“Stand right here.” I push her until she’s in the middle of the room and then take out my phone to snap a pic. I send it to my father via text message.
He replies a few seconds later with the message: That took forty-seven minutes.
I don’t reply. Fuck him. Deed done. Task over. “Listen to me very carefully, Cadee Hunter.”
She’s looking around the room. Taking it all in. But when I snap at her, she finds my gaze. “What?”
I point at her. “Stay here. Do not leave this room. If I see you in the hallways, or the kitchen, or anywhere inside my fucking house but this room right here, I will end you. Understand me?” I don’t wait for her answer. I just turn around and start heading back to the other side of the house.
Ax and Lars didn’t follow us. They’re probably in the kitchen.
“Wait!” Cadee calls. “What am I supposed to do here?”
“Don’t ask me,” I growl. “You’re not my problem anymore.”
“Cooper!” My brother Dane’s voice bellows through the house.
“Shit,” I whisper. I stop in the hallway and look back at Cadee. “Do not fucking move. Do you hear me?”
She looks… scared. Terrified, actually. The reality of her situation finally kicking in. But she nods, suddenly compliant.
“Close the door, stay quiet, and do not leave that room.”
She nods again. And she closes the door.
The lock is clicking when Dane rounds the far corner of the hallway. “There you are. What are you doing here? I thought you were on your way to… where were you going again?”
“Fuck you. Go home, Dane. Your wife is waiting.” I make sure to bump his chest with my shoulder as I pass and then head towards the kitchen to find Lars and Ax.
“Hey. I’m talking to you.” Dane catches up with me and grabs me by the arm. Exactly the way I was grabbing Cadee.
I stop and look down at his hand. Then my eyes track up to his face. We’re the same height now. I finally caught up to him. Dane and Jack are only one year apart so they have always been equals. But I am three years younger than Dane and four years younger than Jack. And while Jack and I have always gotten along, things between Dane and I have never been equal.
Middle-child syndrome?
No. He’s just an asshole.
He doesn’t let go of my arm even though he must surely see the anger in my eyes. “Why are you here?”
“Ask Dad.” I pull my arm out of his grip and turn back towards the kitchen.
But he grabs me again. And this time I don’t hold it in. I let that anger out through the end of my fist. It crashes into his face, and then we are in a full-on brawl right there in the hallway.
He grabs me around the middle, hoists me up, and then throws me down onto the dark-gray slate floor so hard, I think the slate tile cracks underneath me.
He’s swinging at my face and I’ve got my hands around his throat, ready to choke him unconscious if I have to, when Lars and Ax appear and start pulling us apart.
I get to my feet first because Dane is too busy trying to swing at Ax, but Ax won’t take that shit and he swings back, chopping Dane in the throat so hard, he stumbles backwards gasping for air.
We watch him for a few moments, all of us waiting it out to see if he’s really gonna die from that blow, or just cough and wheeze his way into submission and eat his humiliation.
It’s the latter. Thank God. Because if he truly needed saving, I don’t think I would do it.
“You’re gonna… pay… for that.” Dane croaks the words out between gasps of air and points to Ax with an accusatory finger while his other hand holds on to his throat like that’s gonna help.
Ax makes a move, always up for some violence. But Lars and I pull him back. “Fuck you, Dane,” Ax spits. “Any time you want more of this, you let me know.”
Dane looks at me as I push Lars and Ax back towards the kitchen. “You’re gonna pay for that too. I know what you were doing last night. I know more about you than you think, Christopher.”
“Right back at you,” I snarl. I back away. I’m not afraid of him. We can do this all day if he wants. But I’m not about to turn my back on this asshole. “I’m here. Under Dad’s orders. So if you don’t like it? You take it up with him. Otherwise you better keep your distance from me. I’m not that kid you used to beat up anymore. And trust me, brother. You’ve got payback coming.”
He glares at me, then squints a little, maybe trying to figure if that threat is real or not. But the important thing is that he says nothing. So I just back around the hallway where Ax and Lars are waiting.
We walk backwards a few paces, waiting to see if Dane will follow us. He stops in the entrance to the hall we’re standing in, wipes some blood off his lip and says, “You better watch your backs.” But then he continues down the hallway towards the other side of the house and disappears from view.
We turn and walk towards the kitchen.
“Jesus Christ.” Lars laughs. “You two haven’t changed a bit.”
“Watch my back?” Ax seethes. “I fucking hate that asshole. He better watch his back.”
I pace the length of the kitchen, which is located on my end of the great room that faces the lake. One side is all high-end industrial appliances, black soapstone countertops, and gray cabinets and the other side is the sitting area with a massive stone fireplace flanked on either side by built-in bookshelves with several seating areas in the middle.
There is an entrance to the main part of the house on either side of this room. And that’s what I’m focused on as I pace. Checking to make sure that Dane doesn’t go back to the wing where I put Cadee.
He doesn’t. And finally, after about ten minutes of this—long after Ax and Lars have made themselves at home with snacks and are watching a baseball game on the huge ninety-eight-inch TV mounted over the fireplace—I hear the front door slam and I take a seat in a chair.
I sit on something, realize it’s the glossy blue and gold folder my father gave me, and pull it out of my back pocket.
“What’s in there?” Ax says, stuffing cheese puffs in his mouth.
I slap the folder onto the coffee table in front of me, then smooth the crease down and open it up. Lars plops down on the couch opposite the table and Ax joins him.
We study the papers.
“Well, this doesn’t look good,” Lars says, probably thinking about our own rush three years ago.
It was a fucking nightmare. Dane was running it that year. He was King and I was just a little princeling who needed to be put in his place.
“No,” I agree. “It doesn’t.”
Ax leans back into the couch cushions with a sigh. “I thought that shit was behind us.”
“Apparently not.”
“So where’s Cadee fit in?” Lars asks, taking the folder and shuffling through the papers.
“I think she works for us. Kitchen help? I think.”
“Oh, hell yeah.” Ax perks up. “I’m gonna have some fun with that little tart this summer. If I have to be stuck here, I will make everyone pay for it. It’s gonna be senior year of high school all over again.”
Lars chuckles, then slides the packet over to me. “Could be fun. How many?”