by Becca Steele
I shifted in my seat.
“What about the pointy metal thing?” Winter gave my hand another squeeze, drawing my attention back to the image. “And the blood? I think it’s blood?” She wrinkled her nose.
“I stabbed him with it.” My voice came out as a whisper, but everyone heard me. Zayde stared at me with new interest in his icy eyes, and Weston raised a brow.
Cassius leaned forwards. “Where did you stab him?”
“Do you feel like telling us what happened?” Lena spoke up at the same time, eyeing me with empathy in her blue eyes. Out of everyone, she was the person I felt most comfortable with, other than Cassius. She gave me a small, encouraging smile, and I nodded. The last thing I wanted to do was relive the experience again—it happened enough in my nightmares, but maybe this would help to explain to everyone why I’d been so shaken. Why I’d come here, despite knowing that I wasn’t exactly welcome.
Taking a deep breath, I began.
When I’d finished, the silence in the room was absolute.
Caiden met my eyes, his face an impenetrable mask, but he swallowed hard, his throat working. “Fuck. I think I speak for us all when I say we’ll give you our full support.” He paused, and his gaze flicked to Winter before it returned to me. “You’re welcome to stay with us for as long as you need.”
“Thank you,” I told him, and I meant it.
“Can we answer my question now? Where did you stab him?” Cassius shot me a reassuring grin. “Did you know that Winter’s nickname was Stabby for a while? We might have to pass the nickname on to you.”
“Please don’t.” I gave him a warning look, biting the inside of my cheek to stop my smile. “As for where I stabbed him, I really don’t know. It was all a blur.” Thinking hard, I replayed the moment in my mind. The cold rain, the feel of the metal in my hand, the ease with which it pierced through denim and flesh. “I was on the ground, right by his legs, and I kind of jabbed upwards.” I mimicked the motion with my hand.
“Like this?” Cassius gripped Weston’s arm, pulling him to his feet, then dropped to the floor. In one quick move, he punched upwards.
Straight into Weston’s balls.
“You fucker!” West dropped down, clutching himself. “Fucking fuck!”
“That’ll teach you not to take the piss out of my injuries.” Cassius grinned in satisfaction.
“Mate! Your fucking thumbs were bandaged. You looked ridiculous. You don’t go around punching your best friend in his most sensitive area as payback.” Groaning, he glared over at Cassius from his prone position on the floor. “Do you want to ruin your chances of becoming an uncle one day?”
“Yeah. What happened to your whole ‘I’m a lover, not a fighter’ philosophy?” Winter interjected.
“Babe, you’re supposed to be on my side.” Cassius gave her a mock-wounded look, sticking out his bottom lip, and that was the moment that I started laughing uncontrollably.
It was cathartic, like I was shedding a heavy burden. As they continued to banter around me, my laughter came to a stop, and I sank back in my chair.
This right here. This was what it was like to be around people that cared about each other. The unbreakable bond of this family that had each other’s backs no matter what and understood each other so well.
Something I’d never known before.
I ached for it.
Cassius glanced over at me, and all my defences were down, and I knew that he could see everything I was feeling right then. Clambering to his feet, he closed the distance between us and dropped an unexpected kiss on the top of my head, squeezing the back of my neck gently. I stilled, feeling a flush stealing over my cheeks. Although I was grateful for everything he’d done for me, and I probably wouldn’t ever be able to repay him, I didn’t want him to feel like he had to be there for me out of some sense of obligation or whatever was driving him to act this way.
He spoke from beside me, addressing the room. “I’ve decided we’re calling this Operation Littlefinger. We need a theme tune.”
“A theme tune?” Winter stared up at him, and I heard “for fuck’s sake” muttered from Zayde’s direction.
“Yeah. Like we did with Operation Andromeda.”
“We did not have a theme tune.” Weston shook his head. “But I like this idea. Wanna see my playlist? There’s a couple of…”
I tuned out his voice as Winter leaned her head close to mine. “They could be here a while. May as well get comfortable. Do you want a drink?”
