But the two women we’ve been keeping tabs on for the last three years aren’t at home, or Rune’s, or even the office.
They’re in the restaurant across the street.
I pick up the box and examine the label, then look up at Reaper and scoff. “You bought mepetit fours?”
He shrugs, not taking his eyes off the monitors.
A laugh builds in my throat, and I try to swallow it down. The man has never given me anything other than scowls and headaches and more issues. My loud cackle breaks free, making his eyes dart my way briefly before centering back on the screens.
He grinds his teeth. “Don’t make me regret it, Viper.”
“Aww, my big brotherlovesme,” I chuckle, nudging his side, and leaning into him so he’s smashed against the side of the van. “Makes me feel all warm and gooey inside.”
He grimaces. “Don’t say it like that.”
I lean back and open the top of the box, then pop a little cake into my mouth, chewing loudly. “Mmm,brother,” I murmur, grinning at his frown. “That’s so tasty. Sosweet.”
“Fuck you.” Reaper leans over me and adjusts a monitor, refusing to look my way.
Not that I blame him. Calling each other brother feels taboo considering what we’ve all done around one another. To each other. I glance at Breaker and catch his wink. The urge to punch his smug face makes mine heat.
I hate it when he does that. Acknowledges what this thing between us has become. Especially around Strike and Reap. What we do when we share a woman is never spoken of afterward. We just kind of wake up the next day and go about our business. But sharing a woman is one thing. Breaker shoving his cock down my throat while our brother’s watch is another.
It’s like we all become possessed with a dark need to own one another in those moments. I wonder what Hunter would think. If he’d think us sick.
Who am I kidding? He’d have loved to have had the opportunity to get his hands on Striker.
But we haven’t done that for many, many months.
A year, to be exact.
And we don’t talk about why, even though they are both only a hundred yards away, enjoying lunch at their favorite restaurant.
“You’re over-analyzing it,” Reaper says like he can read my thoughts. “I only got that shit because you’re in a good mood when your mouth is full of sweets.”
I kick his calf, and the look he shoots my way would shrivel a cactus.
“Or pussy,” Striker says as he reaches into a bag in the passenger seat and tosses another box my way. It lands just shy of my boot, and I snatch it up from the van floor.
“More fudge?” I ask, examining the plaid-striped box. I turn it, inspecting the label, and see the same company in Scotland that Breaker used.
They started it a few years ago, after that trip to the orphanage, always giving me some item made in my homeland. Last year I got pens. The year before, a wool sweater and socks. This year it appears I’m getting sweets. I wonder if they do it because their heritage was taken, and I’m the only one who remembers my past, so they give me little bits of who I was before Fallon.
Reaper remembers who he was, the entire eight years of his life before I first saw him at the school. But he’d sooner slit our throats than allow us to celebrate where he came from. Hunter never told us either. It was a topic both men avoided. Not that I blame them.
“Speaking of sweet things,” Breaker says, leaning forward and propping his forearms on his knees, eyes fixed on the screen. “There they are.”
Every time I lay eyes on them, a strange pain twinges in my chest, right under my ribcage. It’s almost violent in how jarring it feels. Like being hit in my heart with an icepick before it pries me open.
It’s not exactly pleasant with how exposed it leaves me.
But it’s not unpleasant either.
I also refuse to name what it is, because if I do, what we’re doing, this planning, this awful fucking scheme to take this innocent woman and turn her into a weapon, is flat out sick. Cruel and surely will send us to hell.
“I need to piss,” I say, and drop my gifts in Reaper’s lap, then shove between Breaker and the van wall.
“Get back here,” Reaper grates, grabbing my belt loop, but I slide the van door open and yank free.
