Page 83 of Blood Ties
Riley
No, no, no.
We were so close to getting out. So fucking close. But now I’m pressed against the mattress, trembling, watching it all fall apart. Kai is wild-eyed in his uncle’s grip, but all the fight has gone out of him since he laid eyes on his father.
The man looks more monstrous than I remembered, with that gun in his hands and his eyes roving back and forth between his sons. He’s huge, every inch of him made of corded muscle and leathery skin, his mouth set in a grim line in the midst of his wild beard.
“What the fuck is this?” he asks.
“Nothing, Dad,” Knox says, wiping blood from his nose, his eyes on the floor.
Kai gives one last thrash in his uncle’s grip, and then slumps down. Not saying a word.
“Nothin’, huh?” Their father stops at the bottom of the stairs. He swings the barrel of his shotgun toward me, and I stare down the barrel, unmoving. “‘Cause it looks to me like the two of you are fighting over this girl again.” When neither of his sons answer, he walks toward me. He sneers as his eyes wander over me. “You two are blood. It ain’t worth fightin’ over some pussy.”
I look at Kai, silently begging for help, but he looks dazed, his gaze distant. Even though it curdles my stomach, I turn a pleading gaze toward Knox instead — but he’s staring at his brother, his expression unreadable.
“Thought I was very fucking clear that the two of you had to play nice, or I’d get rid of her,” their Dad says. He levels the barrel of the gun just inches from my face. “It’s about that time, anyway. You know the rules, Knox.”
A whimper slips out of me.
Knox finally looks my way. He hesitates for a moment. “Give us a little longer,” he says. “It’s all good. We’re sharing her.”
Their Dad cocks a brow. “Kai?” he asks, looking at his younger son.
Kai drags his gaze up from the floor. He gives me an agonized look. “Yeah,” he says, barely more than a whisper.
“Yeah?” Their Dad spits, a disgusting wad of saliva that lands just beside me on the mattress. “Mm.” He studies me, scowling. “Not sure I believe that.”
He looms over me. I stare up at him, willing myself to meet his chilling gaze. There’s something empty in his eyes, something far more terrifying even than Knox’s darkness. He doesn’t look like he’s angry or lustful or any other things I expected him to be. He doesn’t look like he feels anything at all. There’s just a void.
“Take off your clothes,” he says, his voice oddly detached.
I stare up at him, too shocked to react. He slams the barrel of the gun across my face.
I gasp in pain, white spots obscuring my vision for a moment. When I raise my head, he hits me again— aiming for my stomach, but I twist so it hits me in the ribs instead. I cry out, crawling away from him to the corner of the mattress.
“Stop!” Kai fights anew against his uncle’s grip, but it’s useless.
“Okay,” I say. “Okay!” I reach with shaking fingers to pull my shirt over my head, letting it dangle from my manacled wrist. I undo my pants too, shove them down, along with my panties. Then I sit, trembling and naked.
Kai’s father isn’t even looking at me. He’s looking at his son, drinking in his anguish like it’s far more interesting than my naked body.
“This?” he asks, looking from Kai to Knox. He uses the barrel of his gun to tilt my chin up toward him, and I choke back a terrified sob. “Thisis worth fighting your own blood over?”
“No,” Kai says, still straining against his uncle. “We’ll share her. We’re sharing.”
“This wasn’t about her,” Knox says. He’s taken a step closer at some point, his eyes locked on his Dad. “We’re fighting about other shit. I started it.”
Their father looks between them, his gaze calculating. I stare up at him, one hand raised to defend my battered face, the other curled around my stomach. I’m dizzy, dazed.
Then the man grins, a wide mouth of crooked teeth bared in an expression made horrifying by his cold, dead eyes. “Show me, then,” he says, and steps back from me, gesturing to Kai.
Frank releases him, and Kai stumbles forward a step, looking uncertainly toward his father. “What?”
“Show me you can share,” he says. “You both insisted it was true, so prove it.”
“I...” Kai’s frozen in place. “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