“Please.”
Following her into the kitchen, I leaned against the marble island. “I should have said this sooner, but I really am sorry for the way I acted towards you when you came to Alstone. I was…jealous. I don’t know what I can say to make it right, but if I could go back and change things, I would.”
She smiled. “Thank you. I know I said that I wasn’t sure if we’d ever be friends, but I’m beginning to see that I might be wrong about that. Maybe we could do something together? If you feel happy about it, with everything else that’s going on. What do you like to do?”
My mouth twisted. “My life’s not exactly filled with exciting pursuits. I like…or liked, I guess…partying, hanging out at the beach, reading, and…I suppose that’s about it.”
Winter stared at me thoughtfully. “You make it sound like a bad thing. Look, I know for a fact that you work really hard in your degree course, and you’re being prepped to work for the family business. Just like I am now, I guess. So you’re perfectly entitled to relax and have fun doing whatever you want to do in your free time. I feel like once we graduate, we’re going to have even less free time, so we should make the most of it while we can.”
I relaxed at her words. “You’re right. Okay…well, while we don’t know where Petr is, I’m not sure how comfortable I’d feel about going out and about. The fact he knows where I live…that really shook me.”
“So…what if we go to your brother’s club again? I’ve never been to a London club, and the security will be tight, won’t it?” Her voice grew more excited. “I bet we could get Creed to do us a deal on hotel rooms, too.”
“Creed? Ooh, yes. I don’t know him, but my brother works with him now,” I told her.
“Even better.” Turning to the fridge, she opened it and stared inside. “Pear cider okay?”
“As long as it’s cold, I’ll take it.”
We ended up sitting outside on the deck, and one by one, the others drifted out to join us. All of them. Something between us had shifted, and I felt like they’d allowed me a tiny glimpse into their tightly knit circle today.
As the sky grew dark outside and the deck grew smoky with the scent of weed heavy in the air, I stretched, curling my legs up under me. Cassius caught my eye from across the deck, where he’d been in conversation with Weston.
When his bright blue eyes met mine and his lips curved into a smile, my heart skipped a beat, and butterflies fluttered in my stomach.
I sucked in a shocked breath, my eyes widening at the realisation.
No. No.
Sex was one thing, but I couldn’t catch feelings for Cassius Drummond. The biggest player I knew, the man who claimed he liked to share the love, the man for whom “commitment” was a dirty word.
I’d always been on board with the whole sharing the love thing, and we’d messed around and slept together in the past without either of us expecting or wanting anything more. What had changed now, and why had it suddenly snuck up on me at the worst possible moment, with the one man that I shouldn’t and couldn’t have?
I needed to shut this down right now—falling for him was the worst thing I could do. That was a one-way ticket to heartbreak.
As I helplessly returned his smile, though, I had a sinking feeling it was already too late.
TEN
Three days later, I woke up in a great mood, even though it was way, way too early to be up. The birds hadn’t even started making noise outside my window when I’d rolled out of bed. Bu
t we finally had a lead on Petr. West had managed to track him down at some dive hotel in London, which meant that at least he wasn’t staying in the local area—a fact Jessa seemed grateful for.
Whistling, I wandered into the kitchen and threw on my apron. We’d need a big breakfast to be ready for today.
“West. You’re on egg duty. I’m doing bacon.”
“Why do you have to cook bacon naked?” Lena whined. “My own brother. It’s sickening.”
“There’s nothing sickening about this body. Isn’t that right, Jessa?”
Jessa stopped dead in the kitchen doorway, blinking the sleep out of her eyes. As she turned to me, her eyes widened. I watched in satisfaction as her cheeks flushed. Her mouth opened and closed, and then her gaze smoothed out, becoming unreadable. “Nope, nothing sickening at all.” She strolled over to the island and gracefully swung herself onto one of the stools. The silky pale blue material of her shorts rode up as she crossed one long tanned leg over the other. “Do you need me to help? If not, I’ll sit right here and enjoy the view.”
