Page 51 of Graves

“I don’t want to hear this shit. I want you to back the fuck off. Her whole life is in ruins because of you!”

He scoffs. “Please, what life? To and from work? The occasional visit with her self-absorbed friend who has a whole-ass family and barely enough time for her? She wasn’t being loved the way she deserves, now she can.”

“At the risk of her life, Zayden! How do you not get that? If Maxim finds out about her, which he will, she’s as good as fucking dead. Not today, maybe not tomorrow, but one day.”

Zayden’s eyes turn practically black as he easily shoves me away from him.

“Don’t tell me what’s at stake. You think I don’t know this?” he snarls as he jumps to his feet and begins pacing. His hands are digging through his hair as he mutters to himself almost manically.

“I know! But I’ll protect her. I’ll keep her hidden from him for as long as possible, and when he finds out about her, I’ll talk to him.”

“Fat fucking lot that’ll do. When he finds her, he will make you his bitch forever.”

“So be it! It’s better than living a life without her.”

I shake my head. “You’re so goddamn selfish. She can’t live like this, Zayden. We need to set her up with a new identity, in a new country, and cut all contact. It’s the only way,” I say, the words tasting like acid on my tongue the instant they’re outthere.

His eyes go wild, and he leaps for the closest gun, cocking it and pressing it right to my temple.

“Suggest taking her away again, and I will blow your brains all over this room, brotherhood be damned!” he rages, his eyes panicked and wild.

He thinks I’m gonna take her in the middle of the night, not leaving a clue behind. He thinks he’ll have to spend his entire life just trying to find her again, and he’s not wrong. The thought has crossed my mind since the moment I learned about her. Sometimes I still think about it, but I’d like to exhaust every other possibility until then because, though I know Zayden would die without her, I’m not too sure I’d be much better.

“Just stay inside, under the radar. We need to dig some stuff up on Maxim, something that we can pin on him if he threatens her.”

“You’ve been trying to do that for over a decade, and you’ve always come up short,” Zayden throws out.

I nod. “I’ll have to try harder.”

He nods his agreement, and we both stay silent for several moments.

“She calls you Dom,” he says, almost hollowly.

I tense at that, not knowing how to respond, so instead, I nod.

His head turns to the side, silently asking me if I’ve told her, which I haven’t. Not really, at least. I shake my head, to which his shoulders seem to almost slump in relief. We’re quiet for several more seconds before he speaks.

“I’m never going to let her go.”

I look up at him, his stance evenly spaced and rigid. As if he is ready to fight me to the death should it come to that. From what she’s said today and what I saw tonight, though, I’m not sure how much of a fight is really there. She doesn’t want me, maybe she was just in the moment with him, or maybe she does want him. I don’t care either way. At the end of the day, if she doesn’t want me, what the fuck am I supposed to do? I’m not like Zayden. I won’t force her to love me, even if I want to so fucking badly.

“If she wants me, I’ll never let her go either,” I say.

“May the best win, I suppose,” Zayden muses.

“Suppose so.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

BLAKE

When I wake up the next morning, I’m in bed. Not my bed at my apartment. Not Dominic’s bed, but the bed in the spare room. My prison bed, as I like to call it. Last night felt like a fever dream. It must have been, right? There is no way all of that happened. No way I willingly fucked Zayden twice. I look down at the dark gray shirt engulfing me before lifting it to see three lines that are already beginning to heal on my inner thigh.

Okay, definitely real. I don’t suppose temporary insanity could explain away my lapse of judgment.I mean, maybe it could. That and the fight-or-flight mode that was activated with his little primal play chase game.

I force myself out of bed, noticing instantly how sore I feel between my thighs. God, he was not fucking around last night. I feel like I got fucked for hours.

While I basically hobble toward the bathroom like a newborn deer, I wince when I step inside the shower, allowing the warm water to hit my sensitive skin. I swear to God, I’m going to get a UTI if I sleep for one more fucking night full of cum.

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