by S R Dyble
I still felt flustered from what we had just done and in the lift down to the ground floor, I took deep breaths to calm myself down.
"I love that look on your face," Nick said from my side, and in the mirror on the wall, I could see him staring at me as I analyzed my face.
"Makes me wanna make love to you all over again," he said quietly against my ear as the doors opened and more people walked into the lift. I tried not to blush and gave his hand a little squeeze.
Once on the ground floor, Nick led me outside without going to the desk to check out. He led me straight to a car parked just outside after the man inside showed himself to us. He showed Nick his ID in silence and Nick nodded before thanking him for the keys he had handed him.
As always, Nick sped away and I gripped a hold of my seat. It was about 8:30pm, which meant Nick planned on getting there dead-on 9pm to board the jet and set off straight away. He raced through traffic down the motorway and didn't speak once as his eyes flicked from each of the mirrors and then back to the road.
"You have to teach me to drive like this," I said and he smiled, still not saying anything.
The second we pulled into the airport, I took a much needed sigh of relief. We were given access to drive straight up to the jet. Then just as we were about to get out of the car, fully suited men appeared out of nowhere and I gripped at Nick’s arm.
"Nick," I said, a little nervous.
"Don't worry," he said, taking my hand. "They're Delta, look at the masks."
I nodded as he smiled. "My brother sent them."
My chest expanded knowing Kit had sent them to ensure we wouldn't be ambushed at the airport. We were able to board the jet in peace, and a few of the guards nodded their heads at Nick and joined us on the jet. They guarded either end of the plane and as the air hostess offered us both food and drink we both declined. All I wanted to do was climb onto Nick's lap and never leave again. So once we were successfully in the air and the seatbelt sign was turned off, that was what I did. At first he looked surprised, but then he shifted his chair to recline back so that I could sit on his lap and lay against his body. I felt so safe here with him, and I closed my eyes as he kissed my forehead.
"Everything's okay," he said, trying to keep me calm. I still had to doubt it, and I wondered if he truly believed that.
What would happen once we were back home?
"Move in with me," Nick said, catching me off guard.
I lifted my head to look at him.
"What?"
"Move in with me, please."
I stared at him, trying to make sense of what he'd said.
"You want me to live with you?"
"Yes, that's what I'm asking." He smiled as if he wanted to laugh. "And with my brothers of course but mainly me..."
I stared at him longer, trying to comprehend what he had said.
"I know what you're thinking. We haven't been together for two minutes. This isn't about you and me, it's about safety…"
I raised my eyebrows.
"Okay, this is about us, it's me wanting you with me all the time not only so that you're safe but because after the time we've spent together, I can't imagine you being anywhere else but with me."
I smiled at him, and trailed my hands down his chest.
"I'm serious, Lill', I don't wanna be apart from you again."
I nodded. "I don't wanna be apart from you either."
"So you'll move in with me?"
I couldn't believe what I was about to do, but I nodded my head and agreed whole-heartedly to this.
Nick smiled and kissed me hard.
"You've just made me so happy."
"What about my parents, will they still—"
"They'll still have protection, just like Eves' family does. They will have around the clock security, just like they do now when they actually allow for it. Your parents are so difficult to follow..."
I nodded, knowing they travelled so much that having constant eyes on them was impossible. I settled my head back against his body.
"Rest now, Petal," he said softly against my hair.
But I couldn't rest, and I sat up and looked back up at Nick after remembering a piece of crucial information that I hadn't yet told him.
"What is it?" he asked.
I wanted to hit myself for not telling him sooner. There were many times that I could have, I'd just gotten completely lost in our relationship that I'd let it completely slipped my mind.
"The day we went to the amusement park, I forgot to tell you that I'd seen Omar acting suspiciously."
"Go on…"
"He was meeting someone down the side of one of the houses. He passed them something. Taking something in return, then left to meet us all at the car."
Nick nodded. "He was part of the smuggling team for my father. Looks like he still is..."
"How do you know that's what he was doing? I didn't actually see the drugs or any money. I was standing too far away."
"Because I was part of that team, Lill', that used to be me."
I stared at him and sat up straight, trying to comprehend what Nick was telling me.
"You used to be a drug dealer?"
He nodded, looking disgusted.
"But I told you, that was before everything. I'm not that person anymore. Now I catch drug dealers, I wouldn't ever go near it again."
"Did you ever take the drugs?"
"The most I've done is weed. One time only, because my father found out about it and had his men kick the shit out of me for it."
I held my hands over my mouth.
"He told me that we didn't do that shit, that we had to stay sharp. I was fifteen, he called me a pussy and made sure I paid for it and then left it at that. That was until Kit walked in to find that three of his men had just beaten me to a pulp. Three huge fucking men and he had all of them crippled on the floor."
Again, my eyes widened.
"My father didn't beat Kit as he had done me, instead, he trained him harder, creating the perfect machine."
I noticed then the guilt in Nick's eyes.
