Page 20 of Blood & Heartache

“Now you’re just being a brat,” Ryker pointed out. “Can you give me a half hour to look at what we found and tell you the whole situation with what we know?”

“Am I on speaker?” I asked.

“Yes, Astin, I can hear you,” Luca called out.

That man was going to move up a spot in the seating order, that’s for damn sure, knowing what I’d been after. “Excellent, then I can trust one of you will tell me the whole truth without sugarcoating it. You have your half hour. Actually, how much longer do we have in this movie?”

“About forty-five minutes, give or take,” Liu answered.

Damn, that man was on top of his shit. “Thank you, so that means you two have forty-five minutes to do whatever you need and get back to the house. We’re in the games room, just so you know right where to find me.”

“Understood, Mistress,” Luca responded, making it clear he understood who was giving him orders.

Ryker didn’t say anything, just hung up the phone, but I had no delusions that he was going to be chewing Luca’s ass out for making that promise to me. I had a feeling my strong and silent lieutenant would have zero trouble telling Ryker to kick rocks.

“Now that we have that settled, where were we?” I asked, handing Jace his phone, who slipped it into his pocket for safekeeping.

“Pretty sure the deranged holographic little girl is fucking with the system,” Braxton answered, wrapping an arm around my shoulders and pulling me against him. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep you safe. Plus, I still have the bag of Twizzlers.”

I allowed him to distract me from coming up with different scenarios about what Luca had been called away to deal with. Clearly, it was something big if Ryker was going into keep-Astin-in-the-dark mode. That was something we were going to need to work on. As the boss of the Caprioni Family, I didn’t have the luxury of being sheltered from situations. The feel of teeth scraping along the shell of my ear before my earlobe was sucked on had all thoughts coming to a skittering halt. My hand gripped Braxton’s thigh tightly as I sucked in a breath. Thankfully, with the movie back in full swing, the sound of it was covered by gunfire and shouting.

“Stop thinking so hard, my queen. They’ll tell you everything when they get back. You made that expectation crystal clear,” Braxton whispered into my ear, his warm breath on my skin making me shiver.

My mouth having gone suddenly dry, I leaned forward to grab my drink and gulped down what was left in the can. Leaning back, I found Braxton had turned more on his side so I fit along the curve of his body. One arm behind me and the other draped over my waist, his fingers were stroking the section of skin above my pants. The hand behind me gently combed through my hair, making me lean into the touch. Whenever I was sick, Glenda brushing my hair was the only way I could fall asleep. Now it became an instant switch to getting me into a relaxed state of mind. If I had been a cat, I’d be purring like my life depended on it. This was a dangerous trick for a man like Braxton, who wanted nothing more than to please and serve me, to be aware of. On the other hand, this was fucking great.

Before I knew it, the movie was over, and I was Jell-O in Braxton’s arms. I’d migrated to laying across his chest as his fingers now massaged my head. My eyes were mere slits as I watched the credits rolling, but I didn’t care as long as Braxton worked his magic on me. Abruptly, the lights flicked on, and Ryker stormed into the room, slamming a stack of papers on the coffee table, shattering my moment of bliss. Jerking out of Braxton’s arms, I sat up, a little bleary-eyed from my drowsy state.

“What the fuck, man?” Jace snapped.

I could tell the rage wafting off Ryker only meant one thing. Someone had threatened my life, possibly gotten close, and he’d missed it. Since the day I’d met Ryker and we’d instantly become best friends, he’d taken watching my back with deadly seriousness. When something slipped through the cracks, and I got hurt, this is what he looked like.

Moving the footstool out of my way, I sat on the edge of my seat so I could reach for the papers. Many of them were the same thing, but different words were scrawled across them. Some looked like they might have even been written with blood. Well, the original, that is—these were all photocopies. While the words were anything but nice and welcoming, the fact that they were written on pictures of my father is what hit the hardest.

Traitor.

Whore.

Murderer.

Slut.

Backstabber.

Cunt.

“Who,” I demanded, crushing the papers I had in my hands. “Who would fucking dare to do this?”

“Who we don’t know yet, but the why might be a little clearer,” Luca said, his face blank of emotion, which told me he was equally as pissed as Ryker. Luca was like me, the quieter we became, the more afraid of us you should become.

“Explain,” I bit out.

“The text I got was from my men at the docks. We had a shipment coming in tonight, and they were there to make sure it all got unloaded off the ship to deal with tomorrow. When they got there, a car was on fire, so they called for help. They took pictures of it and sent it to me, but what made me run out of here is I recognized what car it was.” Luca paused to lock eyes with me, making sure he had my full attention. “It was your car, Astin… your custom powder blue car that should be parked safely in our garage.”

Forgetting about my leg, I shot to my feet, but Ryker darted forward and grabbed my arm so I didn’t fall over. “What do you mean it was my car? How could it be my car? It’s here in our secure garage that no one should be able to get into,” I asked, staring into Ryker’s eyes. “Right? They shouldn’t have been able to do that?”

“No, they absolutely shouldn’t have been able to do that,” Ryker agreed. “It means they had help from someone on the security team or even house staff. Those are the only people who have been permitted on the grounds the past few days.”

My brain started to work a million miles an hour trying to figure out why the hell someone would write these things on photographs of my father when they were clearly directed at me. Then again, it could just be done for shock value, which had done its job. I was definitely shocked and enraged by the whole ordeal.