I didn’t want this. I never asked for it.
Laurel told me that. Told me I should’ve left her alone, and she was right. She should’ve never been dragged into my world, but now that she’s here? I’ll tear down every fucking tradition before I let anyone hurt her again.
“What can we do?” I ask, my voice low. I don’t take my eyes off her face. She looks fragile, breakable. Too gentle for this world.
I think about Rose. A sister I’ve never met. A ghost I might’ve invented, but if she’s real, if she’s out there somewhere, and someone hurt her like this, left her bruised and gasping, bleeding on cold marble while the world just stood there and watched?
I know what I’d do.
I’d ruin them. Burn the world they built and salt the ashes.
“Nothing,” Thomson says.
For a moment, I hate him. My oldest friend. My brother, in the truest sense, but right now, with fury twisting through me and no one to unleash it on, I want to grab him by the throat and throw him through the wall.
“Laurel’s not going back to Rosewood,” I snarl. “I don’t care what protocol says. That house touches her again, I’ll raze it to the ground.”
“She has to,” he replies. “If she runs or hides, she looks weak, and so do you.”
“You’re saying I do nothing.” My voice is flat. Cold. “Just sit here. Play nice. Let them keep gutting her while I thank them for the honor?”
Thomson’s smile is slow. Clinical. A dead man’s grin. I feel mine rise to match it.
That look? It means he has a plan, and his plans are never gentle. Never kind. The other brothers underestimate him. They see the glasses, the books, the soft voice and quiet presence.
I know better.
Thomson’s mind is a blade.
And now it’s unsheathed.
“You want blood?” he says. “Then we make Laurel into a weapon. One sharp enough to kill.”
Chapter fourteen
Laurel
The only indication I get that Carrson gives a damn I almost died is when he doesn’t kick me out of bed. Instead, I wake with a hand shaking my shoulder. I open my eyes to find his face inches from mine, close enough that I can see a faint scar across his brow, the shadows under his eyes. He looks me over carefully, like he’s searching for all the bruises inside me that match the ones on the outside.
I’m good at hiding my pain, so I don’t blink. I just stare back, empty.
“Get up, little mouse,” he murmurs. “It’s time to sharpen those claws.”
I shove him aside, hand to his chest, and roll over, putting my back to him. “Go away. I have another hour to sleep.”
Thud.
The floor slams into my back. A pair of leggings and my sports bra land on my head a second later.
“Get up,” he says again, rougher this time.
“Fuck you,” I tell him, but there’s no heat in my words. My head dangles forward, my hair a curtain to hide the tears that blur my vision as I quickly dress. Fingers trembling, I gingerly touch my neck. It hurts. I can still feel the imprint of Sam’s fingers, the echo of my own panic. That choking certainty that I was going to die. Even after everything I’ve been through, after Preston, I’ve never felt so defeated, so trapped and powerless. I can’t run, not without forfeiting my father’s health and my future, but what future do I have if I end up in a grave?
A toe prods my hip. For the third time, he tells me, “Get up.”
“Screw you,” I sniffle, eyes burning.
Carrson hooks his hand under my elbow and hauls me to my feet, where I stand swaying, glaring at him through tears I won’t let fall.
