Page 56 of Freed By Fire
All those years you spent making sure he’s safe when you should’ve been keeping an eye out.
Out of all of us, he was supposed to be safe, protected in a way I’d failed to do for my mother.
You have no one to blame but yourself for how things wound up. If it weren’t for you, Oliver wouldn’t have gotten a taste of the darkness.
And I wouldn’t be staring at him, trying to determine whether he’d hurt London.
The brother I thought I knew wouldn’t hurt a fly, much less harm a hair on London’s head, but it’s hard to reconcile the two.
He isn’t the same little boy who chased butterflies in the garden and jumped into the pool to splash everyone.
It isn’t even the gangly teenager who was angry at the world and everyone in it.
How had I let this happen?
“I didn’t expect London to mean so much to me,” I confess to Oliver. “But now that I’ve found her, I won’t let anything happen to her.”
I wait for him to look at me. “If anyone so much as looks in her direction, I’ll end them.”
Oliver glances up and holds my gaze. “I heard Dad talking about what you’re willing to risk for her. I thought he was exaggerating.”
“Why would he be?”
The sooner everyone else accepts that, the better it’ll be for everyone.
Including my family.Especiallymy family.
Oliver cocks his head, his eyes wide and unflinching. “What about the family?”
“What about the family?”
Oliver leans away from me and clears his throat. “Nothing. It’s just going to be hard to be everywhere at once.”
I offer Oliver a cold look. “It’s why I take precautions to make sure I can trust the people around me, no matter what they are to me.”
“I see.”
“A piece of friendly advice, little brother,” I add. “This isn’t your world. I’d stick to what I know, if I were you.”
Oliver looks at me and presses his mouth into a thin, white line. “I’m not a child, Mason.”
“In this world, you might as well be,” I tell him. “You shouldn’t mess with things you don’t know anything about.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Katia isn’t the same person you once knew,” I reply. “I know she had a soft spot for you when we were younger, but things are different now.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Oliver replies, his voice growing stronger. “There’s nothing between Katia and me.”
I snort. “While you’re here, you should work on your poker face.”
Oliver shakes his head. “I—”
“Don’t waste my time, brother. Being a Payne won’t save you from certain consequences.”
Oliver frowns. “I can’t tell if you’re warning me or threatening me.”
“I don’t care how you interpret it, as long as you listen.”
