Page 8 of Bound By Ruin

I wrap my arm around her waist and pull her into my side, pressing a quick kiss to the corner of her lips. “I thought it was pretty funny.”

“Seriously, who’s yelling? Because they’re gonna wake Ruin up—” Her eyes widen as she spots her brother beyond Than’s—Riot’s—broad shoulders. She gasps and slips from my arms to greet him.

Great.

Rage and I follow closely, neither of us keen on having her deal with her asshole brother alone, but it quickly turns out that she doesn’t need us.

“What thehelldo you think you’re doing?” She hisses, grabbing his wrist in a vice grip and hauling him toward the front door. “This is a medical facility! People are resting!”

My heartbeat trills with pride. Yeah, that’smygirl.

Mikhail steps outside with her, but so do my brothers and I. We form a wall of muscle behind her, the three of us ready to jump in at a moment’s notice.

“What areyoudoing?” Mikhail asks, gesturing towards us. “I find out that your shop burnt down, and then you’re not even home! The police have put out an APB for you, Celia, and our mother is about to tear down the city looking for you!”

Celia winces. “I’ll call her.”

“Oh, really? Like you’ve called me over the past few weeks?”

“Cool it!” She shoves his chest. “I love you, Mikhail, but you did a shitty fucking thing, and you know it!”

He shakes his head. “What would you have had me do? Let that fucker take my wife? Let all his constituents get away with it? I’ll burn the city to the ground to keep her safe. Youknowthat, and you know that I’d do the same for you!” He turns the heat onto us. “So what the fuck are you doing with these guys?”

Celia looks at the three of us, her expression softening. “They’re mine, Mikhail, the same way that Valentina is yours.”

It takes Mikhail a second to process this, and then he’s not glaring nearly as hard. “I need a drink,” he says finally, engulfing his sister in a hug. “And I think we need to talk.”

I clap my hands together and grin. “Count me in for that drink.”

Rage smacks my shoulder before he remembers that I’m injured. I hiss, and he quickly mutters an apology. “No drinks, but we can talk.”

Mikhail releases Celia and nods. “We can head back to the estate if you guys are discharged.”

“We’re not,” Celia says quickly, “we have to stay. Ruin’s still inside.” She loops her arm through her brother’s and walks him toward us. “But you can order us some breakfast as an apology for the rude awakening.” Her cheeks flush a pretty pink and she clears her throat. “Mikhail, you’ve already met Rage. This is his brother Rebel, and that’s Thanatos. They’re my—” She takes a quick breath and smiles the sweetest damn smile I’ve ever seen. “They’re my family now. So be nice.”

“Family?” Mikhail’s face pinches. “What, did you get hitched, or something?” He inspects Celia’s left hand for a wedding band and frowns at the bruising on her wrist from the handcuffs last night.

Oops.

“Not yet,” I chime in, “but by the time the baby comes, you bet your ass, she will be.”

“Baby?”

Celia’s blush deepens. “Maybe we should, ah, have that drink after all.”

This time, it’s Thanatos who grumbles his agreement. “I think I need a whole damn bottle to get through today.”

Chapter4

Rage

Mikhail Monrovia isthe type of man who pushes buttons. Not just the tiny ones that light up sky rise elevators like Christmas trees—but the big, red buttons encased in glass and surrounded by warning signs that readDO NOT PUSH!He slams his fist on those huge buttons with a maniacal grin on his face, all because he wants to see the chaos that follows.

My brother Rebel is much the same way, pushing over dominos to watch the crash.

I don’t like having them in a room together for this exact reason, but with Celia in our lives, I have a gut feeling that it’s something I’m going to have to get used to. While Mikhail absentmindedly flicks a switchblade in his hand throughout our entire conversation, Rebel tracks the movement with this tiny smile on his lips, like he’s tempted to kick the knife out of Mikhail’s hands to see what the man will do if Rebel reaches across the table and claims it for himself.

I stomp my heel on Rebel’s toes and grind down, but it’s no use—he’s strung out from the lack of sleep and the crash after an adrenaline rush, both making him distracted. He’s hardly paying attention as Thanatos draws a circle on a paper map of the city, pinpointing our father’s most likely location based upon the body drops over the past few weeks and the abandoned buildings in the vicinity. There are only so many places he can hide.

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