“Well, look who decided to fucking show her face,” Gunter sneers. “Welcome home, precious.”
I mentally shake off the chill his tone gives me, and step toward where Gunter sits. “I’m sorry, baby.”
“Are you?” he asks, eyes narrowed.
I nod, gripping the hem of my T-shirt to save my hands from shaking. “I panicked. I got scared seeing Tommy like that. What if it had been you?”
He scoffs. My chances are slim. “So you break it off?” He steels his jaw, a thick vein making an appearance in his neck. “You thought you’d fucking leave?”
Tears, Ryan. He needs tears to believe this. I think of everything that’s hurt me: Mom and Dad’s death, Harris leaving me behind, Tommy being shot, and push out the evidence of my sadness. “Because I thought about what it would feel like to lose you, and I got scared. I thought it would be better to leave you than lose you.”
His eyebrows pinch, relax, and then pinch again as he takes in my tears. “You’re lying.”
“No,” I whine, stepping toward him, feeling my bile revolt against my lies. “It would kill me to lose you.”
For a fleeting moment, I have him. His eyes soften, his face falls, and I can see the finish line. And then the racehorse spooks. His brow furrows and his nostrils flare. “Save it, you lying slut.”
“Excuse me?” I feign shock, playing this damn role until the very last.
“Where you been, Ryan?”
“I just drove until I needed fuel. I needed time to come to terms with what happened to Tommy.” Why haven’t I seen Tommy yet? “Where is he?”
Gunter catapults himself out of the chair and marches straight for me. I back up, my instinct to preserve myself kicking in, and find the edge of the hallway wall.
“Where is he? He’s laid up in bed trying not to fucking die, Ryan.” Gunter swallows hard. “He woke up, spoke to me, and then two hours ago the asshole went to sleep and got a fucking fever.” Tears well in Gunter’s eyes, but the expression on his face is one of pure anger, and simmering dangerously close to boiling point. “Things don’t look good.”
“He spoke?” I whisper, my chin quaking.
“You’d fucking know already if you checked your messages.” My damn phone. “Where the fuck did you stay last night, Ryan?” he asks, his eyes red. But the color isn’t from tears, or lack of sleep. It’s chemically induced. He’s high as a fucking kite on something. Fucking Eddie.
“I stayed at a motel,” I mumble. Tommy woke up, and I wasn’t here to talk with him, say a final goodbye.
“You’ve never been a good liar.” Haven’t I? “Who is he, bitch.” His tone is low and menacing. I pat down the wall, looking for something within reach I can use to defend myself if necessary.
“There’s no-one, Gunter.” I start to cry for real; more out of frustration than fear.
“Why do you keep lying to me?” he roars, placing his hands on his head. “Fuck, Ryan. I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed, but stop fucking treating me like a retard.” He slams a hand beside my head and boxes me in. “Tell me who he is.” Gunter drops his head, chuckling. “I don’t even know why I’m playing this game. I know the guy’s been after you since he first fucking showed his face.”
“Who?” My head is swimming, and I’m certain I’m going to pass out from the stress on my heart.
“Bronson.”
I try. I try fucking hard. But the pressure behind my eyes tells me my pupils have given it all away.
Gunter sneers at his hollow victory. “Knew it.” The rage builds, the vein in his neck pulsing, and the red of his eyes growing with each heaving breath he pulls.
I sweat under his scrutiny—literally.
“Fuck you, Ryan.” Gunter rears his hand back, slamming it into the plaster beside my head. “Fuck. You.” He punches the wall again and again, trapping me with his huge body as the plaster dust rains down over me.
I cry out, shielding my face with my hands. Why the fuck did I think I could do this?
The destruction stops, Gunter’s heaving breath the only sound. I peek out from behind my hands and promptly squeal. Eddie’s aged and pale face stares at me, his eyes tracking my every movement. I didn’t hear him come in.
“Ryan, love,” Eddie greets me with the smile of a fox that’s found a cornered chicken. “We were worried about you.”
“Funny way Gunter has of showing it,” I say, pointing to the destroyed section of wall beside my head with a shaky finger.
Eddie smiles. “What else would you expect? You upset my boy.”
“Yeah? For the last three years you’ve been around us you’ve seen him repeatedly upset me, but you never gave a fuck about that.”
His face falls, his eyes darkening as he takes a single step toward me. The loss of distance is crushing. Every ounce of his hate is amplified tenfold through the single movement. “Nobody likes a crass mouth on a pretty face,” he warns me. “’Ave you forgotten what your place is, woman?”
“I think you lot have made my place abundantly clear over the years,” I tell him. I’m fucking holding the knife to my own throat, but the floodgates have been opened. He’s oppressed me for too long, and all that pent-up frustration needs an out. “Ever occur to you that any woman with half an ounce of self-respect would be a fucking idiot to put up with this shit forever?”
He chuckles, sending a chill skittering over my flesh. “I don’t need a girl who has self-respect. I just need a pretty face to distract the bastards I need to deal with day to day, a pretty face who knows to keep her fuckin’ trap shut, and who knows when she’s expected to lay down with those long legs wide open for the takin’.” He jams his knee between mine, knocking my stance wide. “You ain’t here because I respect that brain of yours, sweetheart—you’re here because your sweet little cunt is the only thing that keeps my rabid dog here docile.” He thumbs over his shoulder to Gunter who’s casually leaning on the arm of the sofa, watching our exchange, as though he didn’t just go hulk on the wall. “And here’s the kicker, baby-cakes.” Eddie chuckles to himself, making a quarter-turn away from me before spinning around and stepping right into my space, his nose near touching mine. “Nobody gives a fuck if you’re a rocket scientist or a dribblin’ vegetable as long as you’re in working order down here.” His rough hand cups the denim between my legs, squeezing hard.
My heart’s shifted to somewhere in my throat, each beat painful in my ears as the blood surges through my body. My adrenalin spikes, my senses going haywire as I place each man in the room and plot their demise. Fuck, this is impossible.
Eddie leans back a little, just far enough to be able to look me over. “If you’re as smart as you’re tellin’ me, Ryan, you’ll know what this means for you.”
“I’ve got a pretty good idea.” I’m about to be taught a lesson, and it won’t be an easy one.
“You know, sugar,” Gunter says, standing and walking toward me with a hand stroking his chin. “You made me a promise last night you never kept.”
No. Not that.
“It’s still laid out, waiting for you.” Gunter tips his chin toward the bedroom. “How about you go put it on before we get this party started?”
I look around the faces watching me with some mixture of bloodlust and sexual hunger. They might be stronger than I am, and there might be four of them and one of me, but I’ll be damned if I’m going down without a fight. Heading to the bedroom isn’t such a bad idea; at least then I can get to that damn gun.
I sidestep out from under Eddie, having to lift my right leg over his to avoid tripping. He watches me with nothing short of menace, enjoying how put out I am. My feet find their way up the hall, and the dull thuds of Gunter’s boots trail behind me. I’m focused on the doorway to our bedroom, mapping out what I’ll do to take him out as I walk, when we come to Tommy’s bedroom door on our right.