Chapter 3

Aragged breath escapes me as I slam three deadbolts across the front door of my brownstone and slump against it.

All the way home, I couldn’t shake the unsettling feeling that someone was following me, but no matter how many times I stopped to check, no monsters emerged from the shadows.

My head drops back, thudding against the door.

Seven months have passed since Papi was murdered. Seven months since I last walked through the doors of Eastview Ballet Company. Seven months since I was able to sleep through the night without waking up screaming about someone in my family being murdered.

And still, I didn’t have the guts to kill one of them.

I’m so fucking useless.

I’m so sick of shutting my eyes and being haunted by the memory of that demon pulling the trigger.

My vision begins tunneling and the soft hum of the refrigerator fades in my ears as I struggle to calm my racing heart. I suck in another deep breath.

Keep it together. Keep it the fuck together, Dante. We’re safe. Laz is here.

I lift my shaking hands in front of me and stroke the pads of my thumbs over my palms until the panic retreats. Gone for now but lurking just under the surface, ready to lash out the one time I lose control.

The masked figure I hunted tonight may not be the one who robbed Laz and me of a father, but he is part of the same group called SIXX. I’ve been prowling the rougher parts of West Bank enough to know that he’s partly responsible for the fires they’ve been setting and the corpses they’ve been leaving.

I’ve voiced my concerns to the detectives assigned to Papi’s case hundreds of times. And when they stopped answering my calls, I decided to take matters into my own hands.

As soon as my legs feel steady beneath me, I stalk into the kitchen and fill a glass with water. I chug it, swiping hastily at the droplet that rolls down my chin.

Obviously, I hadn’t accounted for some silver-haired asshole to intervene.

Why did he have to look like that? Like some ethereal angel of death? And his twisted smirk…

Heat floods my body just thinking about our interactions. How his body felt beneath mine—warm and hard. How his icy blue eyes glittered with amusement, even when I was hurting him.

Biting down on a growl, I set my glass in the sink and fight to purge the thoughts from my mind.

If he hadn’t stepped between me and SIXX, would I have been able to take a life? Would I have felt relief, or would I continue to feel like shit?

I won’t know the answer to that until I get another night off work to hunt again.

Toeing off my shoes by the front door, I nudge them in line with Laz’s steel-toed boots. Then I hang my house key on the hook over his.

Wherever pieces of my brother end up around the house, I leave pieces of myself, too. I recognize the codependent behavior. I just don’t care to change it.

A chill spider walks down my spine. Shivering, I move over to the thermostat on the living room wall. Sixty-one degrees. No fucking wonder.

I smack my hand against the stupid thing and mash the buttons to raise the temp. The numbers go up, but I don’t hear the telltale rumble of the ancient heater awakening in the basement.

“Great,” I mutter, tugging at my curls.

Getting our landlord to fix anything takes an act of god. We pay low enough rent not to report it. Laz learned how to handle the basic stuff.

But this? Yeah, we’re gonna have to call someone. Which means picking up more hours at the club to help cover the bill.

Desperate for something to warm me, I start up the coffeemaker. So what if it’s 3 a.m. I might as well start my day because I know I’m not gonna sleep anyway, and I can’t blame the rattling noise of the nearby train for that.

As the coffee machine spits and sputters, I drag my weary body upstairs to the bathroom. I strip down in front of the mirror, pausing to run my fingers over the dark bruise on my jaw and then the bloodstains on my hoodie.

My stomach churns. Is that SIXX demon still alive? I clench my teeth. Why the fuck do I care? The person behind the mask deserves death, and that silver-haired man promised to deliver it.

What if he doesn’t, though?

What if he’s working with SIXX?

What if they’re planning some sort of retaliation?

Mumbling a curse, I rip off my hoodie and toss it onto the sink. Gripping the Formica counter with both hands tight enough to turn my knuckles white, I breathe through the panic as steam fills up the small bathroom.

Only when my heart rate has settled do I step into the shower. The water burns my skin, but the pain keeps my brain from stewing on more bad thoughts.

I take my time exfoliating and shaving. The nightclub I dance at doesn’t require me to be smooth, but I prefer it. There was a time when I enjoyed getting all pretty.

Now I do my best just to exist.

Unfortunately, the water doesn’t stay hot for long. As I stride into my bedroom, wrapped in a towel, my teeth start to chatter. It’s fucking colder than an ice box in this old brownstone.

I debate dragging my pillows and blankets into the bathroom with the lingering steam, but I’d rather not be trampled by Laz if he ends up wandering in to piss in the middle of the night. So I quickly pull my wet hair up into a messy bun and tug on a T-shirt, a hoodie, sweats, and long fuzzy socks.

My gaze drops to my old dance bag shoved in the back of my closet. A pang of sadness hits me. As much as I miss ballet, I don’t have space for things like that in my life anymore. Not when SIXX roams the streets.

