Hers (Blood Ties Book 2)

I was numb when we walked out of that place. Empty when we climbed back in the limousine, and broken when we drove away.

“You are lovely, aren’t you?” Killion tugged Olivia’s negligee down, exposing her breasts as we drove through the gates. “Pity you missed out on this one, Caleb. I’m sure there’ll be others.”

I nodded and felt nothing. “I’m sure there will be.”

A low, sickening chuckle spilled from the piece of shit as he fondled her. “Although, I am sorry I cut you out. Let me make it up to you.” His dark eyes were fixed on me. He truly was a sadistic sonofabitch. “You name it and it’s yours, anything you want.”

My heart thundered. Then turn the car around and take me back there. Give her back to me. I held his gaze, the words screaming in my mind. But would he? Would he really or was he fucking playing me? It was just his style, tease me just enough to have me desperate, then snatch it all away.

If I showed my hand, he’d know, and this would all have been for nothing. I had to remain in control for Ryth’s sake. I swallowed hard and turned to stare out the window. “I’ll let you know,” I murmured.

My mind raced, on one hand, desperate to have her back, and not fuck it all up on the other. I lifted my hand and touched the remnant of her rage on my cheek as a whimper sounded in the car. But it wasn’t a sound of desire—it was one of pain. Acid burned in the back of my throat. I was going to be sick, vomit all over this nice new leather like a fucking kid.

Every mile was agony.

Every second, torment.

Every whimper from the woman across from me was a nail in my coffin.

“I need to get back to The Black Room for my car.” The words are strained so much, he’d barely be able to hear me.

“Swing by the club, driver,” Killion demanded. “I think our guest has had enough of our company for one evening.”

Bright lights of the city sparkled up ahead. I didn’t have to lift my gaze to know he was watching me. I couldn’t meet that gaze, not anymore. Instead, I closed my eyes and tried to keep my shit under control. A hurricane howled inside me, one that needed to get out.

I opened my eyes to faintly familiar streets before the limousine pulled into a side street, and turned, stopping at the rear of the club where hours ago I’d met Evans and climbed into his Bentley. Hours ago. I yanked the handle before the car pulled to a stop. It may as well have been a lifetime.

“Caleb.”

The night air was rushing in as Killion murmured. As the door cracked open, I stopped. “I had fun tonight. I hope we can do it again…soon.” 

Soon…

Revulsion burned in my gut as I shoved the door closed behind me. My gaze fixed on the blue shine up ahead, like it was my last hope for salvation. That hurricane roared as the limousine pulled away. I shoved my hand into my pocket and pressed the button on my key fob, all but lunging for my driver’s door.

Lights flashed before I slumped behind the steering wheel and yanked the door closed. No, her voice resounded. The betrayal. The pain…the look in her eyes as I left, knowing I’d failed her. I lashed out, punching the steering wheel. “FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT!”

I’d done that to her.

I’d done that…to…her. 

My hands shook as I stabbed the button, starting the engine. Then it all hit me. I shoved open the door and fell forward and remnants of top shelf Scotch burned in my throat as I heaved and retched.

No. 

Ryth whimpered.

No. 

No. 

No. 

Shadows moved across the concrete in front of me. Someone yanked the door wider, tearing it from my grasp before I was grabbed and dragged from the car. I lashed out, but all I hit was steel before I was slammed onto the concrete. Agony carved through the side of my face as the cold and stench of my own foulness hit me. I was lifted, hauled upwards, and slammed against the side of my car.

“You fucking disgust me!” 

I jerked my gaze up, staring at my brother. “Tobias.”

He was wrath in that moment, his dark eyes even darker than I’d ever seen before. Haunted, frightening. I shifted my gaze behind him, to find Nick standing there, staring at me.

“You’re out here partying, brother?” The disgust in Nick’s voice was wounding. “You’re out here while our fucking sister is in that awful place?” 

I shook my head, but the words wouldn’t come.

Faint parking lot lights glinted off the steel as Tobias lifted a gun. My knees buckled, my brother’s hold no match for Hell’s pull. I crumbled, hitting the asphalt beside the car. “Do it.” The words burned. “I deserve it. I deserve it all for what I did to her tonight.”

The night stopped cold.

“What did you do, brother?” There was no trace of my kin in Tobias’ voice. The bite of the muzzle pressed against my head. “Tell me. I really want to know.”

“I betrayed her.” I lifted my head, meeting that stare. “I fucking left her in that place.”

Nick flinched and took a step closer. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

I opened my mouth to tell them, trying to find some resemblance of hope in what I’d done tonight. But there wasn’t any. There were just the screams of the women I’d betrayed to do what?

Nothing. 

I’d done absolutely nothing. 

“I tried. I fucking tried.” I clenched my fists. “Don’t you see that? DON’T YOU FUCKING SEE THAT?”

My scream rebounded in the night. I lashed out, grabbing Tobias’ wrist and pressed the gun harder against my head. “Do it. Just fucking do it!” My screams echoed in the night. I slumped against the car, defeated. “I can’t live like this. I can’t not see her in that place. I can’t…” Not see what Killion did to her.  

“You saw her?” Nick whispered.

