Slowly, I slid back up the wall, my gaze locked with his. We waited only a heartbeat, but the time seemed to stretch into forever before we crashed into each other once more.

“Son of a bitch. Grab them before they kill each other,” a frantic yet familiar voice shouted.

I was thrown backward and Keiran in the opposite direction. I recognized Dash through my blurry vision with his arms wrapped tight around Keiran’s chest. He struggled to hold on but managed to keep him subdued.

“Keenan, man, pipe down before I put you out,” Q growled. It was only then I realized I was struggling just as hard. My gaze was still trained on him, and my mind was still corrupted by the need to murder.

Neither one of us were recognizable to the other. Blood poured from our wounds. Everything in the vicinity was either broken or shattered.

Lake suddenly appeared and ran through the room, crying hysterically, throwing herself onto Keiran.

I had only one guess as to who called them.

“My girl, Keenan.”

“My mother, brother.”

It was the last words I would speak to him for a long time.

* * * * *

I should have left town when I walked out of that house and away from my only family, but I was hell bent on a course to wreak havoc, which is how I ended up in Sheldon’s bedroom. “Keenan, why are you doing this? This isn’t you!”

“Yeah?” I stared down at her body splayed out for me as an offering I had just recently finished devouring. “You think you know me?”

“What?” She looked around disorientated. “Of course, I do,” she whispered softly. I didn’t like the way she gazed up at me with love in her eyes.

Her love was a lie.

Love was just that.

A lie.

“But you don’t know me. You never did.” She tried to lift up, but the belt wrapped around her neck and tied to the rails of her headboard stopped her movements. “I watched him do this to her one night.”

“What?” I ignored the confusion in her eyes and continued.

“I wanted to see what he was doing to her. I wasn’t looking for pleasure. I was curious. Just me trying to be a good guy. I actually thought I might have been willing to protect her if need be because she couldn’t protect herself. But then she fucking took him. She actually decided to be with him thinking he could change, but he won’t and she won’t realize it until it’s too late. She’s already trapped.”

I knew I sounded like a crazy person rambling, but anyone with eyes and a brain would know it was true. Keiran was not only dangerous. He was possessive, too.

“Keenan, please let me go.”

“I always wondered what kind of desire he could get from someone he claimed to hate. Now I fucking know.” The slump in her shoulders and the way her eyes rounded told me she knew exactly who I hated.

“You hate me?”

“What I feel for you goes far beyond hate. I needed you, Shelly, and you turned your back on me just like she did.”

“I am not your mother, Keenan!”

“Oh, I know that. The difference between you and her was that I actually believed you loved me.”

“I do!” she cried out and struggled against her bonds.

I gritted my teeth. My internal fight was threatening to surface. I needed to stay levelheaded. “Then prove it.”

“How?”

“Run away with me.”

Son of a bitch… That wasn’t what I was supposed to say, but I wasn’t going to take the words back either. With each second that passed, and the fear growing in her eyes, the idea began to sound better and better.

“What?”

“You’re either going to run with me or run from me. Make your choice.”

I held my breath and kept what I hoped was a blank expression while my stomach twisted to the point of pain. I couldn’t put a word on what I was feeling.

“I do love you.”

Hope. That’s what I felt. I was glad I could still feel at all.

“So you’ll come with me then?”

That was until she took it away.

“No, Keenan. I won’t.”

* * * * *

The one person who could make me stay or who could make me feel whole again—if I ever was—turned me away. There was no way I could stay. She wanted to be free, and I would let her, but not before I made her a promise.

If I ever returned—if I ever saw her again—I would keep her—and I would make her sorry.

I risked coming back to my father’s house because there was one thing I couldn’t leave without. I had made it to the landing before I heard the lowered voices. My footsteps lightened as I crept closer to the bedroom door left slightly ajar.

“I know you’re pissed, but you can’t give up on him. He needs you now more than ever.”

“Keenan is capable of taking care of himself. He had no issues helping himself to you a few hours ago.”

“Do you really think that was about me? He’s fucked up right now, but he wouldn’t go that far. He wouldn’t hurt you like that no matter how much he thinks he wants to. He thinks you’re choosing me over him.”

“What if I am? He’s made his feelings about me clear.”

“Just like you made your feelings clear for me all these years? But even then, you still felt something for me.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying you were good at running and you ran because you were confused.”

“Confused or not, he tried to take what belongs to me.”

“First, I’m not your property, Keiran. Second, he cannot take what I am not willing to give.”

“It doesn’t matter anymore anyway.” I could hear the frustration in his tone and could picture him running his hands down his face in that way he did that said he was ready to kill something… or someone.

I knew the risk I was taking by coming onto Lake, but she had been wrong. If she had offered, I would have taken because it was about her. I was willing to go that far because I knew what she meant to Keiran. I wasn’t a good person and tonight proved that.

I moved away and quietly entered my bedroom only to see a figure lying in the darkness. Light breathing filled the room, and I realized whoever it was must have been asleep. I crept slowly toward the sleeping form until I was standing at the head of my bed.

It was Di.

The daughter of the man my brother—Keiran—sent to prison.

I shook her none too gently and waited for her eyes to pop open. When they did, a terror I hadn’t expected flooded her expression when her gaze landed on me. She quickly backed away and then thrust her hands out to ward me off. I never moved from my spot, so I wondered what she could possibly be afraid of.

“Why are you in here?”

At the sound of my voice, her head tilted to the side in recognition though her eyes still appeared lost. “Keenan?”

Her husky voice sounded like sex, and I got the idea that she could be a phone sex operator, but then scratched it in my head before it could fully form. She was too sexy to be confined to a phone. A body like hers was made to be on display. Maybe that’s why her father pimped her out.

And I thought I was fucked up.

She brushed her dark hair out of her face and stared at me with her wide eyes and even wider lips. I considered fucking her for a moment but quickly nixed it. The scent and feel of Sheldon were both still evident on my cock, and strangely, I didn’t want anything to taint that. At least until I took a shower.

“What are you doing back here?” she asked when I turned away.

“I live here.”

“If Keiran sees you—”

I slammed the dresser drawer after retrieving what I came for and turned on her. “Don’t categorize me with the spineless fucks who tremble at the sight of him. I’m not afraid of him.”

“Obviously. You guys fucked each other up pretty good,” she grinned.

“Later.” I made for the door but, of course, she had to keep going.

“Wait,” she whispered loudly. “You look like someone who is running away. Where are you going?”

“Away from here.”

“Where is away?”