“Where is she now?” I ask.
The feral part of myself I can’t contain, the part of me that recognizes her as the person made for me, hates the idea of him seeing her barely clothed. This is the part that haunts me, this incessant need to claim her, make her mine, and hoard her away like a prized treasure.
There’s no escaping this feeling now.
“She’s waiting alone in your vehicle, sir.”
“We’ll be there shortly,” I repeat.
Declan is already on the phone dispatching different guys, not even looking at me as he bangs on Cillian’s door and runs upstairs to get Lorcán.
I just sit here, seeing as I can’t drive, let alone barely function.
My twin comes out, leaning on his cane, wearing boxers and a t-shirt.
“You fucking asshole,” he sneers as he grabs his car keys. “Are you coming, or are you going to sit there and be a drunken dip-shit?”
“Can we get food on the way back?” I ask.
My brother just blinks at me like I’m the worst thing that’s ever happened to him—I probably am. But I refuse to let anyone know how deeply Elena has crawled her way under my skin; I barely even admit it to myself.
“Just get in the fucking car, Fionn,” he throws out my whole fucking legal name for that one.
It takes some effort and a lot of grumbling on my part, but I get off the couch and walk beside him to the garage.
“Look at us, huh?” I say, joking with his cane and how I look like I got the shit kicked out of me, which I guess I did.
“Shut the fuck up and get in the backseat,” Cillian orders, and I do as I’m told.
I lean my head against the cool glass of the window as Declan takes the driver’s seat and Cillian takes the passenger seat.
“I’ll send Cormac to pick up the car,” Declan says.
“Where’s Lorcán?” Cillian asks.
“He hasn’t come home since the fight.”
I groan in the backseat. My half-brother and I have never been close, and I know it’s my fault. Honestly, what fucking isn’t?
It started with our mother’s hatred of him, and Cillian and I followed suit. Then it turned into more. I know that Lorcán is the best of us, and it pisses me off. Everything he’s been through, and he still has the capacity to be kind, to want our trust and love. I fucking hate it.
“You better shut the fuck up back there, or I’m dropping you off in the desert. I can’t believe you let her go. Do you know how lucky we are that someone on our fucking payroll found her? What if Anthony found her, or fuck, what if some strange Alpha did. You need to get your shite together, Finn, or you’re out of this pack. I can’t take it anymore,” Cillian rants, not turning to speak to me.
Maybe we would be better off if I were the one who left. But we all know my pride would never let me.
I’m an O’Brien through and through. I have no dreams of a simple, clean life. This family is all I have, yet I’m the one destroying it.
I say nothing in return, just press my face against the glass as Declan drives us to the catholic cemetery.
The blue and red lights show where the girl is.
“Just sit in the fucking car,” Cillian grumbles.
I roll down my window and listen as Cillian speaks with the cops. Declan opens the driver’s side door of my car and grabs Elena’s hand before opening the door across from mine. She scoots in, a ridiculous amount of thigh showing in that shirt as she crosses her legs and looks over at me.
Declan and Cillian are straightening everything out with the cops, and the silence in the car feels deafening.
“So that didn’t go so well,” I comment.
