by Lily White
My eyes snap open to see Sawyer standing at the foot of my bed.
If that’s not bad enough, he’s dressed for work, his pristine tailored suit at odds with the length of his hair.
Unlike Tanner, Gabe, Taylor and Mason, the rest of us never look like we belong in our jobs.
Probably because we don’t.
We were all forced to go to law school, all intelligent enough to get through it without a problem. But only a few of us actually give a fuck about playing the part.
I glance at the window to see it’s still dark outside, and then to the clock to see I’ve only been asleep for a few hours after a night spent playing poker at Tanner’s house.
“Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you for waking me up this early.”
“Damon and Shane are in jail.”
Fuck...
“Again?”
“You weren’t answering your phone, so Gabe asked me to stop by on my way to Tanner’s and wake you up.”
Damn it. What the hell is wrong with those two? This is the third time this year.
I should have known better than to let them go without me. Damon’s been in a hell of a mood, for what fucking reason I don’t know, and Shane can’t help but instigate this shit.
Scrubbing a hand down my face, I shove up from the bed and turn to lower my feet to the floor.
“Give me a minute to get dressed. We’ll ride over to Tanner’s together.”
A little less than an hour later, all seven of us are walking into the jail, Tanner and Gabe taking lead about convincing them to drop the charges.
We called in a few favors on the way over to pick Damon and Shane up, and after another thirty minutes of phone calls and shady side-dealing, two idiots stumble out from their cell, beaten to shit and smelling like they’d dumped every bottle of liquor all over themselves before managing to get cuffed.
My eyes lock on Damon, my rage building as he grins like the entire thing is funny.
A few years ago? Yeah, it would have been funny, and I would have been stumbling out right beside him, but we’re getting too old for this crap.
I head straight for Damon, Sawyer helping me out, while Jase and a Taylor head for Shane.
We’re packed back into the cars within another ten minutes, heading back to Tanner’s to figure this out.
Damon doesn’t say a word to me the entire ride, even though Shane’s more than happy to fill us in on the story.
My brother is half asleep as we pull up to the gates to Tanner’s neighborhood.
I take the opportunity to slip his phone from his pocket, punch in his code and scroll through to see one fucking number that shouldn’t be there.
Don’t ask me how Tanner knows my rage just skyrocketed, but he turns to look at me from the front seat, and I toss the phone his direction.
Tanner is a hell of lot better at hiding what he’s thinking. With a nod, he tosses the phone back, a muscle in his jaw jumping once before he turns to look ahead again.
Getting them inside is less of a struggle, both joking about the fight with slurred words and stumbling feet.
Poor Luca is sitting in the kitchen with Ava, her worried expression following us as we move past her on our way upstairs.
That woman has only been around us a handful of times, both at Yale and these last few days, and she’s always getting a front row view of the worst we have to offer.
When I get Damon into a guest room, I drop him on the bed to sleep off the alcohol, but he grabs my wrist before I can walk away, the swelling in his face reminding me of weekends I’d rather forget.
“I saw Emily.”
My brow cocks at that. “At the bar?”
He laughs, the sound rough as he scrubs a hand down his face and looks up at me with swollen, bloodshot eyes.
“No. I went to her house earlier today.”
“Why the fuck would you do that?”
“I had to know,” he barks. “It’s like she was there one second and gone the next. But then after seeing her at the engagement party, after-“
His lips slam shut before he finishes the thought. It’s not like he needs to say it. I know exactly what he’s thinking.
“Anyway, I asked her why she ditched us, and she gave some bullshit answer.”
I can’t help my curiosity about that.
“What did she say?”
He shakes his head.
“She was fucking lying so it’s not worth repeating. I kissed her and knew we’re still in her head.”
My hand balls into a fist. Not that I would hurt Damon over this, but just knowing he was that close to her creates a visceral reaction in me.
Emily Donahue is a problem.
For both of us.
One I need to cut off before we’re both at her feet again...or at each other’s throats.
I change the subject before I lose my shit.
“Did you talk to him?”
“Who?” he asks, his eyes closing as he covers his eyes with his arm and settles against the pillows.
“Who do you think? I saw he called you.”
When he doesn’t answer immediately, I sit down on the side of the bed and pull his arm from his face.
You have no idea how many times I’ve wanted to strangle Damon in my life. He’s frustrating as hell and so quick to get angry. I can’t fucking blame him, though. Not after what we’ve been through.
“Did you talk to him?”
“No,” he answers, his eyes meeting mine. “He called when I was at Red’s house. I didn’t pick up.”
Ignoring the vein of anger - and jealousy - that unravels inside me to know he saw Emily, I stick to the more immediate problem.
“That shit is over. He won’t drag us off again.”
“Yeah, so tell me that when I can’t close my eyes without seeing it. I can’t fucking sleep without hearing them. I think that’s why I went to see Red. She was the only person who could-“
He shakes his head and bites that thought off as well.
