CHAPTER TWO
“You fucking told on us.”
CADEN
I didn’t have to look far when I entered the house. The three brothers I had grown up with were crowded around the island in the kitchen, a huge spread of food overflowing in the space around them. I hadn’t felt this angry in so long it almost felt foreign, not since that night. I was so angry that the thought of letting someone inflict pain on me while I got off on the thrill before fighting back was foreign to me. The situation wasn’t like that, it was personal.
I had been disrespected.
She was mine.
Mine.
And they had touched her.
Just how much had they touched her, though? Suddenly, it occurred to me that maybe pain hadn’t of been the only kind of physical harm they had inflicted on my pet. Had they fucked her? Had they been anywhere near that sweet cunt of mine? Tasted the same lips that were made for me and me alone?
The thoughts had me seeing pure red.
How many times had I fucking told him she belonged to me?
I had made it clear.
Too clear.
If they had taken what was mine, the only sense of purity I would ever know, on top of leaving marks all over her body, I would drag out every awful thing I did to them until they were pissing themselves, crying like the little bitches they were. I picked up the chair that was in front of me and threw it across the room before any of them had the chance to notice me and sent it flying through the window on the other side of the living room.
The three of them jumped out of their skin, startled.
“Jesus, Caden.”
“What the fuck?”
Well, no one could say I didn’t know how to make an entrance.
“Caden,” Jason inched forward, reading me right away. “What happened?”
I moved across the room, trying to control myself. “Did you know?”
“Did I know what?” he looked genuinely confused.
“Did you know...?” I trailed off, grinding my teeth back and forth over one another. “What they were doing to her?” I had gone in planning on staying calm, giving Jason a chance to get out of there before I went fucking nuts on his piece of shit brothers but when I saw the smug look on Michael’s face I lost my mind and was lunging at him before I could stop myself.
“Oh, shit,” I heard Carl holler from beside me.
I could see the realization pass over Michael’s face as I started pounding my fist into the front of his nose over and over again. Yeah, that’s right, you piece of shit. I fucking know. I could barely see his face I was hitting him so hard. I didn’t even realize I was covered in his blood until Jason was pulling me off of him, struggling to keep his balance under my weight.
“Caden!” he was screaming. “What the fuck are you doing?”
Carl stared down at his bloody brother in fear.
“Yeah, you’re fucking next,” I snapped, lunging forward.
Jason grabbed me, yanking me back against his chest again. “What the fuck did I miss here?” He pushed me back harder, letting my body slam into the side of the island.
I barely felt it.
“Caden.”
I swung around, locking my eyes on Winter’s small frame standing in the doorway. Her eyes were wide and filled with water, her body quivering slightly at the sight playing out in front of her.
She was fucking crying.
She never fucking cried.
She fought like hell to not show that kind of weakness.
“Winter, get the fuck out of here,” I growled at her, my anger growing at just the sight of her. “You can’t be here right now.” The tears in her eyes sealed her stepbrother’s fate even more.
“The only way I’m leaving is if you’re coming with me,” she said, taking a careful but firm step forward. “I know you’re angry, I’m angry, too. But you going back to jail isn’t the way to handle this.”
“Stop acting like my girlfriend,” I snapped, annoyed at her trying to take any kind of control over me. That wasn’t the way our relationship worked. It couldn’t work that way.
“You fucking bitch,” Carl mumbled, kneeling down next to his bloody brother and trying to muffle his soft groans as he tried to control the blood drifting off his broken nose. “You fucking told on us.”
“You don’t fucking talk to her.” I lunged at him, shoving Jason to the ground in the process and dragging Carl’s body forward so that I could sink my hands into him. “You don’t ever fucking talk to her again.”
My hand was making contact with the side of his jaw instantly. Once he was on the ground I stomped my foot into the side of his head. I could hear Winter screaming in the background but I barely registered it. I didn’t care if she was scared; she had chosen to come in here, so now she could deal with the consequences. No woman was going to make me soft, especially no woman that I was defending to begin with.
She should be thanking me; not acting scared of me.
Jason was holding me back again, having finally regained his balance. “Caden,” he hissed into my ear, pushing his hands against my chest and shoving me backward. “You have to stop.”
“Fuck you,” I spat, losing myself completely. “Did you fucking know?”
“Know what?” he hollered. “I’m lost here!”
“Your stepbrothers have been using Winter as their own personal punching bag.” I pushed him off me and grabbed Winter, pulling her toward me and lifting her shirt up to reveal the same black and blue welts that I had seen in the darkness of the parking lot earlier. “Looks like a really good time, doesn’t it? Beating the shit out of a girl?” I glanced back down at her stomach and winced when I realized they were worse in the light. I dropped her arm and lunged for Carl for the second time.
