Page 44 of Royally Bad

It blinded me, and apparently, it blinded Thorne, too—grunting, he dropped to the ground. Shielding my face, I grinned down at him where he’d ended up sprawled out. “You forget how walking works?” I asked.

Rolling his eyes, he reached up to grab my arm; I tugged him to his feet. Before he said anything else, he froze, staring down at the floor. We both saw the maid of honor dress that had tangled around his ankles, causing him to trip.

Carefully, he lifted it between us. “Here’s a thought,” he said, “And call me fucking crazy. But do you think this guy went after her because she seemed close to Frannie?”

Gripping the dress, I took it from him. My nostrils flared with the scent of Sammy. The room was already an echo chamber of her existence, this just rammed it home. “You might be onto something.”

Looking around slowly, Hawthorne approached the window. “Fuck, the sun comes straight in here. Who could even sleep like this?”

Curling the dress in my fist, I didn’t answer. My mind was roaming around, busy collecting scraps so that I could create a full picture.Is that it? Did this guy want to hurt us so badly that he thought he’d target Sammy, thinking she was Francesca’s best friend?Fuck, it made a terrifying amount of sense. But since when were the Deep Shots so vengeful?Wasthe attack caused by them?

Could my dad be wrong, for once?

“Huh,” my brother mumbled. Shade suddenly fell over the room. Lifting my eyes in confusion, I saw how he was blocking the window with a giant piece of cardboard. “This used to be up here. There’s still tape stuck on the sill.” With one toe, he nudged the pile of broken blinds on the floor.

Setting the dress on the bed, I joined him. Carefully, I ran my fingers over the window latch. Air was still blowing in through the bottom, where it hadn’t been fully shut. “She said he broke in through her window, yeah.” Lifting the glass pane with a grunt, I leaned out. The fire exit stairs were rusted, but reachable from the Dumpster below.

Imagining the bastard skulking around Sammy’s home, waiting for her to return ... it had my knuckles whitening from how hard I choked the sill.

“Shit!”

Banging my head on the window, I spun around to see what had made my brother cry out. Even with colors flashing in my eyes, I was groping for my gun. If the attacker had come back, then this was about to get messy.

Hawthorne faced me, his hands stretching up a pair of silky red panties. “Well, well, well,” he said, smirking sharply. “Your lady friend has some surprisingly nice taste. Was she wearing something like this when you two—hey!”

Ripping the underwear away, I shoved him backward. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong withyou?”he countered. Eyeing me doubtfully, my older brother nodded at the open clothing drawer behind him. “I was just investigating. Chill.”

“Investigating her fucking panties?” I threw the underwear back in with the others, slamming the dresser shut.

Hawthorne hadn’t stopped watching me. His voice came out low and cautious. “You’re not just messing around with this girl, are you? Holy shit.”

“You think it’d be okay to dig through her stuff if I was treating her like a fling?”

“I think you’d care a whole lot less, yeah.” Shrugging, he leaned on the dresser. “I haven’t seen you like this before.”

“Sure you have.”

“Nope.” Shaking his head, he messed with his short hair. “I’ve known you your whole life, Kain. I don’t ever see you talking to the same girl after she does her walk of shame. You can’t fool me, Sammy is more than just a hookup to you.”

“So what if she is?” I asked suspiciously.

“That right there,” he laughed. “Defensive as hell. Here’s some advice for you, Brother. You’re massively see-through.”

Standing taller, I said, “Thanks for the insight. Can I give you some advice, too?”

“Shoot.”

I gripped his shoulder solemnly. “It’s creepy to dig through a woman’s lingerie.”

Pushing me off, he laughed. “Let’s get out of here. Costello is waiting for us down by the Hill.”

The Hill was a part of the city known for crime. It wasn’t that long ago that people would warn against the area, unless you wanted to get a bullet in your guts. My father had done a lot of good in cleaning the area up—even if his methods were often questionable.

But why argue with the results?

Still, even with our thumbs crushing so many of the local gangs, one had recently made it a point to start ruffling our feathers. The Deep Shots were our major suspects in causing the police raid, so they were also our likely suspects as far as attacking Sammy went.

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