Who could silence the voices, I think for him. Who could somehow soothe the rage that thrummed beneath our skin constantly.
Emily has no idea what she did to us.
Both by simply being in our lives, and by disappearing.
Only a handful of days.
That’s all it took for her to become a person we needed.
I can’t imagine how different the last ten years would have been for us if she’d stuck around instead of leaving.
I grab Damon by the back of the head and press our foreheads together. At first, he refuses to open his eyes, but I just keep staring.
After a few seconds, he meets my stare, the nightmares in his head just as bad as mine.
“It’s over. All of it. It’s been over. We’ll get past the rest of the bullshit eventually, but you need to stop acting like an asshole.”
For as much as I want to kick his ass for stupid shit, there is no other bond I have as strong as my brother. I’d do anything for him. Murder a thousand people. Burn down entire cities. Fucking raze the world if it meant he would be okay after.
“The guy deserved it.”
I smile at that. “They always deserve it. But that doesn’t mean you can keep doing this shit.”
Releasing him, I push up from the bed and remind him who he should listen to.
“I’m the older brother here. You need to do as I say and respect your elders.”
“Fuck off,” he says as he grabs a pillow and throws it at me. “You’re older by fifteen minutes. Give me a fucking break.”
I toss the pillow back. “I learned a lot in those fifteen minutes, mostly how nice it was when you weren’t born yet.”
“Whatever, dick. You can’t live without me.”
He’s right about that.
I’m a few steps away when he calls out to me again, his words slurred and voice half asleep.
“I miss her. I didn’t realize how much until we saw her again.”
Yeah, little brother.
Me, too.
“Sleep it off, Damon. I’ll be back later.”
After leaving his room, I have Sawyer drive me home. I spend the rest of the day riding around town, mostly burning off energy, but also figuring out what can be done about my father and about a certain redhead that managed to infect us again in only an hour.
Finding out Damon went to see her wasn’t a surprise. He tends to have very little control over his actions. I should have seen it coming, but I was too wrapped up in my own head to think about him.
The engagement party was a mistake. Necessary for what the Inferno needed, but still a nightmare waiting to happen.
My tires skid against concrete when I pull into a driveway I have no business being in, my fingers tightening on the grips before I release them, pull off my helmet, and sit back to stare at a house I’ve never actually been in.
Beside me sits a brand-new Porsche 911 Carrera. Easily a hundred-thousand-dollar car, and one I know doesn’t belong to Emily.
Her family gave her enough that they wouldn’t look bad, but never went above and beyond for her.
Which means this must belong to Dylan.
I shake my head to think that the little shit is the spoiled son.
After climbing off my bike, I walk up to the front door of Emily’s wing of the house and bang a fist against the wood.
Dylan answers a minute later. He’s almost as tall as me now, but nowhere near as big.
“Here for round two already?” he asks as he throws the door open wider and walks inside for me to follow him.
“Where’s Emily?”
“In her room,” he answers as he walks off to turn a corner down a hall, not giving a shit that I’m a few steps behind him.
“And where’s that?”
Glancing at me with red slits for eyes, he waves a hand down the hall. “Same place it was yesterday, Damon.”
“I’m Ezra.”
He laughs, not loud, but enough that his shoulders shake.
“Jesus. She’s doing both of you? Mason must love that.”
It takes effort not to rip his head off. Apparently, Dylan grew up to be a mouthy little shit.
“Her room,” I remind him, careful to keep my voice controlled.
Jabbing a thumb over his shoulder, he says, “Last room at the end. If you keep walking straight you’ll run right into it.”
I head straight and knock on her door. As soon as she pulls it open, her head tilts up, those turquoise eyes rounding.
Her throat moves to swallow, and my gaze is drawn to the motion. When I glance back up, she’s shut down her expression, her eyes normal and her mouth a soft line.
“You want to tell me why you thought it was a good idea to screw with Damon again yesterday?”
Heat chases across her cheeks. Not because she’s busted and not because she did anything wrong.
It’s mostly because of me.
Because of the effect we always have on each other.
There’s fire in this woman, and I’m the person that draws it out of her.
“Why are you here, Ezra? You made it clear at the party that you and I are done.”
If she thinks I could stay away now that I’ve been near her again, then she must not remember who I am.
“This isn’t about us,” I say with a crooked grin. “It’s about trying to find out why Damon was arrested again.”
Her expression falls at what I said, and all I see is guilt.
“Damn it,” she mutters.
Emily
Not again, I think as I step back to let Ezra into my room, this entire situation feeling like a broken record, a repeat of yesterday, except it’s the cold twin this time instead of the hot one.
“Is he okay?”
Ezra doesn’t answer immediately. Instead he closes the door with far too much care, his movements controlled to such an extent that I know he’s holding himself back from something.
Once again, my room feels tiny with him in it. But I notice a new difference about the twins I’d never picked up on before.
Their energy isn’t just in temperature or color or attitude. It’s also in the way they invade your space.