“Caden wait!” Winter tried to stop me again.
Jason grabbed me, holding me in place again.
“Fuck you!” I shoved him so hard he flinched back a few steps. “You’re defending them? I didn’t realize you got off on beating the shit out of women, Jason, good to know.”
“Oh, all of a sudden you’re the morality police, Caden?” Carl offered up from behind Jason. “You draw the line at hitting girls? All the shit you get away with and that’s what you have a problem with?”
I growled, picking up another chair and tossing it as his head.
Winter gasped behind me.
“Shut the fuck up,” Jason spat at his brother. “I should kill you myself.” He turned back to me “Caden, I didn’t know, you know I wouldn’t have allowed it if I did.” The look on his face told me all that I needed to know. He really didn’t know what had been going on. He was still my brother, still loyal to a fault.
“Doesn’t change the fact that you’re still standing between me and them,” I seethed down at him, cracking my knuckles back and forth behind my back.
He took a step closer to me, lowering his voice. “You think I’m protecting them? Take a look at yourself, I know that look, I know that presence, you’re two seconds away from taking a baseball bat and bashing their heads in.” He sighed. “I’m not protecting them, bro, I’m protecting you. If you stay you’re going to end up right back in jail and I’m not going to let that happen. You can’t be here, not when you’re this worked up.”
I could see my chest rising and falling heavily on me, my heart racing so fast that I felt like if I didn’t get my aggression out I might explode. I knew Jason was right, he was always right. I didn’t know my limits. If he had been there that night he would have stopped me before I took it too far, just like he was trying to stop me now.
I sighed. “They have to pay.”
“They will,” he assured me.
I looked over his shoulder at their bloody presence. They were in pain, that much was clear, but it wasn’t close to enough for everything they had put my girl through. My girl, my property, I owned her. They had disrespected her so they had disrespected me. I wasn’t sure anything I could ever do to them would be enough justice but I was going to spend endless hours finding out but tonight? Tonight I was done.
As long as…
I turned around, taking in Winter’s scared and small body as she watched us in anticipation. She was trying to play it cool but I could tell she was hoping Jason was going to be able to break through my wall and get me to leave without further hurting anyone.
I closed the distance between the two of us and grabbed her neck, making her focus those big doe eyes on me. I took in the paleness of her skin and her plump pink lips. Ugh, the things I wanted to do to those and another set of lips on her should be a fucking sin.
“Did they ever touch you?”
Her eyebrows knitted together in confusion.
I tightened my grip on her skin in anticipation. “Did they ever touch the parts of you made only for me, Winter? Did they ever make you suck their tiny cocks or shove any part of them inside of you?”
Carl huffed at me but I kept my eyes locked on my pet.
Her eyes widened in shock and she shook her head. “No. Never.”
I kept my eyes sternly on her for a few beats, trying to gather if she was lying or not. “Are you sure?” Any trace of a yes on her features was going to result in their deaths, jail or not.
“I’m sure! Never!” She averted her eyes. “I’ve never…”
I groaned and leaned in so that only she could hear me. “I guess I’ll see, won’t I?” I ran a finger over her lower lip and then turned back around. “Fine, I’ll leave for now but this is nowhere near over.”
“Understood,” Jason agreed, he glanced at Winter, looking suddenly uncomfortable. “I guess we should…” He shook his head. “I’m at a loss at what to say here.”
“Join the fucking club.” I swung around and grabbed Winter again. “Let’s go.” I started dragging her body after me toward the bottom of the stairs. “We should get some of your things now.”
“My things?”
I stopped and looked at her. “Yeah, your things. You didn’t think I was going to leave you here with them, did you?” I shook my head. “No, you’re coming home with me, where I can keep an eye on you.”
Winter’s mouth hung open. “Coming home with you? As in living with you?” She shook her head, answering her own question. “Oh, no, I couldn’t possibly…”
“You can and you will,” I informed her. I could feel Jason’s eyes on me, judging, but I didn’t give a fuck. He would have to think I was batshit crazy to leave her in a house with his douchebag brothers after everything they had put her through.
No, she had to come with me. Stay under my roof where I could keep an eye on her twenty-four hours a day. Clearly, her family wasn’t interested in keeping her safe so I would have to. I may have hated her for what she did to me but she still belonged to me and that meant no one else got to give her a hard time besides me.
“My father isn’t going to like that,” Carl mumbled off in the distance.
“Yeah? Tell him to come see me anytime,” I snapped back at him. As far as I was concerned the only thing keeping that whole family from a shallow grave was Jason. I headed up the stairs again.
And this time Winter followed me.
Just like a good pet should.