Violence (Antihero Inferno Book 3)

by Lily White

  “But you’re not walking away entirely again?”

  What sucks is I still have to lie to him.

  In a perfect world and in the best of circumstances I could tell Damon the truth about how I feel. But with his dad calling him and everything else, the truth of my feelings has to stay concealed.

  Another couple weeks and this would have been a different story, but as it stands now, I have no choice.

  “I can be friends with you two. I mean, that’s all this is, right?”

  He laughs, but it’s anger rolling off that sound, that and disbelief.

  “I find that hard to believe considering you promised Ezra you’d stay with him and leave me after high school. If you ask me, that means you’re lying to me now about what you actually want.”

  “That was ten years ago,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest because I need to hide in some way from the energy that surrounds this man. “Things change.”

  Running a hand through his hair, Damon shifts his weight, the anger dissipating into sorrow.

  “Do they? Because they haven’t changed with me. And judging by the way Ezra has been acting, it hasn’t changed with him either. So tell me, Red, do things change?”

  Pausing to let me answer what I was hoping was a rhetorical question, Damon shakes his head and paces away from me, his voice barely controlled when he speaks again.

  “Tell me, Red. Do they change? I actually wanted an answer to that.”

  No.

  Not at all, in fact.

  Not in my life, at least.

  Think about it. Really look at what it is. In my senior year of high school, I was promised to Mason, my life planned out for me, my marriage already arranged. I wasn’t being sent to college. I was allowed to travel the world, but only to make myself a better hostess for foreign business contacts.

  I had my entire life laid out for me.

  And now?

  Everything is the same.

  I had one week of believing it could be different. One week until Damon admitted how he felt and I had to let the fantasy of Ezra go.

  One fucking week.

  That’s all I was allowed of a normal life.

  Unfortunately, the only answer I have is exactly what he doesn’t want to hear. Which leaves me in a place where I’m lying again.

  “They do. Plus, I’m not sure that any of it really matters. In a few years, I’ll be married to -“

  Damon’s laughter cuts me off, his amber eyes seeking mine.

  “Do you really think that will happen? That Mason will go through with it?”

  If things work out the way I hope they will, no. But who knows what can happen in the next two years?

  There’s no point in answering. We could run this topic around in circles for hours, days and weeks and never come up with a reasonable solution.

  I should know.

  I’ve been doing it for years.

  “Just friends,” he mutters, more to himself than me, as if tasting the idea, rolling it over his tongue before struggling to swallow it.

  Finally turning to face me, Damon stares at me in a way that drops my heart into my stomach.

  “If you hadn’t made that promise to Ezra. If I’d gotten to you first, would you have still walked away?”

  Yes...

  Only because I’ve never been in love with Damon, even if I loved him in another way. He’s never been the person who makes my body sing. He’s never been the one who crushes my heart between cold, cruel fingers.

  “I can’t answer that. All I can say is that I won’t be the type of woman who comes between two brothers. And since that was where we ended up, that was the decision I made.”

  “Damn it.”

  His crooked grin is back, reminding me of the younger version of himself.

  The playful one.

  The kid in high school who wasn’t yet so scarred and hardened.

  “I can’t hate you for that. You did it for us, but I want to hate you for it.”

  Sad laughter shakes my shoulders.

  “Thanks?”

  Closing the distance between us on three long steps, he wraps his arms around me and rests his chin on top of my head. My body is stiff at first, but eventually melts into the hug.

  “Friends,” he says, his jaw moving against my skull. “I’ll take that because I can’t watch you walk away again. Just don’t walk away. Promise me.”

  I nod. “Friends. I promise.”

  A few seconds pass before he asks, “With benefits?”

  “Damon-“

  “You can’t blame me for trying. It was fun, Red. Don’t try to claim it wasn’t.”

  It was six weeks of fun that somehow ended in disaster.

  Letting me go, he steps back and glances at the door.

  “I should go. I’m supposed to meet up with the guys and interrogate-“

  He cuts that thought off before finishing it, his jaw clenching tight.

  It only makes me suspicious.

  “You wouldn’t happen to know where Gabe took Ivy, would you?”

  The answer is written all over his face, and it happens to be a resounding yes.

  “Gabe is with Ivy? Weird. I should go.”

  “Damon.”

  He’s already opening my door to run away. I race forward and grab his arm before he has the chance. Not because I’m overly concerned for Ivy, she can take care of herself, but because there is one other question I need to ask.

  “Why did Ezra tell you about the promise I made him?”

  His shoulders tense, several seconds passing before he turns to look at me with guilt rolling behind those amber eyes.

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Red-“

  “Tell me,” I demand, not giving him an inch to wiggle out of this.

  Damon leans a shoulder against the doorframe and reaches out to tuck a stray strand of my hair behind my ear. There is so much love in the way he touches me.

  “Ezra said we’re done.”

  My brows crash together, both pain and confusion sliding in to dance as a toxic cloud inside my head.

  “Done?”

  “With you. He told me about the promise because he wanted me to see how you’ve been playing us all along. How you’ve been lying. He doesn’t want anything to do with you anymore.”

