I love him. Completely.
I swallow, giving him my full truth. “I’d fall in an instant if it meant you guys stood strong.”
He jumps to his feet, the angry glare on his face taking me off guard. “That’s the point, Raven,” he growls, blue eyes cloudy from a clear lack of sleep. “We can’t be strong without you, not anymore. You fall or leave, turn your back on us, we’re seconds behind. We’ll fucking crack, Raven. Stop thinking you’re worth less than we are. You’re a part of us.”
“So... it sounds like one by one we all fall.” I pop a shoulder, at a loss when I don’t even know the cost or what the hell he’s talking about. “Who does that leave standing, Cap?”
His face falls in an instant, like he just realized the outcome to whatever reality is playing out in his mind. “Shit.”
He turns toward the door, pausing to look at me over his shoulder. “If I told you to leave this alone, to stay away from Perkins and the Gravens...”
“I’d say something like kiss my ass.”
He scoffs a small laugh, making me grin.
Before he can grab the knob, it turns and opens, both Royce and Maddoc standing on the other side.
Maddoc instantly frowns, sensing the tension the same way Royce reads it in our expressions.
Royce snaps his head toward Cap, accusation in his glare, while Maddoc keeps his locked on me.
“What’s going on?” he asks.
“Oh, you know. Secret sharing.” I can’t help but come across a little sour.
It’s not that I want them to feel like shit or for them to spill their guts, it’s more how I know, if at this point in our relationships, they have to keep something from me it has to be something real shitty. I admit, the thought makes me a little nauseous.
Royce exhales as he stares hard at his brother, he’s pissed. Realization sets in, then he looks at me. “He wants you to fight us, doesn’t he?”
I look at Maddoc who cuts his stare to Captain.
“Cap?” he snaps.
Captain’s eyes squeeze shut a moment. When they open again, he looks at me briefly before focusing on his brothers.
“She was right last night, and we know it. We’re missing fucking pieces, and if my intuition is correct, they’re big ones. Face it, brother, all she’ll have to do is ask the right people and they’ll be dying to fill her in on what we do know. We can’t not be prepared for her to figure all this out before us, and if she does...” He trails off, looking to me with miserable eyes as he reaches out to capture my hand and squeezes. “Then we need her to battle it out.”
My eyes drop to the contact as unease fights its way in.
They’re standing here, talking like I’m not right beside them, worry and anger and flat out fucking uncertainty written in all their eyes.
My mind races.
These boys, they’re all about protecting their own, and outside everyone in this room – their dad doesn’t count – there’s only one other person I’m aware of who would evoke this type of reaction from them.
My stare snaps up to Cap’s and my teeth clench. He said his world.
Zoey.
The lines on Cap’s forehead become more pronounced, his grip grows subtly tighter and I know he knows.
Maddoc’s harsh exhale and Royce’s whispered “fuck” tells me they do too.
“Is she in danger?” I ask, anger vibrating through every bone in my body. “Tell me now.”
Cap starts to shake his head but hesitates a moment, then continues.
“Say it, Captain. Stand here and tell me she’s safe.”
“She’s safe, I swear it.”
The way his words trail at the end has my frown intensifying. “But she’s at risk?”
His eyes fall, unable to meet mine, his tone sure and steady as he says, “She will never be at risk, Raven. Ever.”
I nod, some of the strain in my body easing, but it only grows tighter when Royce then adds, “That’s sort of the problem.”
My eyes slide to his. “How?”
“We can’t allow her to ever be in danger, we have to protect her.”
“As you should.”
“At all costs,” Royce rasps, moving his stare to Maddoc’s.
Mine follows.
Pure anger lines his face, sharpening his already sharp edges, hardening his already hard eyes.
A soldier’s strength in a king’s body.
Maddoc’s eyes laser in on mine.
The cost?
Cap’s hand leaves hers the second my body moves forward.
