It only happened once. Just one night between the three of us right before my mother died and my father and I fled.
But if I had stayed…
My heartbeat feels erratic and unstable, as if the overtaxed organ is about to give out at any moment. I can’t seem to catch a full breath. Vivid memories of the past collide with the harsh reality of the present, and my body and mind feel paralyzed, unable to sort out one from the other. Unable to separate what’s real and what’s just a memory.
Unbidden, a flush of arousal burns through my veins, chased away almost immediately by pain and fear.
These aren’t the boys I had one wild night with back when my life still made sense.
They’re bigger now.
Harder.
Colder.
Zaid’s green eyes burn as his gaze locks on mine, and I have no idea what he’s thinking. Is he remembering that night too? Does he ever think of it? Or has he nearly forgotten me in all the years since I left, erasing my memory in the dozens of other women he’s probably fucked in the meantime?
The thought sends something hot and fierce burning through my veins, and I jerk my head forward, trying to headbutt him.
He jerks his head to the side at the last moment, just barely avoiding my attempted blow, and all I get for my trouble is a rush of dark stars in my vision and a wave of nausea that makes me gasp for breath, the coppery tang of bile coating my tongue.
I’m panting, grunting, struggling like an animal in a cage, and I don’t even know what I hope to achieve. Just that I want to hurt these men. To hurt them like they hurt me.
When I squirm against them, trying to get an elbow up to lash out, Lucas wraps a strong arm around my waist from behind, his muscled forearm pressing against my exposed stomach.
A shock of pain bursts through my side, and when I cry out, he hisses and loosens his grip a little. Between the pain in my head and the pain in my side, I can barely see straight, and the two of them use my moment of weakness to pin me firmly to the bed, stopping me from struggling at all.
“You need to calm down,” Zaid says firmly. His voice is deeper than I remembered. Rough and masculine. Less boyish.
“I’m too weak to go anywhere, okay?” I rasp, closing my eyes against the barrage of agony—both physical and mental—that assaults me. “You can let go of me.”
“Yeah. Fat fucking chance of that, you wildcat.” Lucas chuckles, and the sound vibrates through my body. But there’s no real humor in it.
Before I can respond, the door opens. At the sound, I force my unwilling eyelids to open again, blinking at the assault of light. Ciro steps inside the room, barely even glancing at the three of us as he moves to the nightstand and sets down a small box. He flips it open, and the sound of the wooden lid hitting the nightstand makes shivers crawl down my spine.
I don’t know what the fuck is in that box, but I’m terrified to find out.
“Am I interrupting something?” Ciro’s gaze finally flicks to us, his steel-gray eyes impossible to read, his face impassive. There’s something… blank about him that only adds to the fear building inside me.
Zaid and Lucas have filled out and gotten harder-edged since I saw them last. But Ciro has changed completely. Although his features haven’t changed all that much in the transition from boyhood to manhood, there’s something about him that’s almost unrecognizable to me—as if the person he is inside has been altered irrevocably.
“Nope.” Lucas releases his hold on me, pulling his body away first. The cool of the air hits my back in his absence, and I shiver in spite of my relief at his absence. “Thought she could be clever and try to escape. With a fucking bullet wound in her side and no idea where the hell she even is.”
Zaid lingers a second longer, his gaze catching mine again. At his brother’s words, something like pity flashes across his face, but it’s there and gone again so fast that I can’t convince myself I really saw it. Then he moves away from me and gets off the bed too, straightening his clothes. He’s wearing well-fitted jeans and a dark blue long-sleeved shirt with the sleeves rolled up on his forearms. He looks casual but commanding, something I’m sure wasn’t an accident.
Ciro gives the twins another look that I can’t decipher, so I don’t even try. My throat is dry and sore, and as the adrenaline in my veins dies away, an overwhelming tiredness washes over me, the weight of my situation finally settling.
Lucas is right about one thing. I don’t know where I am or why I’ve been taken. And just because I once knew the men who’ve taken me captive, I doubt I’m any more likely to survive this than if I’d been taken by strangers. I saw the way Hale looked at me after he dumped me on the seat of the van.
With pure hatred in his eyes.
Disgust.
Resentment.
Hell, maybe I’d be safer with strangers. There’s too much baggage between me and these men, and I can feel it infecting the very air around us.
The mattress shifts as Ciro sits on the bed next to me. I make a move to scramble away, but his hand clamps around my uninjured wrist. His expression doesn’t change one bit, and his grip isn’t tight, but his hand seems to engulf my wrist, making me feel tiny. Vulnerable. Breakable.
Without even uttering a single word, he’s issued me a warning.
“I need to check your stitches,” he says, releasing me once he sees in my expression that I’m not going to move. He leans over and grabs the box he brought in, then pulls out antiseptic and a fresh roll of bandages. “You were shot.”
As if summoned by his words, pain flares in my side, along with a vivid memory of the bullet tearing through my skin.
Right. No wonder my whole body fucking hurts.
I lie still and try to control my breathing as Ciro lifts up my shirt and peels the bandages away from my side. His fingers are deft and sure, moving confidently as if he’s done this dozens of times before.
He probably has.
“It’s going to scar,” he notes absently, setting the discarded bandages aside.
“Yeah, I know. I’m not an idiot, Ciro,” I whisper. It’s meant to be a taunt, but I’m too weak for it to have much bite. And I suppose I should take it as a good sign that he thinks I’ll be alive long enough for a scar to form.
The room goes quiet as he works. Zaid and Lucas stand sentry from the foot of the bed, watching with their arms crossed over their chests. They’ve fallen into almost the exact same pose, something they used to do all the time when we were younger—like they were bookends, mirror images of each other.
I thought it was charming then. Now, it just makes me hate them more.
Ciro doesn’t seem bothered by their steady stares. He works quickly, disinfecting the stitches on both the front and back side of my abdomen before reaching into the box and pulling out some large gauze pads.
I can’t help but stare at him too. I don’t know what the hell to think of him. He’s always been the quiet one out of the four men. Only now, his quietness is different. Unnerving. It’s almost as if he’s empty inside, void of any emotion. His lethal silence terrifies me more than any show of power Zaid or Lucas could ever pull.
In fact, he scares the shit out of me.
“That’s new.” I swallow, then point to the tattoo on his right forearm. I’m not sure why I’m bothering to talk to any of my captors, but the silence is making my skin prickle. “It’s… nice.”