by E. S. Carter
I had marked him, inside and out.
James Cooper now belonged to me.
Instead of attacking, he’d dropped me to the floor like trash, and my monster demanded retribution. But there would be time for that later—when I could savour it.
I’d watched, detached from the scene, as he carefully bent to pick up the scrawny girl before tenderly carrying her back upstairs.
I expected him to return and rail on me.
I waited with anticipation for the fireworks and explosions.
He did no such thing.
Instead of searching me out, he watched over her for hours, while I spent that time waiting.
And I waited for no one.
By the time night came, I’d cleaned every weapon I could find, checked in with Diana at the office and cleared every single one of my emails. I’d also read all the intelligence Cole had sent regarding Sasha Federov, and watched three snuff films supposedly made recently by the man himself at his main compound.
One of the videos was of a young woman of indeterminable age, the other a teen boy, and the last a small girl no more than the age of six or seven.
All the victims had been used for hours, by men brazen enough to show their faces, before their throats were cut by Federov himself as he taunted them and told them to beg for mercy.
Sasha was a special breed of monster who craved the heady rush of the kill more than most.
He didn’t want a fair fight. He liked to toy with the defenceless, and my monster—as bloodthirsty as he is—despised this breed of beast, and howled to tear out Federov’s throat.
Between waiting, and the blistering rage of knowing this man had gotten the drop on us, by the time midnight strikes, I’m bursting with the need to fuck or fight.
At home, when I felt like this, I would swim until my muscles burned with fatigue and my monster quietened merely because I’d drown him out with hours of punishing pool lengths. Here, in this rat hole without my pool or the outlet of my basement, I have only one choice—and it wasn’t the bag of bones that shared DNA with my beloved sister-in-law.
How dare he avoid me for the entire day after I’d been so deep inside him, I could feel his heartbeat in my cock.
The container of butter—with gouges shaped like my fingers taken from each end—mocked me. With a swipe of my hand, I pushed everything else off the table creating a satisfying clatter. The tablet I’d been using to check mundane emails bounced twice on the torn linoleum floor, the screen shattering into a web of cracks, but the butter escaped my wrath. I wanted James to see it and to remember.
I stare at the mess I’ve made and make a decision.
I’m done waiting.
I lose my jacket before striding from the room to the stairs which I take two at a time uncaring of the noise I make on the rotting wood boards. I walk straight by the room in which he slept last night because I know he’s still with her.
Without knocking, I push through the door and stop dead at the sight before me.
On the double bed lies Lily—the Craven whore mark two—curled up on James’ broad chest like a lover.
His eyes snap open at my not so subtle entrance, and he stares at me. I know all he can see is my shadow as the room is dark and I am backlit by the light from the hall.
Still, he stares like he did downstairs, when my feet were three inches off the floor and his hand was so tight around my jugular, I couldn’t breathe or swallow. But it was my dick that surprised me the most. It liked his perceived dominance over me. It twitched to life in my pants expecting him to try and take me as I had him.
But he didn’t.
Instead, he’d come to her aid, and that’s where he stayed.
“Get up,” I command, my voice low and unchecked.
The girl in his arms whimpers and clings tighter to him, and I can feel myself snarl. Me, not the monster in my chest—for we are one right now.
James doesn’t move.
I take a step into the room and stare down at them both, my frame all but obliterating the light coming in from outside and cloaking them in shadows.
“Do not make me ask again.”
He smiles, pulls the skinny bitch at his side in closer, and gently kisses the side of her head, his eyes devoid of emotion but a challenging smile tips up one side of his mouth.
He’s taunting me.
My Pretty Polly Killer is out before my next breath, and I point it at the sleeping woman next to him.
“Get the fuck up, or this time I’ll use the other end on her head, and she won’t wake up from it, I can assure you.”
I see the indecision on his face, he doesn’t think I’ll do it.
His jaw clenches, his eyes tighten, and I almost heave out a relieved breath when he slowly, oh so slowly, begins to move.
“Hey! Ballbags. Are you fucking up there? Tell me you’re a bottom, Luke. It’ll make my day.”
Grim’s voice explodes from downstairs, and I squeeze my eyes shut tight and grind my teeth to stop myself from pulling the trigger just for the fuck of it.
James stills. The devious smile on his face morphing into a wide grin as his movements stop, and he all but snuggles up against the near naked slut in his arms.
They look like lovers.
I want to bathe in her blood.
“If you’re both that quiet, one of you is doing something wrong,” Grim yells again, and I swear I’m gonna carve him a matching scar on the other side of his face.
“If you don’t get down there, you’ll have lost your ace card,” James taunts, sotto voce, before leaning in to smell the girl’s neck.
“I’m coming up. I wanna watch. That long drive has turned my aching balls blue. They could use some soothing,” Grim baits, at the same time as I hear his feet on the first few stair treads.
Fuck.
I glare hard at James in warning, but the fucker doesn’t flinch. He returns my stare with a blank one of his own. No threat in his eyes, just more of that empty void I’m starting to fucking hate.
I slip my gun back into its holster and turn from the room, slamming the door behind me for good measure. If the bitch wakes up, he can keep her quiet.
