King—understatement of the century—so it made me feel a bit better that Sterling seemed to as well. I had met these men before when they’d come with King overseas a few times now… but even I had to admit they’d changed. I wasn’t positive exactly what was going on here, but it wasn’t normal, and oddly, that didn’t bother me.
“This spring,” King began, capturing my attention as he looked towards the house to make sure we were still alone, “and I have no idea how the hell we hadn’t caught onto this, but apparently she began being bullied online. Not in school, probably because we were there with her, but she began receiving these horrible anonymous messages and a bunch of other shit. It had started right after the holidays and got progressively worse, because instead of telling anyone, she kept trying to brush it off. Of course, we started to realize there was something wrong, but Dahlia is extremely good at deflecting situations and bringing it back to you. She always had some minor reason for why her mood was off, so I trusted she would fucking tell us if something was going on. I didn’t consider—”
King inhaled sharply, running his fingers through his hair, looking like he was going to absolutely lose his shit. I exhaled the smoke of my cigarette, wondering just how close we were to King having a complete rage blackout. I wish I was joking about that concern, but he’d been like that since we were young teens. Usually he was damn good at keeping his shit together, but there had been a few times when he absolutely lost it, and, well, last time had been this summer… that cleanup price tag had been actually rather expensive.
Luckily, the person that suffered his wrath had deserved it, so I couldn’t be all that upset. It wasn’t like his father would be surprised, and mine wasn’t around enough to notice.
Sterling eyed him with speculation, and I know they were concerned about the same thing I was. “The reason Dahlia didn’t tell us wasn’t because of a lack of trust, King. You know that. She didn’t tell us because she didn’t want to bother us with it. She will always do shit like that—it’s who she is. That is never going to change.”
Sterling fixed his gaze on mine as my cousin nodded, staying silent. “I found her sobbing after one of our classes, and one thing led to another until I essentially took her fucking phone from her. It was pretty damn easy to see what had worked her up since the messages were actively coming in—” He inhaled, a dark flash crossing his face. “They were bad. Really fucking bad.”
“We still don’t know who was doing it,” Lincoln admitted quietly. “The number wasn’t traceable, and she won’t talk about it. She has deleted all of her apps, supposedly, and acts like it never happened.”
Silence filled the space between us as I found a rage settling in my chest, one that was purely fueled by the concept that someone had and possibly continued to hurt Dahlia. I swallowed, feeling unbalanced.
“Has she been eating more?” King nearly barked out as if the question had just occurred to him, catching me off guard.
“Hard to tell,” Sterling hedged. “She eats with us and her parents, but you know how that shit can go.”
“Why wouldn’t she be eating?” I didn’t bother stopping the question leaving my mouth. I was a lost cause at this point.
“A lot of the messages revolved around her looks,” King explained. “We were over for dinner one night, and her mom mentioned to her in passing that she needed to eat more, that she was looking too thin. I hadn’t noticed it until then, but once I did, it was impossible to fucking ignore.”
He eyed me cautiously before admitting, “According to her records from the doctor, she has lost almost fifteen pounds in the space of about six months. How we didn’t fucking notice that is beyond me.”
I blinked, realizing King was admitting to breaking into her medical records. I didn’t comment on that, though. I was far more concerned about the fact that the tiny woman I’d been talking to only minutes ago couldn’t really afford to lose weight.
“I am torn between wanting to kill everyone and anyone that sent her shit,” King explained, his voice going cold before he sighed, “and spanking her ass bright red for not tellin
g us when this shit started. We could have handled it. It should have never gotten this bad.”
Kingston didn’t make the first set of threats lightly. I hadn’t ever seen him kill anyone until this summer, but once I had, it was obvious he’d done it before. There was a calmness that followed his rage that only came from someone that had killed and killed often. It should have concerned me, but the world our family was part of was anything but clean or neat. It was cruel and cold.
Publicly, our family ran an international shipping company, but our roots were tied and embedded in something darker. The legal front was relatively new, but for hundreds of years, the Ross family had been a fundamental part of the largest crime syndicate in the United Kingdom.
