Bullseye knows I sneak into her room at night when she’s sleeping. I stick to the shadows, watching over her as often as I can. Sometimes, when the pull is too much, I lower myself onto the bed, lying on my side while I dare to stroke a finger over her soft skin.
“You going inside?”
I’m about to say yes when I hear someone shout. There’s the sound of something breaking, like glass as it shatters. Heavy footfalls. A fist pounding on a door.
It’s my father, and his wrath is directed at Letty. The light flicks on again in her room.
I don’t think before I act, I just move. He won’t get to her.
My boots pound through the wet grass, still coated in the summer rain that ended an hour earlier. I don’t care that I slip and nearly crash into the rose-covered lattice outside the lower deck, reaching up to grab onto the balcony and hoist myself up. I’m flinging my body over the railing, nearly crashing into a table and chairs, and running toward the double set of doors that lead to the second-floor bedrooms. I don’t have to look over my shoulder to know that Bullseye follows me.
When I reach them, I pause to listen, ensuring I know the position of everyone in the house before I enter. If Letty sees me, I’ll lose my fucking patch. I have to be delicate about this. Not bust through the door and swing my fist into my father’s face. It’s so fucking tempting, but I hold back.
One day, he’ll get what’s coming to him.
Before I enter, I pull out a balaclava and pull it over my head. It’s scratchy, and I instantly start to sweat, but I can’t reveal my identity. Not yet.
Mifflin, the man who donated his fucking sperm to give me life, is banging his fist on Letty’s door. I don’t listen to his slurred words. He’s been drinking again. The fucker is drunk.
It’s actually perfect. He won’t remember shit in the morning.
I sneak up on him and whack him over the back of the head. He goes down like a topple of bricks, and I snort with amusement at the heavy thud that follows. I’m hoping he wakes up with a hell of a hangover and leaves Letty alone. If he doesn’t, I’ll have to intervene.
Her mother doesn’t do shit. Cynthia won’t stand up to him. She’s a fucking doormat, nothing like her daughter, whose fiery temper has often gotten her in altercations with everyone in the house.
My thoughts remind me that I need to move before my brothers realize someone is in the house. They didn’t give a shit to come to Letty’s aid, and I’m not surprised. Things have gotten strained between us ever since I patched into the Vipers. We’re not as close as we used to be.
Things have turned. . . hostile.
The reason always comes back to Mifflin.
“His study,” Bullseye whispers as we hear Letty on the other side of the door.
She calls out, wondering who is there. In the silence that followed Mifflin hitting the ground, she must have heard us.
I nod at Bullseye, and we pick up my father, carrying him back to his study and dropping him into his chair. We manage to prop him there with a spilled glass of bourbon in front of him and retreat to the shadows just as the door to his office flies open.
Letty stands there, looking pissed. She’s framed in soft light as it surrounds her like a halo. An innocent angel stuck in the depths of hell. I almost swear as I see her in a tank top and sleep shorts. She’s showing more skin than I want anyone else to see,especially my father, Theo, or Liam. I’ve seen how they all look at her. Like she’s a toy they want to play with before they destroy it.
They’ll never touch her. I can promise that.
Letty sighs. She steps into the office and approaches the desk, shaking her head at the sight of her stepfather. “You’re an asshole,” she tells him, not bothering to whisper.
His light snore is the only sound in the room.
“I hate how you treat my mom and me. As soon as I graduate, I’m leaving and convincing my mother to divorce your ass.”
She spins on her heel, heading toward the door, when she pauses. Her head tilts. I have to focus on my breathing, not making a sound to tip her off that I’m inside. Or that Bullseye is with me.
“I’m imagining things,” she whispers before leaving and walking down the hall back to her room. Once I hear her door shut, I finally leave the shadows and sneak out through the balcony, careful to remain out of sight before I drop to the ground.
Once I’m hidden in the trees, I yank off the balaclava, and I stare up at the house. Letty’s light is out, but I know she won’t be in a deep enough sleep for me to visit her tonight. Not with Mifflin and his bullshit.
“This won’t get any easier.”
“I know.” I glance at Bullseye. “You don’t have to stay.”
“But I will.”