She stands taller, her game face slipping into place, but that shit won’t work right now.
I’m in her space in one step, but before a single word leaves my mouth, three fly from hers.
“I love you.”
I freeze, my pulse drumming harder in an instant.
She cautiously lifts her fingers, trailing them across the ticking vein in my jaw. “I love you, Big Man. I don’t know why,” she says as if she’s honestly confused.
The corner of my mouth tips up and my brothers’ low chuckles come from behind me.
“But I do,” she continues with a shrug. “You can ask or demand I stay a sitting duck, but I won’t even pretend to listen. I wanna puke right now at nothing but the thought of something – or someone – trying to take you from me. You, Maddoc, whatever your middle name is, Brayshaw” —another round of chuckles— “are mine. The only person allowed to take you from me is me.”
At her words, my chest caves with the pressure of the fucking world.
She has no clue, but that’s exactly what it would be, if she found out.
Fuck, who am I kidding, when she finds out.
She’ll take herself from me, to save my family the way she thinks we need saving, to protect my niece.
Would I let her or betray my brother instead?
Neither option is a fucking option.
I’d never turn my back on my brothers, and I’ll never let them have her.
My head starts to pound as I look at her. My dad said Ravina had to accept the marriage, so Raven will have to do the same. She will when she finds out it’s her or Zoey.
She’d do anything for us.
So damn selfless. So fucking strong. So mine.
For now?
As if reading my thoughts, her features pull, so I quickly wrap my arm around her waist and tug her closer. I run my lips across hers, but she’s feelin’ vexed, and bites mine.
“You could try to take yourself from me, but I’ll tell you right now it won’t fucking work.” I shift to squeeze her hips. “And I love you too, baby.”
“Yeah, almost as much as I do,” Royce throws over my shoulder and a laugh bubbles out of her, her eyes shifting to the ceiling before she steps back.
She studies the three of us, but before anything else can be said, the front door opens and closes, and our dad’s voice echoes up the stairs.
“Boys, Raven. I need a few minutes of your time before school!”
Raven’s frown is instant, and my brothers look to me.
With a curt nod, Royce turns and leads us out, but Raven grabs my wrist, keeping me back.
Her glare intensifies, but I let her get her look, search for whatever it is she feels the need to find.
She lets go, stepping past me, so I wrap her up by the waist and bury my face in her neck.
“Me and you, baby,” I remind her, nipping at the soft skin there.
She drops her head back a split second before pulling away.
We meet my brothers at the landing, our dad a few feet away, balanced on the edge of the couch.
He takes in Royce and Captain’s wide feet and squared shoulders and the slight edge forward I have over Raven, who stands beside me, chin held high.
Discontent clouds his eyes but it’s gone with a single blink, his focus on Raven in the next second.
“I’ve had Ravina’s old account unlocked and switched over to you. Everything from your grandfather’s
personal account has been transferred into it, along with fifty-one percent of all Bray earnings from the day I discovered you existed to last month. It’s calculated and dispersed monthly, so you’ll see a fresh deposit by the fifth of every month.” He holds out an envelope and her muscles lock at the sight – same shape, size, and color of the one Donley gave her. “Few papers need signed by you. Your card and some on-hand cash are in here.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t want your money.”
“This is your money. I have my own.” He lowers his hand, gauging her.
“I don’t want it,” she refuses.
He pushes to his feet and all three of us naturally inch closer to her. He doesn’t miss the move, and anger tightens his eyes.
He calms himself. “It belongs to you. You will take it.”
“Yeah, and how do you plan to make me?” She bounds forward, and I quickly slide between her and my dad, blocking him from her view.
She looks up at me, so fucking feisty. Testiness burns in her eyes but the more she stares at mine, the more it eases, and a small smirk finds her lips. She gives a bratty blink, so I step back.
My dad’s questioning gaze moves from me to her.
“Look,” she starts, calmer this time.
