“Who hurt you?” Brando asked, his expression falling as he noticed the bandage Henrik had placed over the round in my shoulder. His little hand brushed the edge of the tape there. “Why’d they do it?”
There was something in the way he asked me that hurt. Not ‘how did you hurt yourself’ but ‘who hurt you.’ This was a boy used to the concept of people hurting each other. The innocence I’d first sensed in him and Bianca wasn’t because they hadn’t seen the worst of the world, but because they had and they still chose hope instead of despair.
Before I could curb the impulse, I reached up and took his hand in mine, engulfing it in my entire palm. He seemed startled, but a little pleased at the contact.
“My dad did it,” I told him honestly, catching his gaze and locking it tight to mine. “His name is Bryant and he is a very bad man. If you ever see him, I want you to run the other way and call for help, okay?”
Brando frowned fiercely. Beside him, Picasso felt left out and raised onto his hind legs to lick our held hands.
“You should run away from him too,” he advised me somberly. “Anca and I didn’t have a dad for a long time and we turned out okay. Now, we’ve got you and Ez, Henrik, and Wally.”
“Yeah,” I said through the emotion clogging my throat. “Yeah, buddy. I’ll stay away, too, that’s good advice.”
“Anca told me the only people worth loving are the ones that love us back,” he recited proudly, then looked around the foyer. “Where is she?”
His question echoed in the silence.
I was a killer.
A liar.
A bad man through and through.
But the thought of lying to Brandon felt like the penultimate sin.
I swallowed thickly and looked up at Walcott who immediately stepped forward to sweep the boy up into his arms.
“Bianca was having such a fun time at the party with her friends, I told her to stay and enjoy herself. In fact, one of them asked her to go away for Christmas break. I told her we would miss her, but she should go enjoy herself. What do you think?”
He squinted at me. “Can I go, too?”
“No, buddy, she’s on a girl’s only trip. But you, me, and The Gentleman will have our own Christmas holiday, how does that sound?” I asked, a small part of me shocked that I was bargaining with a seven-year-old like I’d been his guardian for years.
The old Tiernan would’ve locked him in his room until I could drag Bianca home so I didn’t have to deal with him.
But Brando had awakened that small part of me that had once yearned and mourned for the unborn child I’d lost when Grace was driven to take her own life. I couldn’t look into those clear blue eyes and see anything worth hating in them.
“Can we get a tree?” Brando asked, jumping slightly in Walcott’s arms. “Mum never let us get a real one and I want one so bad!”
“Sure,” I agreed, a reluctant grin tugging at my mouth.
“It should be ten feet tall, at least,” Brandon declared, casting a speculative eye around the foyer. “We can put it in here between the stairs or in the living room right in the corner by the fireplace.”
“In that case, we better get two.”
He gaped at me, little mouth open in a perfect circle.
That mass in my chest, heavy and ungainly, shifted and expanded, pressing against my lungs so it was hard to breathe. Because the kid was looking at me like I’d give him a chest of treasure, something priceless and long-dreamt of.
“It’s just a tree, kid,” I cautioned for some reason. “No big deal.”
“Will you help me decorate them?” he continued excitedly. “If we don’t have money for ornaments, I’m really good at making them! We just need to buy some popsicles. Don’t worry, I’ll eat them all and then we can use the sticks!”
Even Carter coughed around a chuckle at that.
“I think we can do better than that,” I said. “We’ll get ornaments and lights for outside while we’re at it. How’s that sound?”
“So fun,” Brando breathed, beaming at me. “You’re the best.”
He turned his focus to Walcott, yammering away about Christmas plans as the man walked up the stairs with Picasso following behind. I watched them go, chest tight, tongue thick in my mouth.
And I knew exactly what I needed.
Not the empty grandeur of the Morelli Mansion or the relationships with my siblings I’d always dreamt of that went unreturned.
I wanted Brandon in his room at Lion Court, filling the cavernous rooms with excited chatter and youthful exuberance. I wanted Christmas with my men, Ezra, Walcott, and Henrik, maybe even Chef Patsy and whoever the fuck else worked around the house and grounds.
I wanted Bianca here in this house with us. Her husky laughter, her witty repartee, the dreamy look she got in her eye when she discovered a new piece of artwork hidden like lost treasure in the nooks and crannies of the mansion.
I wasn’t capable of love. This wasn’t that.
It was closer to obsession.
A mad desire to possess and cherish the way an art collector revered his most prized masterpiece.
She was mine and it was my right to care for her.
No one else’s.
That feeling in my chest settled with click like a lock sliding into place and suddenly I was filled with conviction.
I stood up so quickly I almost lost my footing, still lightheaded from blood loss.
“Tiernan?” Henrik touched his fingers to my elbow, ready to steady me.
“Bring the Bentley Bentayga around. The Aston is filled with my blood. I want to be ready to go get Bianca as soon as Ezra locates her.”
As if summoned by his name, Ezra appeared in the threshold to the left hallway and stalked forward with a ferocious scowl.
A chill slithered down my spine before his fingers even started moving.
That’s going to be a problem, he signed, because I found Bianca and she is at the Constantine Compound.
White hot fury flooded my system and for a moment, I was rendered blind by it.
“How the fuck did that happen?” I growled low, struggling to contain my helpless rage.
Tilda was at the party. Apparently, Lane’s best friend, Beckett, took her to the compound. Caroline just returned home there now.
Self-loathing and bitter regret surged over my tongue. I lashed out, grabbing the delicate wooden chair I’d sat in. It collided against the marble floor with a satisfying crash, splintering into pieces. One of them wedged itself into my palm like a thorn. It reminded me of that first day I’d met Bianca and pressed her hand around the stem of a blood red rose.
Fresh anger sparked through me.
I stalked toward Carter with a snarl on my face, satisfied by the way his eyes widened. He was a dangerous man, but so am I. It wouldn’t do for him to forget that.
“Tiernan, I had nothing to do with that,” he was saying under the roar of blood in my ears.
All I could think of was Bianca, beautiful and pure as a dove caged in the cruel hands of Caroline Constantine.
In that moment, Carter looked too much like Bryant to escape my ire. I lunged forward and squeezed his throat under my grip, watching his face turn vermillion. He thrust the side of his hand against my neck in a martial arts move I was familiar with. It hurt like a motherfucker, but I was used to pain. I stumbled back but remained standing over him.