Wylder clears his throat and steps forward. “Cade, let’s not do anything hasty. We were under the impression that you needed rescuing.”
“You were wrong,” I snarl. Ansel’s lips part on a moan, his hand drifting to his temple. He faints, and a wave of panic fills me. Just how fucking hard did Dalton hit him? “Someone get a fucking doctor here before I start stabbing.”
Dalton vanishes out of the room immediately. Probably for the best.
He knows he’ll be the first to take a knife.
I won’t actually kill my brothers. They’re my family. I love them. I’d die for them.
I might injure them though. Actually, there’s no might whereDalton and Samson are concerned. I’m definitely going to punch them later. And they better not fight it.
Right now, all I care about is making sure my butterfly is okay.
“Here.” A damp cloth appears in my field of vision. “Figured you’d want to be the one to clean him up.”
I grunt at Wylder, accepting the cloth. That’s all the thanks he’s getting from me.
I quietly tend to Ansel’s wounds, clucking my tongue as I clean up the blood. Around the room, I’m aware of my brothers whispering. And staring. They’re doing a lot of that.
Unsurprisingly, it’s Harley who addresses it. “Um, Cade? Do you have a head injury too?”
My gaze snaps up. “What?”
Harley gestures at Ansel with a bemused smile. “Well, you’ve been kidnapped. You managed to leave both your phone and your watch behind so we couldn’t track you. You’re being held captive by a twink who weighs less than what you’re able to bench press, and you’re being held in possibly one of the worst setups we’ve seen. Seriously, there’s one lock on the outer door, and it wasn’t even being used.”
I glare at my youngest brother. “So?”
“So, maybe you can explain what’s going on,” Wylder says heavily. “We thought we were on a rescue mission, Cade. You’ve been AWOL for days. Is this some kinky roleplay shit?”
“No,” I say softly, pushing Ansel’s hair back from his face. His eyes are still closed. I have no idea how much of this he’s taking in. “Ansel really kidnapped me.”
“And now you’re protecting him?” Disbelief drips from Matthias’s words. “What the fuck, Cade?”
I point at him. “Really? Are you forgetting that you were so obsessed with a man that you tricked him into marrying you?”
Matthias flushes and opens his mouth to retort. Harley cuts him off by clapping him on the shoulder. “Can’t say shit, man. Cade’s right. Sometimes the heart wants what the heart wants.”
“Trust Cade’s heart to want someone as psychotic as him,”Samson drawls from where he’s leaning against the wall. “He was never going to pick someone normal.”
I gather Ansel closer protectively. “He’s not psychotic. He’s perfectly normal. Well, except for his hatred of nineties music. That is seriously fucked.”
“That makes him more normal, not less,” Samson grumbles. “No one else likes that shit.”
I’m about to argue, but Dalton re-enters the room, Dr. Ramsey following closely behind. I’m sure Wylder brought him along just in case I was in critical condition.
We aren’t just Buckinghams, we’re The Firm. There’s nothing that’s out of our reach or sphere, including having a doctor on staff for times like these.
I’ll abuse the fuck out of all of it to get Ansel the help he needs.
Ramsey eyes Ansel in my lap. “I’ll need to examine the patient. Can he be put on the floor?”
My arms instinctively tighten around Ansel. “No.”
He sighs. “It would really be much easier?—”
“You’ll make it work like you always do,” Dalton says with a smile. It’s one people often mistake for charm. It’s never charm. It’s always danger. “He can’t be moved right now, so assess and treat him there.”
Dr. Ramsey sighs and looks around the room. He’s met with stoic glares from every single one of my brothers. Either they all know they fucked up, or they know better than to try and take Ansel from me right now.
