Forbidden (Blood Ties Book 7)

The crack of breaking crystal shattered the silence. I winced, standing in the doorway of Hale’s office, watching as the new asshole shoved the top shelf Scotch out of his way. Stacks of files took the decanter’s place and a nice array of weaponry.

“He won’t like this.” I warned as I stared at the once neat office now in ruins.

“Who?” Coulter never even looked up.

“Hale.”

Then the bastard stopped, slowly lifting his head. The tight curl of his lips said it all. “And what makes you think he’s still alive to give a shit?”

He knew.

They all fucking knew.

Hale was more than just alive.

He was probably orchestrating this entire fucking thing.

Still, Coulter went back to destroying Hale’s office with a kind of ferocity I almost admired. It wouldn’t stop me putting a bullet through his head, but it sure was fucking entertaining.

I took a step backwards. “So, if you don’t need me…”

It wasn’t a question. We were getting the fuck out of here before all this blew up in our faces.

“Don’t need you?” Coulter stopped me, his lips curling as he met my stare. “See, that’s where you’re wrong. We want you, Riven. We want you and your blood right here. Where you’ve always been…to be the face of all this.” He splayed out his hand. “To the bitter fucking end.”

The world stopped turning.

The floor seemed to drop away beneath my feet.

I scowled, this wasn’t damage control, or a cover-up.

This was them flicking the kill switch and hanging us out to dry. I searched that glinting fucking stare as that chill moved deeper.

The click of unlocking doors sounded behind me. Heavy footsteps came closer. My shoulder was slammed from behind, forcing me to stumble before I caught myself.

I spun, rage burning inside as the guard smirked my way, casting the large bundle of rolled maps onto the desk. Maps I knew intimately. “What’s going on?”

No one answered. No one even fucking twitched, and that icy feeling wormed its way further inside.

This was more than going down with the goddamn ship, that I knew.

This was them burning it to the ground.

“What else do we have?” Coulter muttered.

“This is where we are now.” The bastard who’d barged me stabbed the map. “But this entire wing here is free. This is where we move them.” Then he moved his finger right over the room where I’d put her.

Fuck.

I stared as Coulter narrowed his gaze and turned the map to get a better view. I glanced at the map as the realization dawned. I was trapped in this place…like a rat in a fucking cage…only now I’d dragged my brothers and a goddamn liar with me.

I turned around and left. I doubted they’d even noticed I left.

Panic drove me along the glaringly bright hallways. I headed to the connecting door that would take me to my personal quarters, the ones I shared with my kin. All I saw was that bastard’s finger pointing right at the room where I’d put Helene.

Thoughts of her and Kane rushed into my head. I pressed my card against the scanners and pushed through the doors. It wasn’t just how his eyes had widened the moment he saw her, but how quickly that flare of surprise had turned to a look of desire.

He wanted her.

No.

He craved her.

I scanned the dark, woodgrain interior of my apartment as Kane stepped out of the doorway to Thomas’ room. He wiped his hands on a towel, his shirt sleeves rolled high. I scanned the darkened room behind him. “Is he asleep?”

“For now,” my brother answered in a clipped, pissed tone.

He watched me stride past the kitchen, heading for the fully stocked bar. This place might not be crammed with designer furniture, but it had what we needed, and right now, that was alcohol and a lot of it. I needed to be fucking numb, to forget this entire fucking day…for a second at least. I grabbed a bottle, unscrewed the top, and poured half a glass.

“You want to talk about this?” Kane glanced at the glass as he stepped closer.

“Not really.” I lifted the glass to my lips and took a deep swallow.

It burned all the way down. Still, it wasn’t enough.

“I didn’t know.”

I took another hard swallow.

“If she means that much, I can—”

I moved fast, holding onto the glass with one hand as I grasped his neck. “You can what, brother? Leave? Forget her? You really think you can do that?”

