I think about the texts he sent me. It was an entire day of them. He found her school records. He knows she’s here on scholarship. He knows she doesn’t like being touched. Fuck, that one probably gets me the most. This thing I tried so hard to teach her was good and fine, and he’s more than willing to twist it into something ugly and awful, just to get back at me for…
I turn the bottle over in my hands, pressing my thumbnail into the glass. “He wants me to fight again.”
“You can’t,” Reyn instantly says, as if it’s that easy. “Unless you want your brain to turn into swiss cheese permanently.”
Rolling my shoulders, I grind out, “I know. But if I don’t, he’ll take it out on her. Fuck, if I do, he’ll take it out on her.”
Emory stares at me. “So what? You figured if you dumped her, he’d let it go?”
“He’ll lose interest if he thinks she doesn’t mean anything to me,” I explain. “If he doesn’t think he can use her against me, he won’t bother.”
“Then we go talk to him,” Reyn suggests.
“Oh geez, why in my eighteen fucking years on this earth had that never occurred to me? Thank you, Reyn! In two seconds, and with almost zero insight, you completely changed my life. Jesus Christ,” I say to Emory, jabbing a thumb to Reyn. “How much therapy has this guy had? Like everything can be ‘talked out’.”
Reyn just goes on, “Explain the situation. The concussion and everything. Work it out.”
Fist clenched tight around my bottle, I explode, “It doesn’t work that way with Heston!”
“You’re the toughest guy I know, Wilcox,” Reyn admits. “How bad can it be?”
I chuckle darkly. “You want to know how bad my brother really is? He’s the asshole who kicked his best friend’s girl in the face during a fire drill. He picks on little gay kids and mocks them in front of the whole school. He’s the one who preys on girls, films them in vulnerable positions, and hey, if they’re lucky, no one can see their face while he’s abusing them!”
I stand and start pacing the room, feeling the anxiety and anger rising. “He’s the kind of guy who sets up his little brother with an unfair fight that gives him a wicked concussion just to get a bigger payday. I’ve watched him drive our own mother to the edge of her own fucking sanity, just because she showed me a sliver of something he saw as favor.”
I turn to Emory, adding, “You know that pregnant cat? The one Sugar and I have been feeding? I took her home to have her kittens, and you know the first thought that popped into my head at the thought of leaving them in the house with him?” I look at Reyn, explaining, “That he’d kill them. Just because they were something I wanted to protect, something I gave even half a shit about. That’s who Heston is, and that’s what Heston does. Emory doesn’t even know the half of it. Being a Devil with him? That’s nothing. Try living with him. Being related to him. Being someone he’ll never see as anything more than competition.” I shake my head, tossing back my beer. “I will do everything in my power to protect Sugar from him, even if that means breaking her fucking heart and having her and the Playthings hate me forever.”
Emory and Reyn both look on, slack-jawed and still.
Reyn’s the first to break out of it. “But what about your parents? You dad? He’s powerful, right?”
I laugh darkly. “He is powerful, and he wields it to protect his kids, not the rest of the world.”
“Aren’t you one of his kids?” Emory wonders. “Doesn’t he want to protect you from him?”
I shake my head, raising my arms. “Heston’s his big, fat Wilcox heir. He’s got the Ivy League, the looks, the prickish attitude, and the Wilcox name. My dad’s been grooming him for this shit since he was born.”
“So be better.”
I turn a hot glare on Reynolds, feeling sort of like I want to bash his face in. “Excuse me?”
He just shrugs. “You’ve got all of that—or at least the opportunity to have it. Be better than Heston and your dad will choose you.”
“Be better than Heston,” I repeat, dumbfounded at his idiocy. “Sure, let me just go back in time and erase the fact that eighty percent of my favorite pastimes are illegal. Or that