He stands a little taller, thinking he’s got her, but he doesn’t know Raven.
“I’m not intentionally pushing you at every fucking corner, but you keep throwing stupid shit my way. I need you to chill out a little, especially with this stuff. It’s ridiculous. I won’t take the money from a man I never knew and who never even knew I existed. It’s not right. You knew him. He trusted you enough to hand this all over in the first place, so it’s yours.”
His brows draw in, but not in anger. “That’s not how this works, Raven. It belongs to you.”
She shrugs, her brows lifting. “Yeah well, I’ll sign it over or whatever if you’re worried about logistics.”
He stares at her, a little in awe, a little in shock, while Cap and Royce wear soft smiles, and me, the organ in my fucking chest beats like crazy.
She’s fierce despite her weak mother.
Loyal despite her inability to trust.
Honest even when it hurts her.
She’s Brayshaw even though she had no idea what it meant to be one.
With zero guidance or push.
She proves it more and more every day.
Our dad slowly steps closer. “I will not take something I am not owed.”
Raven lifts her chin, her long, dark hair brushing against my wrists. “Which is why you paid for me, yeah?”
“I agreed to pay for you because I thought, in giving her money, it would provide a more stable life for you when I knew it wasn’t time to bring you home,” he snaps. “I didn’t know she would blow it all on drugs and more. I have no idea how she could have possibly gone through so much. She not only got money from me, but the state, and, of course, her clients. Yet still, she couldn’t keep your house clean, warm, or full of food.”
Raven shrugs, but it holds less pop this time. “Tales of an addict, Rolland.”
“Right.” He nods, his frown matching hers, a hidden something passing between them. “The money is yours, Raven. I know you’re running out if you’re not out already and the warehouses are not an option for you anymore. There must be things you need or will soon, hygiene products and such. Perhaps you’d like a phone or even a car.” He holds out the envelope again, and when she takes another step away, he announces something that has her freezing in her spot. “There’s an identification card in there, social as well. Your mother informed me when you started tearing your trailer apart searching for them. They’ve been in my possession since I found you.”
I tense beside her and her eyes fly to mine.
ID card. In her mind, that was all she needed to run, she said herself, without one she couldn’t get a real job or function like she wanted. This was all that was holding her back from the normal life she craved, the life she wanted before us.
Why give it to her?
“There are also emancipation papers in there,” he says and Raven’s eyes narrow. “They’ve been fast-tracked, were signed by your mother the day Maria picked you up. All you have to do is sign them, and they’ll be processed within twenty-four hours. No court needed, it’s been handled. Sign them, and you’re an adult in the eyes of the law, not that we need to worry about laws much here.”
She reaches over, grabbing my hand, and when I look back to my dad, his eyes are locked on our connection.
“I know what you’re doing, Rolland, and it won’t work,” she tells him and ever so slowly he meets her stare. “The money, whatever. I don’t even know, maybe that’s something you have to do, but the other... giving me something I’ve been searching for for years? Offering me the little taste of freedom these things provide, it’s your way of trying to mollify me. Make me think I’m in control when in your mind that couldn’t be further from the truth.
“You’ve watched us closely, and decided I won’t run, it’s the only reason you’d even consider handing me a way out. You want this to act as your confirmation, and you know what, I won’t make you wait to witness the answer.”
She meets my eyes, then Cap’s and Royce’s.
“These boys...” A quiet laugh leaves her, and she gives a small jerk of her head, her stare moving back to his. “I could never leave them, so there you go. Now you know for sure, from my own fucking mouth, they come first.”
Our dad’s jaw clenches, but not in anger, in prospect, so when he steps toward her, I stay planted at her side instead of shifting to guard her.
He nods, his feet fixed an inch from hers. “You are more than I could have imagined, Raven Brayshaw,” he admits. “But like you, I only want to protect my family, and while I understand they are now yours, they are still mine.” He frowns. “We have the same goals, Raven, I promise you this, but something your young souls have yet to face or understand is with life comes loss. With love, comes sacrifice.”
