I shoot the other guys a look, a silent conversation passing between us. Something definitely happened in the back of that fucking SUV.
I shake my hands out, watching as Hunter guides Ella into Maddox’s waiting arms. She looks up at him and smiles softly as Madd grips her hips, steadying her.
I watch her straighten out her gorgeous black gown with trembling fingers, and my head cocks as I take her in. Her cheeks are flushed, her mascara and liner slightly smudged. But her smile is genuine, and there’s a lightness in her eyes that wasn’t there before.
At least her lipstick’s still intact.
Hunter climbs out behind her, meeting my gaze, and I quickly look away. Inside The Den, the MC announces us over the loudspeakers. The crowd roars when he calls out, amping them up for Gage’s return to the ring.
Ella smiles and wraps her hand around Hunter’s. “Let’s do this.”
For a second, just one second, I wish I could freeze time. She’s so happy, so carefree. With her hand in his, Madd wrapped around her other side, his eyes full of love—she looks like she truly feels every bit as cherished as she is.
“Everyone good?” I murmur, my voice thick with emotion. I shake it off and quickly check over my weapons.
Nyx and Gage do the same before grunting that they’re good. In an unspoken gesture, the four of us circle Ella, keeping her between us as we move through the parking lot. I’m surprised when Hunter rolls his shoulders back and presses a hand to her spine, his eyes methodically taking in our surroundings as though he was trained to be one of us all along.
My mind is racing with questions and theories about the past and how it’ll affect our future when I feel it. The air around us changes, growing thick with tension. My body goes taut, my spine tingling with a sense of knowing.
Something’s wrong.
Then, I hear it.
“Come out, come out, little doll. I knew I’d find you here,” a raspy, creepy voice purrs from the darkness. I whirl on the voice, my hand already on my gun.
Little doll.
It takes less than a second for the sick nickname to penetrate through my thoughts. Clarity washes over me, drowning everything else out.
I step forward, feeling my brothers do the same, putting Ella and Hunter behind us. A snarl rips from my lips as the man weaves his way through the cars, and I’m suddenly thankful for being the emotionless person my parents raised me to be. My gun feels like a familiar weight between my fingers, and like always, I’m steady.
I could kill him here and now and feel nothing.
I wouldn’t even think twice about it because if this smiling prick is who I think he is, he deserves nothing less than a bullet to his demented brains.
“It was you,” I snarl, the words like acid on my tongue.
Even though I loathe to say his name, I can see the confusion on my brothers’ faces in my peripheral vision, and I need them to understand the severity of the situation. I swallow the bile pooling on my tongue as I look the love of my life’s rapist in his cold, dead eyes.
“You’re Eric Keaton.”
That does it. Nyx, Gage, and Maddox all catch up, understanding washing over them. The sound of safeties clicking off fills the quiet lot, and I’m honestly surprised when he’s not instantly peppered with bullet holes, but I’m thankful for it. He can’t die. Not yet.
Eric gives us a maniacal grin as he steps into the dim parking lot lights. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
My jaw ticks, but I don’t lower my gun as I track his every move. I feel the guys shift at my sides, but I never take my eyes off Eric. I can’t. Every breath he takes, every muscle he moves, I grow closer and closer to the edge.
The only thing keeping me from killing him here and now are the questions racing through me.
Why is he here?
What does he want with Ella? With Hunter?
Where has he been all this time? Where is Cynthia, his wife, and Hunter’s aunt?
But the biggest question of all, the one I’m not sure I’ll be able to get out, is why? Why her? Why them?
“And why is that?” Nyx snaps, drawing my attention back to the present. I blink. “I could kill you in less time than it would take you to blink, you old fuck.