"He knew Kit was a powerful fighter, but he didn't know just how good of a fighter he was until that day. If I hadn't have gotten myself beaten like that, Kit would have probably never—"
"Woah, wait…" I told him, holding onto his chest. "Don't dare do that, your brother becoming your father's pet was not your fault. You had no idea that was going to happen and your father would have only found another way to realise Kit's potential. You played absolutely no part in what your father did to Kit, do you understand?"
He stared at me but didn't answer.
"Nick, tell me you know that," I said, moving my face closer to his. "I can't have you holding so much guilt."
"I can't tell you that, Lilly."
"You best start believing it, Nick, or I'll beat the shit out of you worse than those guys ever could have, just to make you believe it."
Nick scoffed and brought his hand to my face. "I'm looking forward to it."
I frowned as he continued to smile at me and caressed my face.
"You were just a kid, Nick. You can't put that amount of blame onto yourself for something that happened when you were still just a kid."
I wanted him to nod, to look me in the eyes—anything. Instead he sat lounged back in his chair and stared at the floor as if he was contemplating the whole scenario in his head again.
"Kit made me promise not to tell Jason, Jax, and Eric."
"What, why?"
"He knew they'd rise up against my father if they knew he'd had me beaten that way. Kit was still just a kid himself and despite the amount of strength he had, he was afraid. Afraid of what my father would do to my brothers if they were to rise up against him. So I told them I'd been attacked by members of another gang during a drug deal…"
"Do they know now?" I asked him and he nodded.
"Kit told them. It was after he'd spent a lot of time with Eve's father, after he changed. He wanted to be the o
ne to tell them and he hated himself for not telling them earlier. He felt like he'd betrayed me as a brother."
I shook my head in disbelief.
"I punched him in the face for taking the blame for something that wasn't his fault…"
I stared at him. "Why the hell did you punch him?"
He shrugged. "Just seemed like the right thing to do at the time. In a strange way it did the job. After then we swore never to speak about it again and we haven't, until now."
"I'm the only person you've spoken about this with since then?"
He nodded. "I assume Eve now knows, Kit tells her everything, and so he should. Eve is family now so she gets to know things like that."
I smiled, loving how accepting and loving his brothers were towards Eve.
"Does that mean I'm family now, too? Now that I know?"
"Sweetheart, you've been family from the moment I saw you at that cinema."
I rolled my eyes and smiled whilst looking away.
"I knew from that moment that I was going to have you, I just fucked about a lot towards my realisation of how I wanted you."
I scoffed. "Tell me about it…"
He lifted his hand again and traced the outer edges of my cheek.
"Come here," he said and I rested my head back against his chest, enjoying the gentle thumping of his heart as I closed my eyes.
"Can I ask you something?" I asked, sitting up to look at him.
"Anything."
"Anything?" I raised my eyebrows playfully, making him smile at me.
"Eve told me about Delta, how her father offered you all a way out. What made you trust him? None of you knew him."
"Because he could see us for what we really were," he said, simply.
"Which was?"
"Puppets. We were our father’s puppets. He wanted to cut the strings and give us a second chance. At first, he just recruited Kit. Damn, he was enough for him to deal with nevermind all of us at once." He grinned.
Nick ran his fingers over his lips, his memories flashing across his eyes as he just stared. "The rest of us were granted immunity from our father’s actions. We were given the chance to start again, given somewhere to live at Delta and as long as we never came into contact with any members of my father's gang again, we'd be safe. Although they didn't have to worry about that, we wanted out already so we definitely weren't ever going back."
I shifted to sit beside him as opposed to sitting on him.
"Then once Kit and him had an understanding, we were all invited to join Delta. I was the first to sign up after Kit..."
"What about your other brothers? Why didn't they join?"
He stared at me, and I wondered if I was going to get the full story or not.
"Imagine a life around my father and his gang—the constant verbal abuse—sometimes physical. Once given that freedom, my brothers wanted to live normal lives. So although they were so grateful to Eves' father, they couldn't wait to get our own place and to start living. Really living."
"And what about you?" I asked him.
"I wanted that too. I also had a thirst like Kit. I couldn't just fall into a normal life after everything that had happened..."
I nodded.
"We trained hard. And I mean really hard. Instead of the perfect members of my father's gang, we became the perfect members of Delta. And that one thing alone was and still is enough to send my father into madness, nevermind the fact that we betrayed and left him."
I tried to assemble my thoughts.
"I've wanted to ask you something, but I don't know if I should."
"I told you, ask me anything," he said, sitting forward.
"Okay... For months and months I watched the grief eat at Eves. That night destroyed her. I guess... I just wanna know what happened..."
My words seemed to knock him backwards.
"You wanna know about that night? I thought you already knew..." he asked.
"Not everything..."
I knew it sounded mad, and I wasn't going to expect any good to come from him telling me. I just needed to know. Especially with everything happening now. It was all linked.
Eve had been brief about that night. I never questioned her about it, not fully anyway, and I never would. When she'd come clean to me about Delta, she had only told me that Kit had been there to pick her up that night. That he'd saved her.
I'd seen the pain, the images like visors over Eves' eyes for all that time. I never knew what it was that she was seeing. What terrified her, what haunted her dreams and drained her of all life. There was more than just grief in her eyes.
