“You slept with her?”
“Yes.”
“Get out of the car,” Luke growls.
“Why?”
“Because I want you to be able to defend yourself the next time I hit you.”
I am not in the mood for this, but Luke’s decided to play knight in shining armor to a girl he doesn’t know.
“You know she could very easily have had everything to do with his death, right? She could have been the one who fucking killed him? She was happy enough to leave me for dead.”
“He loved her.”
“I don’t give a fuck.”
“Get out of the car and fight me like a man,” Luke demands.
“If I get out of this car, I am going to put you in the fucking hospital, you little shit,” I growl. “Don’t be angry because I got to her first. You had the same chances I had. You just decided to get fucking high first.”
“That was a ruse!”
“Was it? Was it a ruse to get into an illegal fighting match? Come back high as a fucking kite? Was that all a ruse? Because, little brother, I was fucking her the whole time you were crashing and burning.”
He tries to punch me in the face again, but I deflect the blow and he catches an elbow to the jaw.
He’s right about fighting in a car being stupid. I throw open the driver’s door, Luke hurls himself over the hood of the car and the two of us fight as we haven’t since we were teenagers.
I never imagined Luke would be so protective of a girl he doesn’t even know, but deep down he’s not fighting me. He’s fighting for Teddy, the way he never got to. All that rage he needs to get out is being unleashed on me. As for me, I take the blows and give a few back. He will always be my little brother, and I will never truly hurt him. I will, however, put him in his place when he needs it, so I have no intention of letting him win. He can tire himself out, and then he can apologize.
We’ve traded blows for a few minutes when a sleek black vehicle draws up alongside us. The window rolls down, and a man wearing dark sunglasses and a dark suit lowers the sunglasses to address us as we grip one another, bloodied and panting and feeling better, I hope and assume because I do not have the energy for another round.
“Mr. Levin wishes to enjoy the pleasure of your company,” the man says.
We know they’ll be mercenaries, ex-military for sure. Aiden’s private army is legendary. It’s things like this that make it feel so very strange that Teddy could ever have been killed. But no army is infallible, and no surveillance is perfect.
“I have the rental car,” I say.
“We’ll take care of that,” he says. “You gentlemen are welcome to travel in this vehicle.”
We are not really being given an option. Aiden has been on top of this the whole time, as usual. Which means the bastard either left me to possibly die in that cabin, or he had someone keeping an eye out but not actually stepping in to rescue me. Either one of those possibilities is real.
The rear of the car opens and a man in a similar suit steps out to usher the two of us in. He then shuts the door behind us, goes to my rental car, and we are swept away from the scene of our scrap.
“There is a first aid kit under the driver’s seat if you’d like to tend to your wounds,” the driver says. I don’t know his name, and he doesn’t introduce himself.
My phone rings. It’s Aiden, of course.
“Hello?”
“I want the both of you home. Now. We have important things to discuss. And tell Luke, if he does not come quietly, I have no qualms whatsoever about having him taken to a much higher security facility that will hold him against his will.”
I hold the phone away from my ear and look over at Luke. “Did you hear that?”
Luke makes a two-fingered gesture that indicates he did.
“We’re on our way,” I say.
