“What do you mean ‘that’s it’? That’s everything, Savage. Now, what I don’t know is why you’ve been doing a shitty job of tailingme. Because I don’t think you have the same reasons.”
She lets out a long sigh and closes her eyes as if she’s resigned. “Do you want your brothers to hear this?”
I narrow my eyes on her, going still. “I don’t know, baby. Do I?”
“You should probably call them. And I need some pants.”
Eighteen
VIOLET\
An hour later, I’m wearing a pair of Mateo’s sweats, which are surprisingly big on me, and I’m sitting at a dining room table along with his brothers and Diego.
These five men are intimidating asfuck.
All big, muscled, tattooed, with an edge in their eyes that saysOne wrong move, and I’ll end you.
I don’t think it’s necessarily personal. I think they just always have that look on their face.
Nibbling my sore lip, my eyes move from one to the next. Mateo formally introduced them when they arrived. Julian was the one with the gorgeous blond woman at the club. Rome was with the beautiful pregnant girl, and Carson ... well, Carson is terrifying.
And they’re all sexy as hell.
It’s not fair to the rest of the men in the world.
To settle my nerves and buy myself time, I turn to Diego. “You were bleeding earlier.”
“Doc fixed me up,” he replies and offers me a kind smile. “Thanks for asking.”
I nod and bite my lip again. Mateo moves my chair to the side and squats in front of me, braces my face in his hands, and brushes his thumbs over my cheeks.
“No one is going to hurt you,” he says softly. “You’re so fucking strong. Just be the savage girl I know you are and tell us what’s going on. Let me help you, Violet.”
No one’s ever offered to help me.Not even the police. I’mso tiredof doing it on my own, and maybe now, I don’t have to.
I nod, and he moves back to his seat, and I let out a shaky breath.
“I guess I’ll start at the beginning.”
“That’s a good place to start,” Julian agrees.
“My parents died almost nine years ago, in an accident. I had just turned eighteen, and I became the guardian of my younger sister. She’s not quite two years younger. We’d just started a kickboxing class together, and after our parents died, we kept going because we didn’t have family, and that group of people became our community. Anyway, about a year later, I was studying to be a tattoo artist, and there was an exhibition with the kickboxing club. Rose wanted to go, but I had to study. She got mad, and decided to go without me.”
I rub my hands over my face and ignore the ache from my injuries.
“Late into the night, I realized she hadn’t come home, so I tried to call her, but her phone had been turned off.”
My eyes meet Mateo’s, but I can see that he already knows.
“She never came home. That was seven years ago. The police were no help. They told me she probably ran away, or might have gotten herself killed.”
“Fuck,” Rome grumbles.
“For five years, I stayed in the same apartment, in case she came home.”Christ, I’m going to cry.“She never did, but then one day, I got a letter.”
I grab my belt bag and unzip it, pull out the pistol, and the air in the roomchanges.
Glancing up, I see that Diego has a gun in his hand, the three brothers have narrowed their eyes, and Mateo’s grinning at me.