We weren’t good people and never claimed to be.
We did protect our family, though, and it was clear as day that King considered Dahlia just that and much more.
“Once we live together, it will make all of this easier,” Lincoln pointed out.
What?
“Are we going ahead with what we discussed?” Sterling asked King. I could see the hope on his face as I tried to play catch-up on the quick change of pace.
King’s gaze moved over to the house he’d purchased and demanded I live in. I would have been perfectly happy living in town or at his place, but I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. I fucking prefered my own space, and the estate I lived in now was extensive.
“Yeah, I’ve got something in the works,” he admitted.
Why did I feel like there was something much larger going on here that I wasn’t fully understanding? My gaze moved back to her house as a flash of red disappeared from a window on the third floor. I couldn’t help but smile and chuckle a bit at that. The woman was a terrible spy and pretty fucking adorable, which was a word that I never used. Dahlia was going to drive me absolutely insane, and she’d barely spoken more than a few words to me. I couldn’t imagine how bad it would get if she gave me the goddamn time of day.
I needed to talk to King about this.
The only thing that was allowing me to maintain a small level of sanity was knowing how strongly King felt for her. I could never do that to him. He was the only real family I had, so if I had to suffer in silence and obsess from a distance, I would figure something out. I may have been a piece of shit and a bastard, but loyalty was huge to me. In fact, it was probably the only value that I did have.
“I don’t like the idea of her going to Yates’s house right now—he’s been an ass all summer and won’t let us explain that he needs to chill the fuck out around her,” Lincoln said, his frustration seeping through his words.
King answered my unasked question. “I don’t think you’ve met Yates before, but he’s a good friend. So is Stratton—not that you would be able to fucking tell, but that’s a long story. Yates doesn’t listen to anyone, and if I bring this shit up to him, he is more likely to do the exact opposite just to prove a point.”
Sterling shook his head. “He isn’t doing it to hurt Dahlia, he just has no goddamn patience. If he brings anything up to her tonight and tries to push it, any progress we have made will completely disappear.”
A low rumble of annoyance at the idea of Yates upsetting Dahlia broke from my throat before I could stop myself. What was wrong with me? Kingston offered me a knowing smirk as I flipped him off dismissively before lighting another cigarette. To be fair, he shouldn’t really be all that surprised. I may not have had a bloodlust like King, but my temper was what had landed me here to begin with.
My father had decided that I was too much of a problem and that his brother would be better equipped to handle his ‘troubled’ son. As if that was the real issue. He just didn’t like that I had certain lines that I wasn’t okay with crossing. Luckily, they were the same lines that King and my uncle had. My father was the outlier, and I knew that the family was trying to phase him out as it was… so I didn’t mind cutting connections.
In the twenty something years I’d been on this planet, he’d never made me anything but fucking miserable. I had my inheritance and the side of the family that was worth fighting for, so he could fuck off.
My knuckles were still busted from the night of the event. The night that had caused all of this. It had been worth it, in my mind, but not everyone agreed. One of my father’s business associates, one of the real ones that wasn’t part of the larger system, had brought his son to the event for the Ross & Co. When I had found the little piece of shit trying to sexually assault a very unwilling server halfway through the night, I’d ended that shit pretty quickly. I wasn’t positive why my father found it so difficult to understand my reasoning, but then again, there was a reason my mum had left him.
The man didn’t have a compassionate or understanding bone in his body. I much preferred my uncle anyway, so fuck him. I would miss Ardara, but I was starting to find Wildberry Lane could be better than I expected. Not just because of Dahlia, either… although that was a large draw.
No, I was glad King and I were becoming so much closer. Hopefully he wouldn’t very literally kill me when I told him that I was attracted to the woman he was in love with. It was possible I’d end up six feet under anyway. I wouldn’t lie to him, though—if he asked, I would tell him exactly what I thought of her.