The gun wavered, pulling away. “No.” I yanked Tobias closer, holding that hateful stare. “No!” 

“I think you’d better start talking, C,” Nick demanded. “And you’d better do it now.”

They hated me. Fuck, they hated me. Tears blurred my brother’s face. But it was nothing compared to Ryth’s empty stare that burned in my mind. “I failed her. I failed her and I don’t know what to do.”

Tobias leaned down, his body moving into the wash of light. There was blood splatter all over him, flecks of red so dark they looked black on his skin. I glanced at his hands and winced. They were bloody…and not just a smear. I jerked my gaze to his eyes. I wasn’t the only one wearing sin this night.

“Let’s get one thing straight,” my little brother growled. “I don’t give a fuck about your conscience. Hold out on us again and I’ll blow it all over the hood of your nice fucking car. Got that, brother?” 

He would, too.

My breath wouldn’t come. But I forced the words, anyway. “She’s alive,” I started. “But she’s in danger.”

“She called me,” Nick stated. “Said the same thing.”

I shook my head. “We have to get her out of that place. We have to get her away from…” The Principal. 

“What the fuck are they doing to her?” Tobias demanded.

Get the fuck off me! Her screams resounded. “Nothing good.”

“Get the fuck up,” Nick growled. “We’re going home.”

“Straight home, C.” Tobias punched the muzzle of the gun into my side. “Don’t make me come after you.”

I gave a nod as Tobias scanned the parking lot and tucked the gun away in the small of his back before both of my brothers left, striding toward the front of the club. They were strangers to me in that moment. But maybe that wasn’t it…maybe I was the one who had strayed from our bond. I was the one they didn’t know anymore. I was the one they didn’t trust.

My arm shook as I pushed off the car, stepped around the open door, and slipped behind the wheel. The Lamborghini jerked and jolted under my heavy-handed shifting of the gears as I pulled out of the parking lot and headed home.

Part of me dreaded seeing my brothers again, another part was relieved, desperate to shed the weight of this burden. I clenched my hands around the wheel, carefully driving the streets all the way home. The lights were on inside the house when I pulled into the driveway.

Funny, I’d never felt this goddamn alone, not even after mom died, and yesterday when I’d almost lost my brother. Those moments paled in comparison to this walk of shame. I pushed the door open, hearing a pained whimper, then my brother’s gentle voice. “Easy, sweetheart. Easy now. I’m not going to hurt you.”

I walked into the kitchen and found Nick shirtless, cradling a wounded puppy. “What the fuck happened?”

Nick shot me a glare over his shoulder. “You weren’t the only one who had one helluva night. Grab that towel there.” He nodded to a dish towel. I strode forward, desperate for some kind of purpose. “Hold it to her wound.”

“What the fuck happened?” I pressed the towel gently against her side and a faint smear of blood soaked into the white. “Whose dog is this?”

“Mine,” Nick muttered, his focus fixed on the task of checking her entire body and wincing at every whimper. “We need to get her checked over by a vet.”

“Later,” Tobias insisted behind me.

I straightened at his icy tone, and turned.

“Right now,” Tobias started, tugging a clean shirt over his head as he stopped at the other side of the counter. “I want to hear what our brother has to say.”

Nick stopped tending to the puppy and instead cradled her against his body, stroking her head. “Start talking, C, and it better be good.”

I gave a nod, not knowing where to start. How the fuck could I tell them what I’d done…no, what I was. “We needed a way in to that place, so I found one.” I broke Tobias’ stare.

“How?” Nick demanded.

I shook my head. “Does it matter?”

Tobias gripped the counter, the movement drawing my gaze. There was dried blood between his fingers and in the beds of his nails. I didn’t have to ask what had happened. It was all there in those dark, unflinching eyes. “Yes,” he forced through clenched teeth. “It does.”

“I went to a sex club, a sadistic, vile fucking sex club with a man I wish I’d never fucking met, to gain entrance to an exclusive club. The kind of club that buys women from places like the Order.”

Tobias went still. So still, he didn’t breathe.

“What the fuck are you saying?” Nick stepped closer, his hand falling from the pup. “They traffic the women?”

I nodded, my stomach sinking. “Yes. That’s exactly what they’re doing.”

No…no, get the fuck off me! Ryth screamed. In my head, I replayed Killion’s hands roaming over my sister.

“Ryth is in that place?” Nick’s voice was a whisper.

I stared at Tobias. “Yes.”

“Has she been…” My youngest brother started and stopped, his face turning a shade of gray as he looked away.

“I don’t know,” I answered. “I just don’t know.”

“But you saw her, right?” Tobias met my stare. “You saw her tonight.”

Get the fuck off me! She raged inside my head. I couldn’t tell them what Killion had done to her, couldn’t tell them, I’d stood by and watched it all. “Yes, I saw her.”

“Then you know how to get in.” Nick moved closer, holding my stare. “You know how to get in.”

I nodded. Anything you want, Caleb. Anything at all, Killion urged. “Yes, I know how to get in. But we need to be very careful. If they even think we’re there to get her out, they’ll kill her and us.”

“They won’t,” Tobias snarled. “We won’t let them.”