The Hunting Town (Brothers Book 1)

by Elizabeth Stephens

  “I’m sorry, Knox,” he says, “we all know how much you care about her.”

  My head is so heavy, I catch it in my hands. “I failed her.”

  “You didn’t.” Clifton drags one of the ottomans over and takes a seat. “Not according to her.”

  “You talked to her?” That gives me pause.

  Clifton nods. “After you passed out,” he says, answering my unasked question. “She said you showed up unannounced and blew through Spade like a real killer. Said you gouged his eyes out. That true?”

  I nod, but say nothing, feeling guilty and horrible and ashamed that I’m jealous even now that she was awake and talking to my brothers. I’m volatile. On edge. The slightest touch would be enough to unravel me – no, not unravel. Disintegrate.

  “Spade got far less than what he deserved. He spent the past nine days beating her and he carved his fucking name into her leg.” I choke, struggling through the words.

  Clifton says nothing for a long time. Then, “She told me.”

  “She did?” I look up, stunned and irritated, though I try to mask the latter emotion because there’s no place for it here, among family. Clifton nods and I grunt, “She’s not much of a sharer.”

  Clifton smiles crookedly, though it’s a patronizing thing, and sweeps his hand back through his blonde hair until it stands up on end. “I think she might be different than you remember after what you did for her. After you blacked out and Dixon left, she made me help her give you a shower, wrap your ribs, and stitch your chest and your ear back together. She wouldn’t let me look at her until she sat me, Charlie and Aiden down and walked us through what we needed to know about her dad’s dealings with Loredo and how Spade was seconded to his team through an uneasy partnership with the Russian mafia. During that time she was with him, she found a bunch of photos he had taken of the cartel and papers with what looked like copies of their books. She said she always suspected he was a spy, but now she’s pretty sure. Looks like you pissed off some pretty serious people.”

  “Shit,” I whisper. “If this puts the family in danger, we’ll leave.”

  Clifton smiles a little bigger and the lightness in his eyes makes it possible to breathe a little easier. “That’s what she said. We won’t hear it. She’s with you and you’re family. You guys aren’t going anywhere.”

  I exhale relief and ease back onto the pillows. “Thank you, brother.”

  “You’d do the same for me.”

  I nod, meaning it. I’d walk through fire for him. As I would, and did, for her. That’s family. “Where’s everyone else?”

  “Aiden and Charlie are canvassing her old house. They got most of the mess cleaned up yesterday, but wanted to go back today to bleach the hell out of everything.”

  “Yesterday?” I say, gripping the edges of the couch pillows as I try to sit up. “How long have we been out?”

  “You’ve been asleep for about thirty hours. She’s been awake most of the time. Just went to bed a few hours ago.” Clifton glances at his wrist though he isn’t wearing a watch, and shakes his head. “Tough as nails, that woman. I don’t think I’ve ever come across another woman like her.” He pauses. Clicks his tongue against the backs of his teeth. “Another soul.”

  A swelling of pride fills my chest. “Neither have I.”

  “For the record, I know Dixon is pissed, but the rest of us like her. I mean, it was unrealistic that nobody would ever find a woman worth seriously being with and I have to say, when it comes to Mer, I don’t blame you.”

  “Don’t get any ideas,” I grunt.

  Clifton laughs hard. “After what happened to the last guy? You’ve got to be joking.”

  I smile, though uneasily. I did just kill a man. In the fighting ring I’ve come close to taking a life and have hospitalized my fair share of opponents, but I’ve never taken a life – only Aiden fights in the ring for more than money and pink slips – and even though the bastard deserved what I gave him a thousand times over, it still doesn’t feel good.

  “What about the bodies?” I say, as a distraction from the sight of blood still creasing my fingernails.

  Clifton rubs his hands together. “Burned,” he answers affirmatively, “To the last tooth. All five of them.”

  Like I’m jolted by a hundred volt battery, the drugs battering my brain dissolve and I am momentarily lucid. “Five?” There were only four. Spade and the three Mexicans killed by the fucker.

  “Spade, Loredo, Loredo’s lackey – some guy called Luis – and Mer’s dad and brother.”