When I’d stormed back into my new place the first time and he’d come after me, he’d not only expressed his frustration for why I was acting like an ‘ass,’ but the bastard had pestered me about what I thought about Dahlia. I had kept my mouth fucking zipped, and the only thing that had gotten me back out there was when he claimed I’d hurt her feelings for just walking away without a word. I was damn positive that had also answered his question, which was annoying.
King looked over to Yates’s house after typing out a message on his phone, my attention being drawn to the property that had a flashy Mercedes sitting in its circular driveway. I wasn’t much of a car guy myself, but I did appreciate a luxury vehicle, and it made me all the more eager for my car to be delivered already. I’d considered leaving it in Ireland, but I knew my father would probably destroy it to spite me, so I’d made arrangements for it to be delivered here.
My Aston Martin DBS Superleggera was fucking beautiful, and that wasn’t me bragging. It was literally gorgeous and probably the only material purchase I’d ever made that I valued. I tilted my head, wondering what type of car Dahlia liked. My eyes trailed towards where her driveway disappeared to a garage in the back. I would have to ask.
I tapped my cigarette on the edge of my boot as Yates, I assume, walked out of his large marble monstrosity that these men were considering a house. I was no stranger to luxury real estate, but these properties seemed extreme, even by my standards. His eyes moved towards Dahlia’s house with interest before scowling and approaching us, looking annoyed that we had bothered him. I didn’t buy it.
I did wonder if King was aware his friends were in love with Dahlia.
I knew my cousin was smart enough to realize it, so either he was purposefully ignoring it or choosing it to handle it this way because of some unknown reason. This past summer, he’d beat the shit out of someone at a pub for making a crude comment about Dahlia when they’d seen a photo of her pop up on his phone… so this surprised me. A lot.
“What?” Yates demanded as he slid his hands into his pockets and fixed us with an annoyed look.
I chuckled at his tone as Kingston sighed. “We need to talk about dinner tonight.”
Yates offered me a small head nod in greeting, clearly having been told who I was, before offering King a smile. “No. I don’t think we need to talk at all about dinner. I’ve been handling shit with the twins all summer, King. We’ve been fine. Just because you’re back doesn’t mean I’m going to change what I’m fucking doing.”
“Damn it, Yates, you know we can’t—”
“Do not treat me like I am oblivious to that woman’s every fucking move,” he hissed, his amused smirk disappearing. “You’re not specia
l just because Dahlia knows how obsessed you are with her.”
Was this a real conversation they were having? Shaking my head, I realized I was the only one that seemed to find this conversation surprising. Yates continued, “Plus, I have a temporary solution to our problem. We need to monitor her to make sure she’s okay, and since we haven’t moved yet—”
“What the f-fuck are you talking about, monitoring her?” Lincoln demanded, his voice rushed and catching slightly. Well, at least I’d been right about one thing today. He did have a slight stutter. It was nice to know I wasn’t completely losing it.
Yates rolled his eyes. “Calm down. My father is just going to offer her a position at the law firm.”
“She won’t take it.” King narrowed his gaze. “She has enough on her plate, and she starts her photography classes soon. She doesn’t need any added stress from some bullshit job just so you can keep an eye on her.”
“You know what’s more harmful than stress? Not. Fucking. Eating,” Yates hissed out, stepping into his space. I honestly was starting to wonder if I was going to need to break them up if this turned into a fight. He continued, “Or getting bullied online until she is fucking sobbing again. I don’t trust that she isn’t still being harrassed—she would never tell us. If she is working in the office, I have eyes on her, and I can keep tabs on her laptop and phone.”
I shook my head, because this… this was fucked up.
Lincoln’s jaw clenched. “Do you not give a f-fuck at all about whether she t-trusts us? If you do that and she f-finds out, you’re screwed, Yates.”
“I would much rather have her fucking furious at me and have to beg for her trust back than to ever see her lying in a goddamn hospital bed,” Yates bit out, authentic fear flashing across his face, making my cousin deflate slightly.