While Damon is chaos, wild and free, Ezra is strict control, a vacuum that freezes you in place and steals your ability to breathe.
Ezra absorbs the space around him, drawing everything into him like a black hole absorbs light, while Damon has a radiant energy that expands with a frenetic pulse, constantly spinning, spinning and spinning until you can’t help but feel dizzy from it.
He finally turns to look at me, casually leaning against the door before crossing his arms over his chest.
I can’t help but admire how wide his shoulders have become. How well he’s filled out in his chest and arms. How his body tapers down into a thin waist before widening again with muscular thighs.
Dressed in jeans and a plain black t-shirt, he somehow still looks perfectly put together, even with the light dust that covers his arms and the beaten, scuffed toes of his black boots.
New scars nick his tan skin. Small and white, they don’t detract from his beauty. Instead, they only add to it.
Ezra isn’t beautiful in a conventional sense, but more in that of a warrior. There’s nothing soft or tame about him, his power worn as a shroud, his scars and lethal, focused gaze a warning.
His grin is mocking when he catches me studying him, but I just roll my eyes.
Of course I’m looking.
There isn’t a woman out there who wouldn’t.
Still, he can’t hide the male satisfaction, the knowledge that just his presence calls to me, a carnal lure pulling me in.
I’m suddenly feeling hella self-conscious in a cami and pajama shorts. Although, maybe I shouldn’t, not with the way his amber gaze runs a slow path of appreciation down my body and up again.
“I wasn’t expecting company,” I admit quickly, not even bothering to attempt covering myself.
It only stretches that grin of his wider.
“I’m not complaining.”
Okay. This conversation needs to veer far away from the way we’re practically eye fucking each other to something reasonably safe.
“Why was Damon arrested?”
His brow arches, the look so arrogant, I can’t help the flutter in my heart.
This man draws something out of me that isn’t safe. That I can’t control. He teases it out with a crooked finger so easily that I want to hate him for affecting me this way.
“Why do you think?”
“Fighting,” I correctly guess because there is no other answer when it comes to the twins.
“Did he say why? Is he hurt?”
Memories roll through his eyes, most likely of all the times I demanded to inspect their injuries when they came back to school cut and bruised.
“I’m sure the other seven guys look worse,” he grumbles as he runs a hand through his hair.
Seven? I’ve always known Damon was nuts, but… “All on his own?”
Another grumble, his nostrils flaring with a deep exhale.
“Shane was with him.”
Ah, well.
Sadly, that explains a lot.
“And all he told me is he kissed you after coming over here to find out why you left us.”
Running his thumb over his bottom lip, Ezra tips those amber eyes down to me.
“I found that to be insanely interesting. Especially after what happened a long time ago. Maybe Mason is right that you’re up to your old tricks.”
Oh, hell no.
He can fuck right off with that shit.
I wasn’t the one who started this.
My temper flares suddenly, and I can’t help that I’m yelling.
“You can get the hell out of my house if you’re only here to throw that crap in my face. We had a deal a long time ago, if you recall. And what happened just recently was also started by you. Not me. I remember saying it was a really stupid idea.”
I step forward, but
really I have no idea why. He’s twice my size, so I’m woefully lacking any hope of intimidating him.
He must realize I’m stuck in place without any way to show him just how pissed off I am because his grin stretches wide again, a dimple indenting his cheek.
“Easy there, killer. I didn’t come here to fight.” He glances down at my hands and chuckles. “You can put your little fists away.”
I look down at my hands and relax my fingers. They’d been balled so hard that my nails had carved half-moon dents into my skin.
It’s not my fault, though.
He does this to me.
People think his violence is only the fights he gets in, the physical savagery that leaves everybody bruised and bleeding. But what most don’t understand is the violence - the sheer destruction - he can pull out of everybody around him. The internal battles he causes that shred you apart until you’re left in a shattered heap.
I could swallow razor blades and glass shards and the damage wouldn’t be even close to comparable to what Ezra can do to me with just one look, one touch, one reminder of what we used to be and what we should have been if circumstances had been different.
That’s the truth of his violence.
That’s the damage he causes without any effort at all.
And it only makes me angrier.
“Then why the hell are you here? I didn’t do anything to Damon except tell him the truth that the three of us have nothing left. What did you want me to do? Lie to him?”
Ezra moves toward me, lowering his head in that feral way of his, stealing all of my vision so that he’s the only thing I see.
It makes my heart race just like when we were kids, my pulse pounding so hard I’m sure he can see it flutter in my neck. But I still won’t back down or take a step away. I won’t give him that satisfaction.
“I’m more concerned about you kissing him. Or was that the truth you were telling him as well?”
My eyes narrow on his.
“He kissed me.”
“You say that like there’s a difference. It’s all tongue and spit regardless of who started it, Em. Do me a favor, and don’t lie to me either.”
My hands fist again. The motion only draws his attention and causes him to laugh.
“If you need to hit me, I’ll give you one shot. Anywhere you want.”