Broderick (Sabine Valley #2) - Katee Robert Page 0,46
I break up that little family get-together he arranged.”
Maddox waits until he’s gone to say, “I hope you know what you’re doing. Monroe isn’t like our people. She’s looking out for the Amazons, and she’s not about to let something as soft as emotions get in her way, no matter how fond of you she is.”
Just like that, my uncomfortableness is gone, replaced by the anger that’s quickly becoming my go-to emotion. I have fought and won and lost and bled with these people, and all it takes is Broderick losing his head for them to start looking at me like I’m a damsel in distress. I’m a fucking warrior. Gods, I used to be an Amazon. I know more about what Amazons are capable of than anyone in this compound, Brides excluded.
I am so damn tired of being underestimated.
I hardly recognize myself as I stand and pin him with a look. “Have I once, in the entire time we’ve known each other, given you reason to question my conduct?”
Maddox opens his mouth, seems to reconsider what he was about to say, and finally shrugs. “No.”
Yeah, I didn’t think so. “I understand that you and the others see me as some sort of stand-in little sister, but I am not an innocent. I haven’t been one since long before I ever knew the Paine brothers existed. I can handle Monroe.” I don’t know if the last bit is the truth, but I’m also not about to let my infatuation with the woman undermine my loyalty to the people I’ve spent the last seven years shoulder to shoulder with.
I hate that everyone is questioning that, as if I’m a babe in the woods who will be swept away by the first person showing me a kind word. Though I wouldn’t call anything about Monroe kind.
Even if she was so fucking sweet on my tongue last night.
“I have it under control,” I finally say.
“For all our sakes, I sure as fuck hope you do.”
Chapter 14
Broderick
Watching the Rhodius family speak softly to each other makes me so fucking uncomfortable. I have spent so much of my life hating the other factions, a hate that only ramped up after the night that changed everything. From what we’ve pieced together since, Aisling worked with Ciar of the Mystics and Deacon Walsh to conspire against us. The Mystics provided the drugs that the dinner was dosed with, and the Amazons sent a squad to barricade the exits and light the building on fire. If not for the fact that my brothers and I had skipped dinner because Abel called a surprise meeting, we would have died in that fire.
Aisling is Monroe and Winry’s mother, Jasper’s older sister. These three might not have been any part of the decision that ended with forty innocent people being killed, but they are part of the ruling family. They’ll have made different hard decisions that involved different deaths.
It’s easy to hate from a distance, to pinpoint their differences, their sins, and build them up to be larger than life. To be villains. With that kind of hate, it’s so easy to build up or tear down people in your head. They stop being people altogether and become the enemy.
In this moment, Monroe, Winry, and Jasper are all too real. I see the blatant love in the way they check in with each other, in the gentle ribbing and sharp words that evolve to them chatting easily. It reminds me of how I interact with my brothers, and isn’t that a bitch of a realization?
When it comes right down to it, they think the same things about us that we think about them. That we’re monsters. That they have to go to great lengths to protect their people from us.
It’s not a comfortable realization.
This is a side of Monroe I’ve never seen before, one that is tender and protective in turns. I don’t know how to fit the puzzle piece into the hellion that I’ve interacted with up to this point. I don’t know why I’m even trying. Who gives a shit if she loves her family?
Even monsters have families.
I jolt as the doors fly open, and Cohen stalks into the room. He gives the trio a long look and jerks his thumb at the door. “All right, kids. Playtime’s over. Get back to your rooms.”
Jasper puts his hands on Winry’s and Monroe’s shoulders and smiles at them. “You’re doing great. Hang in there.”