Rogue (Real #4)(18)
I breathe hard.
Nope.
Doesn’t calm me.
There’s just no f*cking way anyone will touch her. No FUCKING way.
“Go. I’ll go talk to my father in a bit,” I snap out darkly, holding his gaze pinned.
I slip into a shirt and then wait for him to leave. I’m so f*cked up by what he said that I grab my knife and fling it at my target across the wall. I do it several times . . . I won’t leave this room until I’ve hit my bull’s-eye twelve times, straight up, which means I’m calm again. I could probably blame this possessiveness on my cock. I never did like sharing for shit. Or I can blame it on some false sense of justice—I never believed it fair when someone stronger took advantage of anyone weaker. Pure cowardice. But that’s not it either.
I wonder who’s taking her home.
Jaw clamped, I swing my knife and hit dead center.
? ? ?
“SON,” JULIAN SAYS, his eyes lighting up when he sees me. I hear the beep of his heart monitor, and notice, to his right, Eric is rolling up his shirt sleeves.
“Update?” I direct myself to Eric, crossing my arms as I assess the trio of nurses around them. I not only owe Eric his eye, I have owed him my life, here, in this f*cked-up, strange family.
“He needs platelets,” Eric explains.
I hate myself for being unable to stand there and just watch. I hate that some sense of duty, of loyalty to my own blood, makes me hold my shirt up and expose my veins. “I’ll do it.”
My father lifts a hand as I take a seat next to him. “No. You get nicked out there, you’ll bleed to death. Not you.” He looks at Eric and makes a hand gesture for him to proceed.
Eric waits for my approval, and I give it with a nod. I’ve always taken his words—I’d say to heart, except I don’t have one. But I’ve taken him seriously all these years. Whereas my father refuses to engage in anything that might hint at weakness, Eric has, once or twice, patted my back and called me “son.” But loving uncle or not, karma is a bitch, and I owe Eric an eye. For my father’s side of the family, an eye for an eye is not only sworn by, it’s stamped on each of our birth certificates.
“This list,” I tell my father, unrolling it from my hand, looking at Eric first, then my father, a threat—smooth and cold as steel—in my tone, “I want your word, and therefore the word of any man under you, that nobody is to touch any of my targets. Any name here is exclusively mine to deal with as I see fit. I guarantee the amount owed. I want a guarantee to my methods.”
Eric looks at the list and his one eye focuses on number five. Melanie. He wants a chance to f*ck her? They all want her. I want her. I want to grab him and tell him this little piece of heaven? This is mine. But I cannot do that or I’ll look weak. I can’t outright buy her name off this list without endangering her, and not only to my father. She could become my every enemy’s target, known or unknown.
“This list and every name on it is mine to enforce,” I repeat, my voice level. “Only I make contact, only I retrieve and direct payment—as I see fit.”
“On the condition that Eric be filled in on a daily basis of progress as he keeps me company here, yes,” my father agrees.
“Your word,” I insist.
“So stubborn, Zero.” He slaps me, hard enough to make a sound, but not enough to make me move a muscle, and laughs. “I give you my word.”
His word alone should be enough, but words, blood, I will never live a day when I believe in something without reservation. He could be lying. So I bend over and pat his shoulder, giving the impression of a loving son to the nurses nearby as I whisper, “Any of them step out of line, I’ll wipe them out. Even my brother.”
Once again, I see the respect in his eyes as I ease back and he nods at me, betraying no expression as I straighten. I glance at Eric. “I’ll be gone for a few days. I’m taking one or two of the team, no more. I’ll summon backup if needed.” I glance at the nurse injecting the needle into his veins, then back at Eric. “Thank you.”
When I head back to my room, I feel a buzz, the kind you get when you’re hunting. Or killing. Or want to.
I wouldn’t want to mess with me tonight. This talk of Melanie begging the Underground for an extension? “Please, can I have some more time to pay?”
It’s got me charged.
I’m charged with a fierce protectiveness I’ve never felt before and it’s spiking my adrenaline in ways nothing else ever has.
I grab a couple of new phones, change a couple of chips, then I book my ticket online and pack a few things. The buzz in me changes to something dangerous . . . not deadly, but dangerous, not only to me, but to her.
While watching her these past months, something’s happened to me. I want you too much, sweet princess.
She’s gotten to me, under my skin, into my head, it’s like she’s flowing in my damn blood.
I shouldn’t have her.
She deserves more.
More than any guy I know, and definitely more than me.
But to let her run around loose, single and available? When I can make sure the damn bed she’s sleeping in is mine? When I can hold that face in one hand and look into those eyes and f*cking know—certain as I breathe—that she wants me too?
I’ve been working my way up the list, instead of the usual way, from top to bottom. But I’m stalling because I don’t want to collect from her. I’m stalling because she’s a little burst of life and I don’t feel like charging in there like the apocalypse, shrouding her with my darkness.