“Stand down, Grim,” I mutter at the first sight of his marked face as it appears over the edge of the stairs. “You wouldn’t want to wake your brother dearest, would you? Not after I fucked him unconscious.”
“Did you strangle the twat until he passed out?”
“A man never kisses and tells, you know that,” I tut as I crowd him and make him turn to descend the stairs.
“If you wish to trade sex secrets, I think I’d love to hear what Calliah’s bare cunt tastes like.”
My brother, not of blood shared but of blood spilt, stops dead and turns to me with a murderous glare.
“Cal is my wife. Talk of her like that again, and I’ll wash out your mouth with bleach and a scrubbing brush. And I won’t miss a fucking spot.”
He would try, too. Grim is an inventive if twisted sonofabitch.
“Easy, brother,” I warn. “I wish to know nothing about your marital antics, as I’m certain you wish to know nothing about who and how I fuck. Enough with the games. You’re just trying to get under James’ skin. Now—” he walks into the kitchen before me and immediately grabs the loaf of bread off the counter, pulls out one of his knives and carves off a thick slice. “Why have you arrived twelve hours early. Where is Cole?”
With precise movements, he begins to butter the bread, and I can’t help but smirk when he says, “What fucking heathen made a mess of the butter? Even a feral like me knows you don’t fuck with the sides of the block, you scrape from the top, like this.” He proceeds to show me proper buttering techniques.
“I realise you have the attention span of a goldfish,” I mutter as he rams half the slice in his mouth and chews. “Cole? The others? Or have you gone off your meds again and wandered here alone?”
He stabs his knife into the table while staring daggers at me, and then proc
eeds to force the rest of the bread into his mouth. “Fucking meds,” he mumbles around his full mouth. “They mess with your soul. And to answer your question, Cole is in the barn with the team of twenty selected for the job. He’s telling them to bed down for the night. We finish this shit with Federov at dawn.”
He pulls his knife out of the table top and flicks it through his fingers like a circus performer.
“So,” he begins, his gaze flicking over my shoulder to the doorway in question. “Where’s lover boy?”
“Do you mean your brother, James?” I retort. “It’s not a dirty word, Grim. Go on, say it after me. James. Or, my brother will do. Hey, Luke, where’s my brother?”
His eyes narrow and his lips curl up in a snarl. “I’m all out of space for brothers. That vacancy has been filled.”
I smile at his contempt for a man he doesn’t know and doesn’t wish to know, despite their shared lineage.
“Enjoy, your midnight feast. I’m going to find Cole,” I tell him before I turn and walk out of the room. I’m glad for the distraction their arrival is providing. The longer I spend time alone with James Cooper, the more I seem to be losing my mind. Another person has never consumed my thoughts in the way James does, and I resent that I can’t control my brain when it comes to him.
Never, over the many years I have kept them, has a pet evoked such thoughts and feelings, infecting my brain and demanding my attention. Despite enjoying my toys, I could always leave them in the basement and concentrate on other things without them ever entering my head until it was time to return underground and finish playing my games. James, on the other hand, is never far from the forefront of my mind. He creeps into my thoughts like low rolling mist on the mountains surrounding Hunter Lodge, and blankets everything else until all I can see is him.
I shake off yet more thoughts of the man who is currently wrapped around someone else upstairs—another thorn in my side to resolve—and, where I’d initially planned to withhold her presence from Cole for as long as possible until I knew what to do with her, now I want her gone. She can be shipped straight to Faye with a bow tied tightly around her neck for all I care. Let the Craven whores have an emotional family reunion filled with tears and female hormones.
I just need to kill someone, and if Grim hadn’t shown up when he did, that person might’ve been Lily Craven.
“Brother,” I greet as I walk into the dilapidated old barn to find his team bunking down on the floor for a few hours of sleep before the fun begins. Cole turns at the sound of my voice. “Your early attendance is much appreciated. I can’t wait to get out of this shit hole of a country with Sasha Federov’s head as a trophy for my mantle.”
Cole dismisses his team leader and walks me out into the cool night air.
“Not having any fun in Hungary, Luke? You seemed pretty adamant about staying when you could’ve left with us.”
I swallow down a snide retort. Cole knows me and every one of my mannerisms and moods. I give him ammunition any time I open my mouth.
“Ah,” he says knowingly. “not going quite to plan.”
My head turns to take in his profile as we begin the short walk to the shitty old house.
“I don’t plan,” I snipe.
He chuffs out a laugh that is so unlike Cole I stiffen.
“Luke, you plan everything. Every minuscule detail. Always have, always will. You’re anal about control, so don’t waste breath bullshitting me.”
“Your inquisitiveness and personal analysis are fascinating, brother. I think your wife is rubbing off on you,” I say instead of taking his bait, although I can’t keep the ire from my voice.
“Where’s James?” he asks abruptly as we reached the cracked and peeled front door.
I stop with my hand on the pitted wood and look at my brother over my shoulder.
“I’ll show you. We have a gift for you or, more precisely, for your wonderful wife. Come.”