  “Fuck.”

  Clifton’s face falls. “You didn’t know. I’m sorry.” He shakes his head. “They killed her family eleven days ago, the night she arrived home and Loredo confronted her about repaying her father’s debt. We found them buried in the backyard. Figured it was best to burn them too.”

  I close my eyes and try to breathe but fail, just as I failed her. I failed her whole fucking family.

  “Hey,” Clifton says, his voice a soothing balm on the raw wound that covers all of me. “You saved her life.” Clifton’s words pull me through the solid carmine sheet like a rope. I crack through the surface and breathe hungrily, ribs searing with each inhalation.

  It’s hard to think, to process, to know what to do next. My mind is cloudy, thoughts flying a thousand different directions. “There was a second guy working for Loredo. Not Spade or Luis, somebody else. He must have gotten away.”

  Clifton nods. “Mer told us. We’ve scanned for him but so far nothing. Couldn’t have gone far though. Aiden’s checking the local hospitals.”

  I nod back, trying to seem coherent and engaged. “To bring him back here?”

  Clifton makes a face. “Would be if it were Dixon we sent for him.”

  “Not really Aiden’s style.” I cluck. “Where is Dixon?”

  “Marcel called to say he’s sleeping off some nasty drunk at Camelot.”

  “Our strip club?”

  “The one.” Clifton’s frown grows more severe. “Our big brother is losing it.”

  “So am I. I just…I care…”

  “I know, man, I know. We all do. And nobody’s going to hurt her. The moment you brought her into our house, into your room, she became family. We’re all part of this now. Together.”

  The words fill me with a warmth and a relief I’m not used to feeling. I’ve never been on such precarious ground before, never risked so much. Never put the people I care about the most in danger. Never been in love. “I appreciate hearing it. I just hope the others feel the same way. I won’t have any more harm come to her on a cause of me…”

  Clifton groans and kneads his shoulder, visible in one of the white tank tops he’s always wearing. “You’ve got to let it go.”

  “What go?”

  “Everything. Just get better. Dixon will come around.” He stands and dusts his palms off on his jeans. “Now, as the man with the most experience actually dating women in this house, I’ll tell you that she’s probably going to want to see a familiar face when she wakes up in a strange place.”

  Now that makes me grin. “You know Charlie’s pretty ass gets more pussy than you do.”

  Clifton laughs. “You worry about your own issues. Like getting that woman some food. Mer’s only eaten once since she arrived and I don’t imagine they fed her right these past days.”

  Standing, I lick my lips. Like my mouth, they’re paper dry. “She tell you anything else about…about what happened to her?”

  Clifton looks away, shakes his head. “Nah. She didn’t. She was forthcoming about everything else but shut tighter than a vice on what they did to her. Wouldn’t even tell me what I already know happened when I bandaged up her leg. If she hadn’t been up near twenty hours straight, I doubt she’d have let me help bandage her at all, or let Charlie take the chain off her neck.”

  I nod, feeling sick again. I’m about to stumble to the kitchen and just make it to the door when Clifton
surprises me by snaking his hand around my upper arm. He holds me back and though the guy is taller than me, he doesn’t look down at me. He doesn’t look at me at all.

  “I want you to hear it from me,” he says, “but I may have overstepped with Mer.”

  I hold my breath, and don’t speak.

  “I offered to drive her to the hospital to see Leanna.” His voice is low, pitched as a whisper and I am eased by its gentleness even if the words themselves are cutting. “I asked her if she needed a rape kit or a pelvic examination.”

  My eyes close. I reach for the wall. Clifton guides me to it.

  “She said no, that Loredo wanted to keep her untouched so to speak. I don’t know that I believe her. Not with the way Spade kept her all these days, like a doll. He took care of her in his own sick, twisted way. Hey, I’m sorry,” he grunts, taking my weight as I begin to slump forward. “I just wanted you to hear it from me.”

  I nod and sink down onto a barstool until my elbows meet the granite counter of the island. Clifton’s still standing near me, with his hand on my shoulder. Supporting me, in more ways than one. The thought of her being raped by Spade hits me brutally, in a lucid visual. I rip away from it, from Clifton, and stumble to the fridge. Food. Food for Plumeria. That I can do. The past I can’t fix.