  Pausing, he stares at me with sympathy behind his eyes.

  “Ezra might be done, but I’m not. I can still try this friendship thing.”

  Done.

  Ezra is done.

  With me.

  With us.

  With everything.

  Tears sting the backs of my eyes, but I blink to keep them from brimming.

  It doesn’t stop my heart my ripping apart, though, doesn’t stop those cold, cruel fingers from squeezing my heart until every drop of blood has leaked out to drown me on the inside.

  Damon could have sliced my veins open and doused me in acid, and it would have hurt less than telling me Ezra is walking out of my life without even one word to me about it.

  I wrap my arms around my body in an effort to hold myself together. I can’t shatter right here in front of Damon, can’t let on that this news is enough to tear me to shreds.

  It can’t be that obvious.

  Not in front of him.

  “Okay,” I answer, my voice weak as I change the subject.

  “And why did you attack Dylan when you first came here?”

  He studies me for several seconds, his hand moving as if to reach out and touch me, but he stops himself.

  “Because he’s on our shitlist for treating you like crap. Ezra has warned him, and now I have. There are no more warnings.”

  I bite the inside of my cheek because that pain is a hell of a lot easier than what I’m feeling.

  “Why does it matter? If you’re done-“

  “I’m not done. Ezra is. And you’ll always matter. To him and me. I don’t care what he says. You’ll always matter to
both of us.”

  Damon leans down to plant a soft kiss on my temple.

  “I’ll talk to you later, Red.”

  He walks off, and I stare at his back, the sheer size of him practically filling the hallway before he turns the corner and lets himself out through the front door.

  Meanwhile, I’m frozen in place, my eyes watering, my body so cold that I can’t shake myself of the one thought that is destroying me all over again.

  Ezra is done.

  He’s gone.

  Just like when I lost him after high school.

  Except this time there will be no ringing phone. No efforts to talk to me.

  Despite ten years of trying to let him go, I’ve somehow never felt so broken.

  Ezra

  “So let me get this straight. You fuckers abducted some chick, like went full white van and twiddling candy on her, planning to do fuck knows what to her, and she somehow managed to not only wreck the house where you kept her, but also flattened three sets of tires before stealing the only functional car left?”

  Priest glances up at me, air hissing from the hydraulic jack as he lowers one corner of my Jeep to the ground now that the tire is fixed.

  Standing against the side of Tanner’s SUV, I have my arms crossed over my chest, my jaw tense from waiting here an entire fucking day to get this shit fixed.

  “Yeah, that sounds about right.”

  Priest shakes his head and grins, his hands dirty as fuck from working on the cars, the chain hanging down from his belt-loop glimmering beneath the sunlight.

  Standing up, he wipes his hands on his already raggedy jeans and laughs.

  “Well, first, I need to meet this woman. Hell, as impressed as I am with what she did, I might have a crush on her. And second,” he glances at Tanner and the other guys before returning his attention to me, “all you assholes have some fucked-up ideas in your heads about how to charm women.”

  Moving to my back tire to begin the process of fixing it, he shakes his head again.

  “I mean, seriously. Let’s start with Mr. Stick Up His Ass,” he points at Tanner.

  Tanner, who, like me, is done with this day, scowls.

  “Fuck off, thug.”

  Cocking a brow at that, Priest grins.

  “That fucker has me wreck some chick’s car so she can’t get away from him. And then Gabe skips the entire charade of pretending to be there to rescue a chick, and just takes her.”

  “Just fix the cars and shut up,” Tanner snaps.

  Priest shrugs, not intimidated by Tanner in the slightest.

  “Hey, I’m not the one abducting women to get into their pants. That’s some serious psychopath shit you assholes have going on, and I can promise there are easier ways to make women like you.”

  Trying not to laugh, I roll my neck over my tense shoulders and hope Tanner doesn’t attempt to physically shut Priest up.

  Tanner’s not a guy to be fucked with, but if it came to a physical fight, I’d put my money on the guy holding a heavy lug wrench at the moment.

  Priest eyes me again.

  “And that’s not letting you off the hook for fighting with your brother over a chick. I mean, shit, there’s plenty to go around. Just try not to steal one like those assholes.”

  “What is he talking about?”

  Fucking great.

  Now Tanner is looking between where Damon is off pacing in the distance and me.

  Rubbing at the back of my neck, I lean my head against the SUV.

  “Nothing. That shit is over.”

  “About damn time,” Priest mutters as he positions the jack to work on the back tire.

  He’s not wrong about that.

  This shit with Emily needed to end. I realized it on the ride home from her house the other night, my mind made up as I pulled into my driveway and decided to confront Damon with the truth of everything going on.

  Not the full truth, obviously. He doesn’t know that Emily and I have been fucking again, and he has no clue she’s been talking to our father behind our backs, but he is aware of the secrets she’s kept from him from before we left for college. I made sure of that.

  I was hoping it would be enough to back him off, but with the way he’s acting with me today, I have my doubts.

  Damon is angry. That much is apparent, and nothing good ever comes from his temper flaring.