He doesn’t ask questions as he follows me up the stairs, although I can feel them bubbling on his tongue. When I reach the door I need, I stop and give him a wicked smile over my shoulder.
“I’ll explain everything in detail later, but, I’d like for you to meet—” I swing the door wide with a flourish “—your new sister-in-law.”
The bed is empty.
Cole snorts. “It seems your new Hungarian bride has done a runner, Luke. Or did you have James locked up in here wearing a white lace dress and veil with a minister on standby?”
My eyes scan the small room, the blankets on the bed are tossed aside, the only indication someone has ever been in here.
“She’s not my fucking wife,” I snap, unable to control the frustration in my tone. “She’s Alec Craven’s love child, and she’s fucking gone.”
I spin and push past my brother before launching myself down the stairs, with him hot on my heels.
“Have you finally lost it, brother?” Cole calls after me. “Alec Craven didn’t have a love child. We knew everything about that man, from the colour of his socks to the way he liked to fuck. If he’d sired another child, we would’ve known about it.”
I push through the door to the kitchen expecting to find Grim, but not hoping I’d see the missing twosome, yet here they are.
James is heating soup on the only burner of the stove that works, while Grim leers at the woman sat opposite him.
She’s no more than a twig that could be easily snapped in two, yet she sits there, spine ramrod straight, intense glare focused on Grim daring him to fuck with her. This is despite the bruise that runs from her temple to her cheekbone from the pistol whipping I gave her earlier.
By rights, this woman should be curled in a ball crying in the corner, not facing off with a twisted killer.
“I can see you haven’t lost it after all,” Cole says with dumbfounded acceptance. From the way she sits to the stubborn tilt of her jaw, there is no denying Lily is Faye’s sister. If it wasn’t wholly evident before, the resemblance right now is striking.
“Lost what?” Grim asks, breaking the glare he’s giving Lily to look up at Cole. “His man card? Or his virginity?”
All eyes turn to look at us standing in the doorway, Lily’s stare the hottest out of the three, unable to hide the hate that pours from her directly to me.
James places a steaming bowl of soup before her drawing her attention off me as he quietly tells her to eat.
She smiles up at him like he’s given her something priceless and I have a vision of drowning the bitch in that small bowl until the hot liquid fills her lungs.
Something must show on my face because Grim breaks into a toothy grin, while James gives me a look of warning.
“We need to talk, Luke,” Cole says at my side, and I nod once in agreement. As we turn our backs on the weirdly domesticated scene in the kitchen and walk towards the other room, I hear Lily offer a quiet but sincere, “Thank you, James.”
Three words that sear into my skin like acid.
She must go.
Once away from the ears of others, Cole sighs before taking a seat on the threadbare sofa, his massive frame engulfing the entire thing, leaving me to stand.
“I’d planned on getting some sleep, but I think it’s time you tell me everything, Brother. Start at the beginning.”
I open my mouth to tell him the bare facts, but his raised hand stills me.
“Begin with why you’ve hidden her from me, then you can tell me how you found her.”
“I resent the implication that I kept her existence a secret from you, Cole. Do you think so little of me?”
“Of you?” he muses. “No, but I know how you work. She was to be a pawn. Let’s cut to the chase and tell me why, then I’ll let you get back to the man you’re incapable of keeping your eyes off.”
“You have no idea—”
“Save it. I’m not interested in who you’re fucking, although he does seem more than a toy, which is new. I just want to know about Lily Craven. Because anyone that could be ent
ering my wife’s life will always be dealt with as a threat until I believe them otherwise. Especially now.”
Cole’s face shutters. He’s said too much.
“Why especially now?”
He weighs his words, his bright blue eyes so much like hers they sometimes cause me physical pain if I look into them for too long, dragging me into hell with the memory of violets.
He breaks eye contact, his gaze finding the empty fireplace of the small, scruffy room intensely interesting before that laser stare once more hits me full force. Then, without fanfare or apology, he drops a bomb.
“Faye is pregnant. We’re both staying dead for good.”
Seventeen
James
* * *
Luke’s face, when I told him I was staying behind with Lily, was beyond murderous.
Part of me can understand why. I’d brought him here, after all, but this wasn’t solely my fight.
It was lucky I’d already talked with Cole and passed on the information for the girl I’d came to save because judging by the wrath painted all over Luke’s face, had I asked him, he would’ve left her there to rot merely out of spite.
Truthfully, when Lily asked me to stay, I was torn.
I’d wanted to finish this thing with Federov. The man had not only infiltrated my men, but got all except Jason killed. Not being there to at least witness his downfall was almost torturous. Sasha Federov needed to die—preferably in the most painful way possible, and I wanted to ensure he was gone. I’ve seen far too many monsters resurrected from the dead. I’d decapitate this sonofabitch to ensure that never happened.
But Lily had asked, no, begged me not to leave her alone, and I found that I couldn’t entrust her care to any of the unknown men working for Cole, so my only option was to force her to go with us, or to stay at the safe house with her.
The panicked look on her face when I suggested she join us was enough to make the decision easy. The girl had gone ghost-white, which was quite a feat considering she hadn’t seen the sun for months and her complexion was already beyond pale.
