I don’t have the energy to fight this shit. I didn’t have the energy to fight Luke either, not really. The two of us dig out the first aid kit and dab the grazes and cover the cuts with bandages.
“We look like shit,” Luke laughs.
“Yes,” I have to agree. “We do.”
The two of us don’t get a chance to shower, shave, or change our clothes. We are delivered to the family home looking, for all intents and purposes, shambolic and unhoused.
“Mr. Levin is waiting for you in the drawing room,” the driver tells us as something of a parting shot.
Sometimes we deal with people who work for Aiden who seem to think that we are the fucked-up little brothers of a great man. It has been a long time since I got that treatment, to be fair. I usually have more independence, better fashion, and less unruliness about me.
As soon as we step into the drawing room, I stop thinking about the fight, what we are wearing, or anything else at all. The world stops as I see Ella Chick kneeling at Aiden’s feet, her dark head bowed.
“Is this what the two of you were looking for?” Aiden grabs her by the back of the head and forces her to lift her face. Her cheeks look flushed. Her eyes sparkle with an emotion that lands somewhere between humiliation and defiance. She’s so pretty. There’s a sweetness to her features. Even after everything she put me through, I feel a bolt of attraction to her.
“That’s Teddy’s girlfriend,” Luke says. “Let her go.”
“Oh, I won’t be doing that, and when you understand a little more, you won’t want me to,” Aiden says smoothly. His eyes go back and forth between the two of us, then settle on me.
“I’m aware you’ve already had an entanglement with this young lady,” Aiden says to me. “Quite ungentlemanly, Leo.”
“And I’m sure you’ve been nothing but a gentleman,” I say.
She smirks with her head lowered where Aiden cannot see her. Or so she thinks. Aiden’s fingers tighten in her hair and her breath hitches. I spark with jealousy. He’s touching her. That’s bad enough. But she’s responding to him. And I like that even less.
All three of us want this woman, I realize. Luke wants to save her, because he needs to be saved. I want to break her, because I need to be broken, perhaps. And Aiden, I don’t know what the hell he’s done to her. Bent her to his will, superficially, at least. I still see the fire in her eyes. Aiden is a creature unlike the rest of us, but he is not infallible. I wonder if he thinks she has broken, when all she has really done is bend.
CHAPTER 9
Ella
I was feeling so small, so lost. I was starting to feel like I didn’t know myself at all. Living in captivity under Aiden Levin is not for the faint of heart. He is too smart, too observant. It is as though nothing can be kept from him, no secret tucked away in any corner of my soul.
And then I saw him. The guy I dosed to the fucking gills with a psychedelic compound and left to face his demons. I was at my lowest, most broken point, feeling very cowed by being put into position by Aiden and told to wait. This man is an evil fucking genius.
Seeing Leo activates the part of my brain that remembers what it feels like to fucking win.
Leo had me completely captive, and I broke free. If I could best him, then perhaps his older brother isn’t as infallible as he seems.
There’s a heavy silence in the room, while the three brothers stare at me. I make direct eye contact with Leo.
“How was the cabin?”
It’s a smart-ass question, but I ask it anyway because I want him to think about it all over again. It was one of the most satisfying moments of my life, cuffing him there and walking away. I had wondered if I killed him too, by mistake. But clearly not.
Aiden grips my hair hard and turns my head back to look up at him at one of the most uncomfortable angles there is.
“No,” he says softly.
I feel that pride in me melt, turn into the submission he has demanded of me. I feel myself soften and flush, knowing that everybody in the room is well aware of the effect he has on me. Aiden knows how to make me helpless with the barest of effort.
Something happened in that forest. I can’t call it supernatural, but some kind of bond was forged there. He found me. Somehow he got through all the layers I’ve built up around myself over the years and he grabbed the soft core of me and now he has me wrapped around his fist.
The brothers are still staring at me. Leo has the expression of a wolf denied his favorite prey. I can’t read Luke. He is the one I know least, but I sense he has been searching for me too. He was just too slow. The other two were on me first. Luke looks the most like Teddy did. He’s like an older, more muscular, and I guess at this point, less well-dressed version.
“Why are we here?” Luke asks the question. “And why is she here?”
“It’s time we all talked and came to an understanding,” Aiden says. “Teddy loved Ella. We are going to do our brotherly duty and look after her.”