“I’ll be in the computer room until breakfast is ready,” Lena announced, backing out of the kitchen.
“You sit there and look pretty.” Stopping next to Jessa, I trailed my hand down her back. “Makes a change to look at something other than West’s ugly mug.”
“Ugly. Please.” Weston rolled his eyes. “Feel privileged, Jessa. Cass doesn’t cook breakfast for his other one-night stands.”
There was a crash as I dropped the pan I was holding, and I shot my best mate a savage glare. “Jessa’s a guest here. Not a one-night stand.” I straightened up from picking the pan up in time to see West giving Jessa’s neck a pointed glance. Moving around her, I lifted my hand and brushed my thumb over where I’d marked her. Fuck knows what had possessed me to do that. It wasn’t something I normally did. More like the kind of thing possessive guys like Cade did, trying to be all alpha and visually claim their woman or some shit. Since I didn’t have an explanation other than being caught up in the moment, I played it off. “What can I say? Jessa has a vampire fetish. Sadly, it turns out that my teeth are too blunt, and I don’t like the taste of blood.”
Jessa huffed out an amused laugh. “I have a vampire fetish, do I?”
“That’s what you told me.” I gave her an innocent smile, which I then directed at West. He shook his head as he cracked eggs into a pan. “Your girlfriend used to kiss a poster of Edward Cullen every night before bed,” I added, knowing that would redirect his thoughts.
He recoiled with a look of disgust. “That better not be true.” Abandoning the eggs, he rushed out of the kitchen, and I laughed as I heard him call Lena’s name.
“Is it true?” Jessa swung off the stool and moved around to the other side of the island, taking up Weston’s job of cracking the eggs.
“Nah, but it’s fun to wind them up sometimes.”
A wistful expression flitted over her face before it was gone. “You get on well with Lena, don’t you?”
“Yeah. She’s a pain in my ass sometimes, the way she goes rushing into shit without thinking of the consequences, but I wouldn’t change her.” I turned away from Jessa to lay the strips of bacon in the pan. “Wanna bring the eggs over?”
When she was standing next to me at the range cooker, prodding at the slowly scrambling eggs, I picked up the thread of our conversation. “Do you get on alright with your brother?”
“I do. I guess…it’s different. He’s my half-brother, not that it makes a difference, but he’s always been quite independent. Kind of aloof, I guess you could say. When he was eighteen, he moved out to live with friends in London, and he started building up his business. I was only fourteen at the time. I always looked up to him, though, and I know he’d do anything for me if I asked. He’s constantly busy, but he always sets aside time to see me and calls and texts me, stuff like that.”
Turning the bacon, careful of the hiss of hot fat from the pan, I asked the question I was most curious about. “Does he know about what happened at the docks?”
She shook her head violently. “No, and that’s the way it’s going to stay.” There was a long pause, and then she added with a sigh, “Unless it becomes unavoidable now that Petr is here.”
Her voice was so sad that I put down the spatula I was holding and pulled her into my arms. She sighed again, her breath skating across my collarbone. “Cass.”
“Yeah?”
“As nice as this is, it’s kind of weird being hugged by someone who’s naked other than wearing an apron.”
“I wouldn’t know. Wanna get naked so I can tell you how it feels?”
Her hand slapped my bare ass. “Behave.”
“Excuse me?” Just for that ass slap, I groped hers. My dick stirred, enjoying the feel of her fucking hot body way too much, and I quickly released her, stepping back. A hard-on wasn’t a great idea when you were only wearing an apron and cooking hot food. “No bacon boners,” I muttered to myself, earning a raised brow from Jessa.
“I’m not even going to ask what that means.”
“Best not to,” I agreed, examining the bacon. “Bacon’s ready. How are the eggs?”
She turned off the hob and gave the pan a small shake. “Done.”