  “I’m sorry,” Clifton says again.

  “Nothing to be sorry for,” I murmur, “I’m thinking it too.” Pulling out a container of deli meat, mayonnaise and mustard and some other ingredients that together make a sandwich, I head from the room, out from under Clifton’s stare. His kindness is difficult to bear, and I can feel it following me down the hall and before I turn down the hall to my bedroom, I pause.

  “Thanks, Clifton.”

  “For what?”

  “Being good to her.”

  Clifton smiles ever so slightly and crosses his bulky arms over his tiny G.I. Joe tank. “What family’s for.”

  Plumeria

  Tengo hambre. It’s all I can think as wakefulness creeps over me way, way too soon. I feel like I just fell asleep, muscles all soup, bones rickety splinters splintering. I’m fractured shards and a patchwork of stitching. Stitching that spells his name. I shudder, wondering how long I can keep Knox from seeing what he did to me. El hombre sin nombre. Brutal bastard. White devil. I still can’t believe Knox killed him. No one has ever, ever done anything…puto, I can’t even finish the fucking thought. I just can’t believe what he did. He saved more than just my life. He salvaged the last drop of my hope.

  Blankets rise up to the tops of my shoulder blades and my hips slide over the soft sheets, sinking into the depression made by a sudden weight. I reach for him and his hand takes mine.

  “Carajo,” I whisper sleepily, “you’re cold.”

  “Sorry,” he grunts, hissing as he slips under the blankets and my knee brushes up against his leg. He groans again when my arm rests on top of his abs and when he tries to stroke my face, I curse.

  I smile, though even that causes me pain. “We are some kind of something, aren’t we?”

  “By something, I think you mean mess.”

  Though the drugs aren’t enough to keep the act pain-free, I still manage to roll myself onto my back. A stinging radiates out from a single point to the right of my spine. I remember him kicking me there and wonder if I’m ever going to be able to fight again. Or run. Or walk normally. The ache on my back is worse than the one on my stomach. Then I open my eyes and see him – the other him, the real him – propped up on some pillows next to me and remember that none of that other shit matters because we are both alive.

  “Is that a sandwich in your hand or are you just happy to see me?”

  He smiles, but there’s a reservation in his expression that leaves me feeling as ragged on the inside as I probably look. Not that I’d need a mirror to tell me how bad the damage is. I still can’t open my right eye all the way. “Clifton says you haven’t eaten enough.”

  “I’ve had other things on my mind.” As I attempt to sit up, he snakes his hand around my upper arm and does most of the work for me. He stacks the pillows up until they are at the same incline as his, draws the blankets to my waist and slides the plate on top of my thighs. I don’t hesitate to dig in.

  “You’ve told Clifton a lot,” he says. I wince, expecting heat, until he adds, “Thank you.”

  I pause, mid-chew and look up at him. “For what?”

  His gaze flicks quickly to the ham sandwich I’m holding and I wonder if it isn’t the sandwich he’s looking at, but the abrasions around my wrist from the rope. “For trusting him, even if it was just enough.”

  “Easy guy to trust,” I answer with a light chuckle, more nervous than I wish I was as we head together into uncharted territory. “Look, I…” His eyes open up and I see into their green depths wondering what the hell I’ve done right in my life to end up here when I should have died at the age of ten. “I don’t know where to begin.” Honesty. That’s a start. “But I am so, so grateful. No one’s ever done anything like that for me before and I owe you everything.”

  His face falls, and I don’t see the relief I expect. “I hope that isn’t why you’re here now.” He runs his hand back over his buzzed scalp, making a face as he pulls something in his side that has yet to release.