I drove him back against the wall with a thud, catching the wince of pain as his head hit. Still, he never fought. Not this time. Not like he had before in front of her. I searched his eyes, watching his calculating mind search for a way inside my head.

Not this time.

Not…this time.

I shoved him hard and dropped my hand.

“I had no idea you were involved with her,” he started. “If I’d known, I wouldn’t have—”

Wouldn’t have…wouldn’t have what? Fucked her?

Is that what had happened?

Is my brother…is he Michael DiAngelo?

“Was it you?” I asked, my tone dangerous. “Was it you she was going to meet?”

“Meet?” He scowled. “No, we don’t have another appointment for at least another two weeks. We were meeting monthly.”

“Meeting.” I answered. So he wasn’t the asshole she’d been going to see the night I struck her with my car.

“Yes.” He pushed off the wall, stepping closer. “She’s a client.”

I knew my brother, knew the way his mind worked. “Have you fucked her?”

He licked his lips, and there it was. That need. That hunger. He might not’ve fucked her…but he’d wanted to. Or at least, he’d tried.

I wanted to think about that. I bet she hadn’t cowered under his touch. I bet she’d looked him right in the eye and told him to keep his damn hands to himself, just like she’d tried to tell me…for a while at least, until that sick need inside her caught a taste of the hunger she’d been born craving.

Now she couldn’t get enough.

“It doesn’t matter,” I answered, remembering how that bastard guard had stabbed at the maps in front of me. “None of it does. Not her. Not this. Not even us. They plan on filling this place with as many Daughters as possible…then setting it alight and us along with it.”

He froze, scowling. “What does that mean?”

Some part of me was relieved to share the burden. “It means we can’t leave. We even try and we’ll be locked in those fucking cells along with all the women we shoved there.”

The blood drained from his face. “Why?”

“Why the fuck do you think?” I lifted my glass.

His eyes searched mine as it slowly dawned. “They’re going to use us.”

“Yes. They are…and right now, until we get the location of the black site, there’s not a goddamn thing we can do about it. We leave now and we’re out. We leave now and—”

“Our sister is lost for good.”

I slowly nodded. “Yeah, she is. Which is why right now we need to let them think they have the upper hand. We need to play the game while they truck in as many shipments as they need, and we need to, but we can neither leave nor have any involvement here. They want us around by reputation alone. A reputation we built on the backs of all the cruel things we’ve done here. They’ll kill them all, every Daughter, every guard, and then they’ll come for us.”

“No.” He shook his head.

I didn’t have the heart to watch him journey through all the fucking stages until he slammed into acceptance. But that’s where he needed to be, if we had any chance of making it out of this alive. I turned from him and walked back to the Scotch, as I drained my glass.

Only this time I didn’t pour for me.

Amber splashed against the bottom of a fresh glass sitting beside the bottles. I screwed the cap on and carried it back, holding it out. “Here, it’ll help the rancid taste of what you just swallowed.”

“I banked on greed,” he said slowly, raising that stunned gaze to me. “I never thought they’d—”

“Yeah, well, you were wrong.”

His hand shook when he lifted the glass. Ripples of the liquid caught the light. He swallowed, swiping his mouth before he glanced toward the darkened bedroom. “Maybe we can get him out?”

“We try to leave and we’ll be gunned down. I know that for a fact.”

“Fuck,” my brother whispered, and glanced at Thomas’ room.

Hell, five seconds in a room with Coulter and anyone could see that. We were here for one reason and there was no way they’d let their fall guys escape.

Beep.

I looked at my cell.

Coulter: You’re required in the meeting room. Immediately.

“Speak of the devil,” I snarled and turned, striding toward the connecting door before I stopped. “They’ll be taking over the rooms where I left her. If they find her—”

“They won’t,” Kane answered instantly. “I’ll make sure of it.”

I gave a slow nod. A few hours ago, I wouldn’t have trusted him at all with the knowledge of her, but now I didn’t have much of a choice. I left my brother, making my way back through the interconnecting doors…to face my goddamn replacement.