Owned (Blood Ties Book 4)

He was acting strange. Quiet, and not just not speaking quiet. He was quiet to me…and I didn’t like it. I pulled the Explorer into the driveway of the warehouse, punched in the code, and waited for the gate to open. “What the fuck is going on with you?”

He turned his head and met my stare, but said nothing, as he clenched his fist. But I knew my brother, maybe better than he knew himself. I tore my gaze from the clenched movement, knowing full well it wasn’t an action of violence.

It was about her…

Because it was the hand he’d used to fuck her, right?

His fingers up in her cunt.

In her fucking cunt.

I didn’t like him touching her.

Or the way he was now.

Different.

I didn’t like different.

Not when it came to him.

Fuck.

This had nothing to do with her, did it? Not really…not when I got to the root of my rage.

I’ll make sure no one touches our family…ever again. London’s words shanked me.

Jesus. Jesus, I was going to be fucking sick.

I let out a snarl, shoved the four-wheel drive into gear, and punched the accelerator, driving my brother hard against the seat as I tore into the warehouse parking lot and pulled up hard. Darkness surrounded us. There were no buildings out here, nothing but open spaces all around. A rumble came in the clouds overhead as I killed the engine and climbed out.

A storm was coming.

Just one more fucking thing to deal with.

“Are you coming?” I snarled through the open door.

He scowled, glanced at the sky through his window, then climbed out. I made my way to the steel door, punched in the code, and yanked it open before I hit the lights and strode inside. Boots echoed inside the open area. I glanced at the temporary cold room at the rear of the building then turned around and watched him stride toward me.

“Hey.” He kept walking, heading for the cold room, until I stepped in his way, giving him a punch in the shoulder. “I said, hey!”

His jaw clenched, and anger burned in his stare.

“You don’t walk past me when I’m fucking talking to you, you got it?”

Anger flared in his eyes. His jaw clenched, but he didn’t push me back, just stepped around me and kept heading for the cold room. I turned away from him, staring at the guns set out on the rack. No, he didn’t push me back. Didn’t hit me. Didn’t so much as raise his goddamn voice, did he?

Because his voice had been taken from him…by her.

“Fuck, this is a mess.” I lifted my gaze to the hunting ground, the wall of names, faces, and information we’d captured throughout the years.

This place wasn’t just a home away from home. Nor was it just a storage facility for weapons, cars, and everything else we couldn’t keep at home. It was also a place where we planned. I shifted my stare to ‘the nest’ and narrowed in on one face alone.

The one we hated above all others.

Her…

Ophelia Masters.

“He’s going to her, you know that, don’t you?” I stared at the bitch.

The howl of the door hinges stopped instantly. I glanced his way, watching my brother freeze with his back to me.

“He’ll do whatever that vile cunt wants to get the daughter signed over to him…just like he did for us.”

Colt swung around, those blue eyes wide and fixed on me before he looked at the nest.

I saw the terror.

The fear.

I saw it all in the way his chest rose hard and fell. Inside his head, he was running. Inside his head, he was fighting, just like he’d fought when he was a goddamn kid. Then in an instant, he strode toward me, his face filled with rage. A tremble of fear cut through me as he grabbed me around the throat.

His big hands clenched, then released. My brother had been slashed in the side last night, then badly patched up, and was probably still bleeding internally, but none of that mattered to him, did it? He’d still fight, and he’d still bleed. Because he was just like London.

He knew then. Fuck, I didn’t want to tell him, but it was eating me up. “I don’t know how to stop it,” I whispered around his fists, my hands at my sides. “I don’t know how to get him away from her.”

There was a furrow in my brother’s brow. He liked that as much as I did. London wasn’t a fucking father to us. He was a savior.

“Now,” Colt snarled.

I searched his eyes, looking for what he was trying to say. All I saw was panic and rage. “Now? Now what?” I growled. Frustration roared inside me. He’d spoken for the daughter, but now, when I needed him…when London needed him, he just said, now?

He released my throat, leaving a throb behind, then turned and walked away.

Rage flashed deep inside me. I took a step, ready to charge the motherfucker and take him to the floor, until he stopped at the open door of the cold room and met my stare. Now. Now. Now…

My gaze moved to the cooler behind him and to the body of Creed Banks. We had our instructions, ones which London was very clear on. We’d meet him after the party, give him the body, and he’d ‘discreetly’ have it delivered to that sick motherfucker Haelstrom.

Discreetly…that was the word he’d used, right?

I shifted my gaze to my brother. That knowing fucking stare said it all. Now.

“Now?”

He gave a slow nod.

Fuck me…

He didn’t wait, just disappeared inside. The muted crinkle of heavy plastic echoed before a heavy thud. Then he strode out with the body over his goddamn shoulder. Panic filled me, the thunderous thrum worsened by the bang of the cold room door.

Then my brother was gone, leaving his deafening scream in his wake.

I had no choice but to follow as he dropped the body in the back of the Explorer and climbed into the passenger seat. I slipped in behind the wheel and cut him a glare. “You sure you want to do this?”

He slowly turned his head and that steely stare said it all…yes.