No one that we knew of, that was.
Chapter Seven – Kieran
I hated to say it, but I couldn’t get to Fang’s fast enough. If I thought the world was too out of control right now, I could only imagine how Laina was feeling. My sister was back in the city, and not only that, but she waspregnant. Fucking pregnant. It was almost insane enough that I wanted to laugh and assume it was fake.
Knowing my sister, it was fifty-fifty.
To think, if she would have just left Laina well enough alone—if she would have let her return to her life after I kept her those two years, none of this would be an issue. We could all be one big, happy family. But no, she had to keep going after Laina, and she had to go after me to punish me for going against her.
Tessa might’ve been blood, she might’ve been a sister in name to me, but never again would I listen to her. Never again would I be her attack dog. I was not at her beck and call anymore. No, the only person who held my leash was Laina, and if Laina wanted me to finish this once and for all… I would.
Our dad had taught us that loyalty mattered. Yes, I’d gone against her, but to be fair, all she’d said was Laina had to disappear. She didn’t specifically instruct me on how that had to happen, so I’d taken advantage of the blurry directions and did what I did. What Tessa should have realized was that, even back then, Laina was mine, and in being mine, she’d become family to me.
Laina was my family now. Tessa no longer had that grace, and sooner or later she’d face my wrath for it.
I made it to Fang’s, pulling into the alley and parking behind Mike’s vehicle. I flew out of it, heading straight for the door while I messaged Laina I was here. The door was locked,unsurprisingly, so I had to wait a bit. If I had to guess, the others were upstairs, already discussing the plan.
Fucking Tessa. Really, I should’ve known she would try something eventually. My sister was never the type to sit back and accept the hand she was dealt. No, she always tried to cheat, to get a do-over, to charm the dealer to her side so she could win in unconventional ways. Her goal had always been to rise up the ranks in society; we were born nobodies, and since our father worked so much when we were young, we learned how to make it on our own at a very early age.
To some people, that would be a good thing. Learning how to make something of yourself when you came from nothing. I was sure Tessa thought she was the definition of inspiration, but to come back to the city saying she was pregnant? How cliched. Couldn’t she think of anything better?
A minute or so later, I heard the door before me unlock, and seconds after that Fang opened it, giving me a creepy smile as he greeted me, “Kieran. It’s been a while. I wish this was under better circumstances.” When he spoke, I got flashes of his metal fangs that were much sharper than any natural teeth could ever be.
Yeah, the guy was weird. I didn’t know why Laina liked him so much, why she had to latch onto him from the beginning, but I’d come to the conclusion that I couldn’t really judge her. I latched onto her in much the same way, though I liked to think I hid it better than she did. I hid it for years, until I gave her the key and she mutilated herself in the attempt to tell a story to the world.
“If the circumstances were better,” I paused as I stepped inside, “I wouldn’t be here.”
“True enough.” He pulled the door shut and bolted it, and we headed up the stairs together. “You know, everything with your sister aside, I do think Laina is dying to have us together.”Though he said it so easily, like he was talking about the weather, I knew exactly what he was getting at.
Laina didn’t want her boyfriends to be separate. She wanted us together. She wanted us to have her together. Group activities. Personally, I didn’t think I’d be able to do it. I mean, sure, Fang and Mike had proven themselves worthy of her—they’d saved her life when I was injured and couldn’t—but that night when she snuck out and went to the party was still alive and vibrant in my head.
That college boy she was going to hook up with. How intensely furious I became once I saw them together. How that anger made me break the boundaries I’d set for myself and made me take what was mine.
Would I get just as pissed watching Mike and Fang with her? Probably. Maybe.
“Right now we have other things to deal with,” I muttered. Thank God for that. Me? I was more than okay with continuing on as we had been: the three of us seeing Laina on our own time, in the privacy of our own places, not having to share in the slightest.
Then again, it wasn’t as if I’d had her in that way, either, so who the hell was I trying to kid? Sylvester kept me busy at all hours of the day. This was just an emergency that took priority. It’s like that asshole didn’t want me to spend much time with Laina.
“We do,” Fang said as we rounded the top flight of stairs. “But we won’t always. Just think about it. It would make her extremely happy to have us get along, I think.”
As much as I wanted to argue with him, I couldn’t, so I didn’t say another word as I followed him into his open-concept top-floor apartment. Hell, maybe he owned the place. I didn’t know much about him, even after all this time. Never cared enough toask Laina questions about her other boyfriends because of that friend I called jealousy.
Laina and Mike were sitting side by side on the leather couch in the living room area, no amount of space in between them—meaning, she was practically on his lap. Mostly. Sort of.
Okay, when I walked around the couch I saw they were sitting side by side, but with the way she leaned her cheek against his arm, she might as well have been on his lap.
Laina straightened out when she saw me, a look of relief filling her features as she sighed and said, “Thank God you’re here. Now we can figure out what the hell we’re going to do.” Fang went to sit on the couch’s arm, but I couldn’t sit.
Oh, no. I paced like I was an anxious ball of flesh and bone.
Hey, that was exactly what I was right now, actually.
“We could do what I wanted to do originally,” I offered as I paced around the coffee table before the couch. I didn’t need to say it for her and the others to know what I meant. They could rack their brains and remember I wanted a much more permanent solution way back when.
We’d tried this Laina’s way, and that clearly backfired. It took a while for it to backfire, but it backfired all the same. Now, we were back at square one.
“I’m not saying no,” she said as she lightly ran her fingers over the metal ones on her left hand, “but we need to figure out if she really is pregnant, first. If she is, we can’t just kill her. I’m okay with killing her, but not if she’s actually going to have a baby.”