When everyone was assembled in the kitchen, devouring the piles of food, we went through our plan. After all the shit that had gone down in the past, it was a simple one: find Petr and ask him what the fuck he was doing. I wasn’t sure how the asking part was going to go down, but I had an idea, thanks to the look of bloodthirsty excitement Cade and Z were both trying and failing to conceal. As far as I was concerned, anything that would get this situation sorted out soonest was good with me. None of us were expecting much trouble—we’d established that Petr was acting alone, and really, what could one man do?
Cade, Z, and I were taking my SUV while West and Lena were on standby for any computer shit that needed doing. Jessa…she hid it well, but I think everything that had happened had fucked with her head more than she let on, so I’d pulled Winter aside and asked her to distract Jessa today while we were otherwise occupied.
So anyway, that was our plan. Breakfast done, the three of us piled into my SUV, escaping while Jessa was in the shower. We arrived in London just before 8:30 a.m., and I managed to sneak into a street parking spot close to the hotel Littlefinger was staying in.
“What the fuck kind of dive is this?” Cade stared at the peeling, chipped front door, covered in a faded red plastic awning that said “Queen’s Hotel.”
“The kind that has a one-star rating on TripAdvisor.” I stepped across the broken tiles outside the door and pushed it open a crack, peering inside. There was a bored-looking brunette at the front desk, playing with her phone. Other than that, the area was empty. Closing the door again, I lowered my voice. “Operation Littlefinger has commenced. I’ll distract the woman in reception while you two sneak past.”
“Alright. You sure?”
“Yeah.” I nodded at Cade. “I’m more charming than you, and Z would probably make her cry with his serial killer stare.” Zayde directed said stare at me, and I stared right back, unimpressed. “That look doesn’t work on me, mate. I’m immune.”
Narrowing his eyes at me, he increased the intensity of his glare, and I widened my eyes. “Cade, he wants to kill me!”
“Shut the fuck up, you idiot.” Caiden cuffed me round the back of my head, and I cuffed him right back.
Zayde rolled his eyes at us, tapping a non-existent watch on his wrist. “Are you two finished?”
“N—” I caught Cade’s eye. “Yes.” He smirked at me, and I gave him a wide, fake grin as I pushed the front door open all the way and headed inside. The receptionist raised her head when I entered, and I immediately dialled up my smile, crossing over to the desk. I positioned myself at the side so she’d have to turn away from the door and stairs to view me and leaned my arms on the desk, making sure I flexed my biceps.
Of course, she couldn�
�t resist my charm. Crowding into my personal space, she leaned right over the desk, not so subtly tugging the neckline of her top down so I could get a better view of her cleavage. I appreciated the effort.
“Are you lost?” She looked me up and down.
She’d given me an opening, and I might as well run with it. “Yes. I am looking for…how you say…Buck-ing-ham Palace?” For some reason, I’d affected an unidentifiable accent.
“I thought so. We don’t get men that look like you checking in here.”
“What…you mean?” Fuck. My accent had managed to change again, but luckily, she didn’t seem to notice, too busy undressing me with her eyes.
Her hand slid onto my bicep, and she gave it a squeeze. “Handsome. Rich.”
“I am both of those things.” Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that Caiden and Zayde had disappeared up the top of the stairs, and I let myself relax. Now, I just had to keep up the flirting until they came back. And try to stick to one accent.
Batting her lashes at me, she gave my bicep one last squeeze before she released her grip and opened a drawer at the side of the desk. “I’m assuming that from your question, you don’t have a maps app on your phone?”
I shook my head, sticking out my bottom lip sadly, and she melted. “Don’t you worry. I’ll sort you out.” She began unfolding a map that, by the time it was fully unfolded, took up almost the entire reception desk. “Now, see. We’re here…” Grabbing a biro, she circled an area on the map, then circled it another three times, just in case I didn’t get it. “You want to go down here…” Drawing a wobbly line on the map, she described where I needed to go, and I made affirmative noises every now and then, while keeping one eye on the stairs. When she’d finished explaining and there was still no sign of my friends, I kept her occupied, asking her for bar and restaurant recommendations.