  Which is why I’ve been keeping my distance and letting him cool down. The last thing we need on top of the shitshow Ivy caused is Damon starting a fight.

  He has a right to be angry with me, though. I should have left shit alone after what happened at the engagement party. Should have walked away and not demanded Emily give us another six weeks. It was fucking stupid of me to think any of this could work out.

  And letting her go again? Yeah, it won’t be easy, but I need to grit my teeth and cut her off.

  I can’t trust her.

  I’m only hurting her, and it’s driving me so fucking nuts I can barely sleep at night.

  “Ivy went to some cabin upstate,” Gabe announces as he steps up to stand beside Tanner. “And Emily is with her from what Dylan said.”

  Stifling the growl that wants to crawl up my throat to know Emily is out of reach, I roll my neck again and run my tongue over my top teeth.

  We’re done with her.

  I’m done with her.

  So why the fuck do I want to jump in my Jeep and chase her ass down?

  Tanner glances at Gabe.

  “Should we leave tonight to go get her?”

  Priest chuckles at that.

  “Jesus. Those poor women. What? Do you have tracking devices strapped to them?”

  Gabe smiles. “It’s not a bad idea.”

  Tanner raises his brows in agreement.

  “And no,” Gabe says, “let’s give her a few days and set something up to corner her. You know how she is.”

  Don’t we all? If I weren’t so pissed about her taking out my tires as well, I’d be laughing my ass off about this.

  Shane walks over from the car he just finished.

  “Almost done. Once the Jeep is finished, we can all take off.” He glances at me. “What crawled up Damon’s ass? I tried talking to him a little while ago, and he almost took my head off for it.”

  There’s accusation in his tone of voice. But fortunately, he doesn’t say more than that.

  Tanner and Gabe have already been watching Damon and me with concern. The last thing I need to add on top of everything else is this crap with Emily or the fact that William is attempting to contact us again.

  How the fuck is everything blowing up at the same time? It feels like we’re all being run in circles, our problems colliding at certain points before we’re sent off in opposite directions to chase down new bullshit that needs to be handled.

  All because of those servers.

  There better be something good on them for the effort we’re putting in to chase them down.

  “I’ll talk to Damon,” I say, pushing away from the SUV and stalking in my brother’s direction.

  He glances up at me as I approach, the skin between his eyes tight, a muscle in his jaw jumping with the clench of his teeth.

  Damon is a mirror image of me in so many ways, but he lacks the ability to keep his emotions under wrap, his rage always so close to the surface that you feel angry for no reason just by standing near him.

  He’s infectious, and rarely in a good way.

  “Let’s talk.”

  “I have nothing to say,” he grunts, anger flashing behind a set of eyes that are identical to mine.

  “Too fucking bad, little brother. You’re out here pacing like you’re about to start shit, and it’s making people nervous. The last thing we need is Tanner and Gabe calling a family meeting about our bullshit. So what’s crawling down your spine right now? The crap with Emily, or is this about William?”

  “It doesn’t fucking matter,” he says, getting in my face in the process.

  Fucking gre
at, now we’re squaring off where everybody can see us, both of our bodies tight, our stances prepared for someone to throw the first punch.

  Tension crackles around us like electricity, the world blocked out because all we can focus on is the threat in front of us. And how fucked up is it that the threat is our own brother?

  We’ve fought before. I’m not happy about, and I’m sure as hell not proud of the time I took advantage of what was being done to us to teach him a lesson he didn’t deserve.

  Ever since that weekend, I’ve learned to control my rage. I could have killed my own brother because I snapped when it was the last thing he expected.

  I still haven’t forgiven myself for it. Damon didn’t deserve what I did to him that night. He wasn’t prepared for it. And I’m starting to believe he never recovered from it either.

  William loved it, though. I bet the asshole made some good money from it, too.

  Reaching out, I grip his shoulders, ignoring the way he flinches at the contact.

  “Calm the fuck down, and tell me what’s going on.”

  Around us, all the guys eye us warily, a few whispers rolling between them, most likely about whether they need to step into this and stop whatever is about to get going.

  “I get the feeling you’re lying to me. Especially about Emily. I think there’s more going on you’re not telling me, like you have plans I’m not being let in on.”

  All true, and I’m not surprised he has that feeling. We can read each other without a word being spoken. I might be cutting Emily off, but I’m not releasing her entirely.

  There’s still the small issue about what she’s doing with William. Damon doesn’t need to know it, though. Not when he’s already having issues with our father.

  The last thing he needs to hear is that the woman he loves is doing something secret with the man we both want dead.

  What that secret is? I have no fucking clue. But lots of ideas have rolled through my head, the worst of which involved her keeping it in the family and fucking William, too.

  I quickly shoved off those thoughts because I know Emily. She hates what was done to us, her fury so blindingly apparent whenever the topic is brought up, which only worries me more.

  If she isn’t working with William, then is she risking herself by trying to work against him?

  The man is deranged.

  Emily has no idea, which makes her a damn sheep purposely walking into a pack of wolves to have anything to do with him.