Page 44 of The Bonding Games: Part 2

“And you are? You’re sick in the fucking head, you freak—”

Scotty’s firm grip latches onto Cooper’s shoulder before he can jump on Joseph when he calmly takes out a small controller-like object.

“W-what’s th-that?”

Joseph hardly spares a wrinkled-nose glance at Alby before he settles his gaze on Scotty, who he appears to respect the most, even if it’s still at the minimum level. “This is what controls my daughter’s enclosure. You see—”

I lunge.

Caught so off guard, the Game Master goes flying, and we crash to the ground to the backdrop of yells from the other men, my new brothers. The device in his hand zooms across the floor, and Joseph growls out a bellowed, “NO!”

Tiger races across the room to grab it, leaping over the two of us while my fist finally scratches the itch it’s had since I discovered how he treats my Havoc, slamming into the Game Master’s face.

He roars in pain and anger, and Cooper’s body language is overpowered by a calamitous fury as he pins down his flailing limbs before he can get a single hit in in return. “Not so fucking powerful now, huh?” he seethes in his face. “How can someone so weak, so fucking pathetic, have what you do? How the hell did you end up where you are, the person who deserves it all less than any other on the entire fucking planet?” The Game Master’s skin purples when Tiger calls out, “I got it!” and Cooper continues, “And how can you have a daughter so bloody beautiful, so ridiculously perfect, and treat her the way you do? How fucking dare you?!” Cooper’s fist earns a satisfying crack as it disfigures Joseph’s nose.

He cries out in agony. “Stop!”

His unfettered bellow does nothing to stop me and Cooper as more unrestrained hits land. I let out all the wrath that’s been building and building inside me with every mention of this waste of space, and red splashes onto the taalk floor as I just keep going and going and going. I vaguely hear my other three brothers talking with one another hurriedly in the background, but I don’t pause to see how they’re faring. I won’t rest until the man beneath me’s skull is caved in.

In fact . . .

I’ve grabbed a savage fistful of Joseph’s hair, no longer immaculately neat as he likes it to be, Cooper shifting back to give me room, and I’m just about to smack his thick fucking head into the floor when he shouts loud enough to echo through the entire penthouse, “If you kill me, you will never see my daughter awake again!”

I turn to stone, freezing with my fingers digging into his scalp hard enough that I can only hope they dent his skull.

The silence that follows his claim is ear-splitting.

“Excuse me?” That’s Scotty, his boots coming into view in my peripheral. “Explain. Right now.”

“That is what I was trying to do before you let your dog run amok—”

“He’s not my fucking dog, he’s my brother.” I blink once at that, at how certain Scotty sounds. But the slight odd warmth that moves through my chest is gone sooner than it came with the man glowering at me in my grip. “And we have the power here, Joseph. You’re clearly outnumbered and outskilled. Explain what you meant when you said we’d never see our Bonded awake again.”

“I mean,” he pants out, “that I am the only one who knows how to wake my daughter. She is not . . . here right now. She is an empty vessel, made this way so I can alter her to my liking.”

A fuzziness fills my ears.

“You . . . you what?” Scotty crouches down and snatches up his chin harshly. “Fix whatever you’ve done. Now.”

When the Game Master laughs like a lunatic, his bloodied teeth only add to the effect. “I cannot. She is renewed. A blank slate. I will wake her when I please, and you can do nothing about it.”

“Why?” Cooper demands, and his voice doesn’t sound like his own. Rising to his feet, he slams a boot into Joseph’s face with a bruising thump. “Why would you do that?!”

When he goes to kick him again, Scotty catches his leg, then leans right into Joseph’s ruined face. “Tell us why. We were behaving as you wanted.”

He barks out another bitter laugh, bordering on hysterical. “Behaving as I wanted? All I truly want is you gone from my daughter’s life! You have taken her from me, and now I am taking her back!” Pausing to catch his breath, he continues, “I was going to kill you, you know? After I had seen the truth, that you and my daughter had been putting on a pretty little show for me, as I had begun to suspect, I decided I would kill you all. But then”—his tone darkens more than I knew was possible—“my daughter decided to link her life to all five of yours!”

Sharp breaths are sucked in around the room.

I find that I can’t twitch a single muscle.

Another laugh, almost like a motherfucking sob this time, he’s so far gone. “Yes, my daughter used your bonding cubes to connect your lives.” His head thumps against the floor as he tips it back, my fingers unresponsive as his salt-and-pepper strands fall through them. “If you die, she dies.”

If you die, she dies.

The force of the revelation almost knocks me off my feet.

“She did what?” Cooper breathes. I can’t tell if he’s horrified or wonderstruck, maybe both.