"I don't think that's a good idea, Lill'," he answered honestly.
I nodded. "You don't have to tell me. I'd understand if you didn't wanna tell me. I just..." I ran my fingers through my hair as I sat forward. "I just feel like I need to know. I need to know what destroyed her like that. I guess I'd accepted the fact that I'd never fully know and decided I didn't want to. With everything that's happened, now I feel like I need to know."
"You really wanna know?"
I stared back up at him and nodded.
Nick took a breath, glanced to the side and ran his hands over his face as if remembering this pained every inch of his body. I knew how much he loved Eves as if she was his own sister, and so I felt guilty for asking.
"Nick, it's okay," I said reaching for his arm. "It's unfair of me to ask this of you."
I was about to stand up and planned to go to the toilet when Nick grabbed a hold of my arm.
"No, sit, Lill', you deserve to know. You were there for her when we weren't. You deserve to know what happened. I just don't wanna upset you."
I sat back and prepared myself.
"I'm not telling you every little detail because details like that haunt your dreams. Trust me."
I stared at him again, wondering if Nick had nightmares about what he'd seen that night.
"They were taken to an old nightclub in the industrial area not too far from the centre of Hull... But we were too late..." Nick paused and I could see the guilt covering his face. "He had a tracker—Eves' dad. A tracker they didn't know about. He'd had it surgically placed into his skin because one day he knew he could potentially be used as a barter. He only told one person about it..."
"Kit?" I asked.
Nodding, Nick rubbed his hands together.
"He must have really trusted him," I said, my mouth feeling dry as I continued to stare at him.
"With his life." Nick nodded.
"Kit could track it, and that's the only reason we found them. But we were too late to save them."
I tried to stay strong as tears welled up in my eyes.
"See, Lill', this is why I didn't wanna tell you—"
"No, please..." I reached out and placed my hand onto his wrist to urge him to continue. He stared at it, then gently placed his hand over mine before linking our fingers. He nodded and prepared to carry on.
"They killed them quickly, but Eve..." I heard Nick's voice break as unthinkable memories flashed across his eyes.
"I don't know what they were going to do with her. They made her watch and then..." Nick cleared his throat. "When we got there. She was barely even conscious, Kit picked her up and..." He took another breath. "She was lifeless. When I look at her now, so vibrant and full of life, it's hard to think of her as something so..."
I squeezed his wrist. "It's okay."
"Everyone was dead. The kidnappers, her parents... her brother, I can still see them so clearly. Her brother was so young, too young to lose his life. Her mother, she looked just like Eves..." Nick cleared his throat again, his voice becoming difficult to understand. I couldn't contain my emotions any longer, tears were streaming down my face but I didn't ask him to stop. I couldn't. For some reason, I needed this closure. I needed to know what had happened.
"He picked her up and didn't look back. He..." Nick rubbed at his face but I couldn't see any tears despite knowing how much this hurt. "That was the first time I
'd seen my brother weep. In that car, driving Eve to the hospital, not knowing if she was going to make it or not. He cradled her limp body and wept against her skin. He was covered in her blood, blood that I had to clean off of his body because after dropping her off at that hospital and being told we couldn't stay with her or see her again, he was as lifeless as her."
I took a deep breath, trying not to cry harder.
"After that, everything was instantly concealed by Delta and Eves was left to believe the story that her family had been kidnapped and killed out of sport. It killed Kit. Not only had he lost Eves' father, but he felt like he was failing his daughter for leaving her like that. It was for her own good, and he knew that too. It didn't make his guilt any less bearable, and blamed himself for what had happened."
I frowned. "Kit had nothing to do with it, how could he—"
"Weeks leading up to the kidnapping, there were lots of suspicious activities happening, he had his suspicions. There were many attempts to hack our systems, spies appearing out of the woodwork when they'd kept themselves so well hidden before. Kit suspected it was all part of something bigger. Eves' father didn't listen, or at least he never expected that his partner and best friend would be the reason behind it all. All of the attempts to attack our systems and the spies popping up like ants. They were all a distraction. A distraction from what was really happening."
I absorbed every little piece of information, wiping my face clean of tears so I could continue to listen.
"I remember Kit telling me about his first day at college, the first day he actually got to see Eve again and in the flesh. I can't imagine how that must have felt for him, but I should have known he was never going to be the same after seeing her again. To be told he had to stay away from her, to then be told he had to watch her every move."
I nodded once more.
"But life has a way of pushing you in the direction you're supposed to be going," Nick said looking at me. "I believe that."
Nick held onto my hand as the plane landed and I gripped a hold of my chair. I still hated flying. I winced as the wheels of the plane bounced onto the runway then back up again. When we eventually stopped, the guards from Delta got up and told us to stay seated. Nick rolled his eyes and got up to follow after the guard who had gone outside to look around. I didn't do as I was told either, I got up and retrieved Nick's rucksack out of the storage compartment and headed towards the exit when I saw both Nick and Kit coming into the airplane. Kit shocked me by walking towards me and pulling me into a hug. I hugged him back and for the first time ever, it felt like I was actually hugging my brother. I smiled at him as he let go and looked at me.