His eyes hit mine, and I can’t tell if he’s talking of his sacrifice, mine, or hers.
Maybe all three?
He holds the envelope out for me, so I take it, and he turns and walks away, calling over his shoulder, “Make her sign the papers, boys. The alternative isn’t something any of us want.”
Fuck.
Raven’s glare snaps to mine and she yanks her hand away, speaking before I can. “I don’t want it, Maddoc. Even I know money brings more problems.”
“You want to be able to care for yourself, right?”
She glares. “Yeah, myself. Not like this. This makes me feel like my mother. He gives me money and what, my taking it is me accepting my life is his?”
“Your life is mine.”
She can’t help it, and she laughs, looking away.
I step closer to her. “Sign the papers, Raven. You don’t have to touch the money if you don’t want, but it’ll be there. Keep whatever cash is in here” — I shake the envelope — “and we pretend it never happened. You have the card, you do what you want with it.”
“What if I give it all away?” she challenges.
I shrug. “I don’t give a fuck what you do with it. It’s yours. Cut the card up, hide it, mail it to your mom to blow on blow, who fucking cares. We have our own money, too, so it’s not like you’re screwing us. What you decide to do with it is on no one but you.”
She glares at the envelope. “It can’t be so simple.”
“Nothing ever is.”
“I don’t want anyone to know.”
“No one will unless it comes from your mouth.”
She huffs. “So, what, do I sign it as a Brayshaw or a Carver?”
I tear it open and pour out the contents on the coffee table. Her ID bounces from it to the ground, bottoms up. She looks from it to me.
“Let’s find out,” I tell her, bending to pick it up, but she rushes in first.
She flips it over, reading her name aloud.
“Raven Carver Brayshaw.” She frowns. “My middle name is Carver?”
With a deep sigh, she reaches into her backpack for a pen and doesn’t bother reading over the forms, but blindly signs on each tallied line. She grabs the rest of the shit from the envelope and heads for the door. “Come on, I still want a coffee.”
We let her walk out and I turn to my brothers.
“Was he trying to say if she didn’t take it, it would default to the Gravens once she was given to them?” Royce asks.
“She won’t be given to them,” Cap quips.
“Probably, at least now it’ll be in her name and they won’t be able to touch it.”
“Yeah,” Royce scoffs. “If she hits him with a prenup.”
“Royce!”
Cap smacks him in the back of the head and his hands lift. “Sorry, fuck I know. I gotta stay pissed or make fuckin’ jokes, man. I don’t have an in-between. It’s either this, I fuck my way through the cheer squad, or choke everyone out with bare hands.”
Cap shakes his head. “Let’s go, she knows we’re talking about her.”
“Yeah, meet you out there in one sec.” Royce bounds up the steps and the two of us move for the car.
He’s back down within a few minutes, tossing Raven her iPod and headphones.
She picks it up, frowning at him, but he just shrugs.
“Keep ‘em with you in case you want to drown out everyone. Plug ‘em in, turn it on and fuck everyone else, RaeRae.”
She nods lightly and does just that.
We head for the donut shop, Raven at my side, happy to go get her dollar fucking coffee and maple bar, not at all affected by how only five minutes ago, she became an instant multi-millionaire.
“You gonna eat that?”
I tilt my head back to spot Victoria.
She drops onto the grass beside me. “You realize the grass is wet, right?”
“And you just sat on it.”
She grins. “Never said it bothered me.”
I laugh lightly, offering her the donut I only peeled a small corner of maple off of, but is otherwise untouched.
She shakes her head. “I was kidding. I don’t like sweets.”
“Well I do, and I’m pissed I can’t eat it. My stomach is still turning. I couldn’t even finish my coffee.”
Reign of Brayshaw (Brayshaw High #3) Page 4
