Page 86 of I am Dressed in Sin (Death by Daybreak MC 2)
“You can talk to him out back, but only after Beast gets back.” Grainger releases me slightly and leans down to give me a look. “We have a little agreement of our own, one besides sharing that pretty pussy of yours.” My brow goes up and he smirks. “If Gaz touches you, we get to kill him together.”
It’s as if Gaz has been waiting for this moment his entire life.
As soon as I walk into the backyard and he sees me, his face lights up. But not like he’s happy to see me. I mean, he is happy to see me, but not because my presence sparks joy. There’s the promise of pain there, of a long-held fantasy that might soon be fulfilled. What that is, precisely, I’m not sure of, but it scares the shit out of me.
I pause about six feet from him.
“Where are your fuckboys now?” he asks with a harsh laugh, looking me over with a level of distaste and disgust that’s hard to fathom. He doesn’t even look at me like I’m human, and I can’t understand why. We never had problems before, when we were younger. It was like one day a switch got flipped in his head, and he became a completely different person.
At the time, I was obsessed with reading these books—Animorphs—where alien slug creatures crawl into people’s ears and take over their bodies. They control them completely. That’s what I used to think happened to my big brother.
“Why are you so damn awful to me?” I ask, my shoulder twinging. I reach up to rub at the wound, the wind stirring the foliage around us. We’re getting these crazy once in a blue moon winds called downslope-offshore winds; they’re stirring all of the wildfires that are blazing across the state. It’s a little scary. Or it would be, if I didn’t have gangs and kidnappings to worry about. “What have I ever done to you?”
Gaz’s face goes so quiet, so cold, that I hardly recognize him. The sneering and the spitting and the scowling, the crude comments, the anti-women brigade, I expect all of that. He’s like a misogynistic peacock, fluffing its feathers and crowing over its conquests. But this? Who even is this person?
“I know what you did, Gidge,” he oozes, swaggering toward me, so close that I can smell him. He smells just like Cat, but—even though I hate them both—he is nothing like our father. Cat can command armies, politick, do business. His son is capable of few things besides getting drunk, shooting up, and screwing hookers. “You took that mafia brat and delivered him right back into the arms of his family. How you did it, I have no idea. But I’m going to figure it out.”
“And then what?” I retort, crossing my arms over my chest and feigning indifference. In reality, I know this is a life-or-death scenario. For me. For the guys. For Reba. Maybe even for Grey. “Can’t make up lies about me when you’re playing around with the mafia yourself, eh?”
I’ve never seen my brother so furious before, this cold, quiet rage that sweeps across him and transforms his entire face. He must sense Beast and Grainger nearby because he doesn’t touch me. This is, after all, a life-or-death scenario for him, too.
“You think you know shit?” he snarls, his spittle flecking my lips. It’s disgusting, but I don’t dare move to brush it off. Instead, I hold my ground, arms still crossed, face neutral, eyes dark. “You don’t know a damn thing, baby sister.”
The back door opens and Crown steps out with Sin behind him. Not sure if they planned that, or if it was accidental. Either way, it serves the same purpose.
Gaz steps away from me, smirking briefly and running his thumb across his lower lip. He pushes past the pair of officers and disappears into the house. I watch him go, that cold feeling taking over me again.
It seems odd, I’m sure, for me to be upset about the idea of my brother working with the mafia. After all, didn’t I rescue their heir? Aren’t I still communicating with him? Chalk it up to cognitive dissonance if you want, but it feels like what I did was different.
I saved an eighteen-year-old from a bullet to the head. Saved myself from having to murder a guy in cold blood. I wasn’t trying to get rich or pit my family against their worst enemy; I was trying to run.
So what the fuck is Gaz doing?
I’ll give you three guesses, but I’m damn certain it has nothing to do with romance. Nothing to do with friendship. Nothing at all to do with freedom.
“What do you think?” Crown asks me, in that even tone of his that he usually reserves for Cat. It’s a respectful tone, a contemplative one. Pleasure arcs through me at the sound of it, as heady and dangerously addictive as my father’s rarely doled out praises.