  “Verdad? I mean, I didn’t owe you before when we slept together and I’m sure as hell not here now only because of what you did to Spade but I can say that it helps.” I smile and his frown twists into something ascorbic. “I’m sorry. I know that you probably didn’t want to kill anybody and I know that what you did to Spade might bring a shit storm down on you and your brothers and if you want me to leave now then don’t think that I won’t. I don’t want to…”

  He cuts me off, not with a shout but with a kiss, and though I can feel the anger radiating out of him, when that kiss glances my forehead I also feel something else. A balm of acceptance. Of understanding. Of knowing me – all of me – and all of my baggage. A moment passes. A lifetime. When I resurface, my hand and the sandwich in it lie limp in my lap. He’s leaning back against the pillows with his arms by his sides. His right hand picks at the sheets between us.

  “You aren’t going anywhere without me again.” It’s not a request, it’s a fact. One that I’m not about to protest.

  I nod, meek in a way I’ve never been. “Okay.”

  His eyebrow lifts and his mouth becomes an even more severe snarl. “And I want you to go see Leanna.”

  “Who’s she?” I say, playing stupid. I’ve had this conversation with Clifton once already.

  “A doctor. Our doctor. I want her to give you an exam.”

  “She should probably look at you too.”

  “A pelvic exam.”

  My sandwich suddenly draws my full and complete attention. I bite into it and chew, careful not to leave my mouth open long enough for him to think I’ll speak.

  “Hmm?” He says, not giving me the choice as he prods my waist, careful not to touch the white bandages. I want to retch up everything I’ve eaten.

  “Okay,” I murmur, “I will.”

  “You will?”

  “Yeah.”

  He pauses. “You were raped?”

  I smile into my food, carefully plucking a stray glob of mustard away and sucking it off my finger. I ruffle my bangs and look up at him, warm from the hair that drapes around my shoulders but from little else. “Of course I was.”

  His whole body seizes up. “Loredo said he wanted you untouched,” he grunts out, though the words are butchered to pieces.

  “You think Loredo was running the show in there?” I shake my head. “Loredo thought he’d purchased a bodyguard. What he bought was a spy. Spade called the Russians every night and I think had always been planning on offing Loredo. I just don’t think he’d planned for me.”

  “Planned for you how?”

  I swallow hard. “I really do think the pinche culero fell in love with me.
In his own fucked way. At least, he wanted me bad enough to fuck with the cartel and the mafia. Shit wasn’t supposed to go down like that.”

  Knox winces hard enough I know it hurts. He hisses between his teeth, kicks his legs over the edge of the bed and holds his head in his hands.

  “Hey,” I start, “hey…” My voice trembles and I’m afraid, not of him but of the idea that he’ll leave.

  “That’s what Clifton said,” he barks brutally. He switches back onto the bed, coming underneath the covers and I want to go to him and touch him, as much for his own comfort as for mine, but I don’t. I don’t know what to say. And then, with his eyes closed he reaches out to me and pulls me in. He wraps his whole arm around my head and presses me close to his chest as if he wants to absorb me into him.

  “I want you to stay and I want you to be mine, because I love you and because I want to protect you.”

  “Chingandos,” I whisper. My fingers are gripping his skin, the sandwich long lost in the tangle of blankets between our legs. I hold onto his sides and close my eyes. “I’ve never loved anybody before but I think I love you. No, shit, sorry. I’m fucking this all up. I know I do. I love you.”

  He sucks in a breath and kisses the top of my hair. “I know.”

  I laugh while hot tears swim to my eyes. I force them back. “Shit. What do we do now?”

  “Now,” he says, bending down and lifting my chin with his finger. He presses his lips to mine. “We get better.”

  I smile back, knowing that we will be doing more than just healing. We’ll be waiting too. The Russians will come any day now for the man they’ve lost and I don’t want Knox or his brothers to be in the line of fire when they do.

  Dixon

  There’s an anvil in my brain and a hammering through my whole body. The two pains pulse out of time with one another though I’m not sure how that’s possible. I thought I only had one heart, perhaps less than that, especially after this evening – or was that yesterday? Time is a vacuum in a bottle. I don’t know what day it is, and I don’t know what time it is either. It could be another century. The only reason I know I’m not dead is because my phone, lying just out of reach of my fingers, isn’t. The red light on its face is blink, blink, blinking letting me know that someone somewhere is wondering the same thing I am: where am I?