The Dante Álvarez Ríos who dreamed of performing on stage died with his father.

A full pot of steaming coffee awaits me in the kitchen. As I’m filling up a giant mug, the stairs creak under the solid weight of my brother thundering down them.

My nerves flare. What if he knows what I’ve been up to? What if it’s the final straw, and he kicks my dead weight to the curb?

He doesn’t know. You don’t talk to him about anything anymore.

Laz shuffles into the kitchen, a hand mussing his hair.

Big surprise, he’s shirtless.

“When you gonna come home at a reasonable time, manito?” he asks in a sleepy voice.

I roll my eyes and scour the fridge for something to ease the ache in my stomach.

“Technically, it’s morning,” I argue, snatching a box of leftover pizza and tossing it aggressively onto the counter.

I catch Laz shaking his head. “You and that fucking sass.”

When I reach for the cabinet with plates, he holds the door shut with his big hand. Not in the mood to deal with his bullshit, I grab his wrist and twist his arm to the side.

Laz simply chuckles. “Yeah, you’re gonna be just fine on your own one day.”

Grimacing, I shove his arm away. “Stop talking like you’re going to leave me.” As if I don’t already sound like a child, I add under my breath, “I don’t want to be on my own.”

Laz folds his arms over his chest and leans against the counter. I clench my teeth, awaiting a lecture as I toss a plate of pizza into the microwave.

“Wanna talk about it?”

I keep my gaze laser-focused on the spinning tray of pizza. “You wander in at weird hours, too. I don’t say shit about it.”

We’re both coping in whatever forms we can. Even though I spent a long time mad at my brother, the moment we truly turn on each other, we’ll both be alone.

As I go to throw away the empty pizza box, Laz catches me by the arm. His hand comes up to touch my sore chin. “Who the fuck hurt you, manito?”

Again, I grab his wrist and shove him away. “No one. I got tripped up while dancing.”

Laz’s response is delayed as he stares at me suspiciously. “You know I’d do anything to keep you safe.”

My throat constricts. The words sit on my tongue to ask why he didn’t do the same for our father, but that’s not fair. He was only doing what he was told. He didn’t invite SIXX into our home.

But we should have fought back.

Sniffling, I mumble, “I know.”

The microwave beeps, and when I go to collect my pizza, Laz moves close enough for me to feel the heat radiating off his giant body. “Is that meat lovers?”

I deliver an elbow to his ribs. The regret is instant when a sharp pain zips along my arm. Laz may not have the spare money to pursue his fighting goals anymore, but he keeps up with his gym routine like he’s hungry for a belt.

Rubbing at my elbow, I mumble, “You should know. You ordered it.”

“You fuck with the thermostat?” Laz asks, ignoring my sass.

“Heater’s broken.”

I peek up at him, catching the furrow of his brows. He grabs a beer from the fridge and cracks it open.

As much as I want to lay into my brother about his drinking habits, I have my own issues to work through. We both did the therapy thing for a couple of weeks, but that quickly became a financial burden we couldn’t afford. Even if I’d kept my soloist salary, it would have been a stretch to pay bills.

So, my brother continues to drink, and my fear and paranoia continue to eat away at me.

Laz brings the can of cheap beer to his mouth and chugs half of it. Scowling, I grab another plate and toss one of my pizza slices onto it before shoving it against his stomach. “Here. Breakfast.”

Hurrying up the stairs, I lock myself in my bedroom. Then I crawl out of my window, onto the metal fire escape with my meal.

An icy wind knocks the breath from my lungs. Fuck. Okay, so it’s still colder outside.

I reach through my window to grab my comforter and wrap it around my body.

There’s not much of a view from up here. The gap between our brownstone and the neighboring one is small, with my window facing directly into their bedroom window.

Luckily, the place is vacant, so the fire escape has become my place to decompress without worrying that Laz will sense me falling apart and try to fix me. I’m not his mess to clean up.

A soft trilling sound has my head snapping around to scan the area for danger. My pulse settles when I spot a small black cat with bright green eyes on the decorative brick ledge between the floors of our house. Either a runt or a kitten.

The cat leaps onto the fire escape, tail swishing as it creeps closer to my plate of untouched food.

“What are you doing up here?” I reach out a hand to pet it.

The spiteful creature swipes at me with razor claws, drawing blood. Frowning, I shake out the hot sting left behind.

“Yeah? Well, I’ve got claws, too,” I mumble.

Fur puffing, it hisses at me. After a stare down, I sigh and push my plate of pizza toward it. “You win.”

The cat picks at the food like it hasn’t had a good meal in days.

We sit on either end of the fire escape, pretending the other doesn’t exist, and that’s just fine by me.

Eventually, my hands shake too much from the cold. I crawl back through my window and find that the house actually feels warm now.

My attention drifts back to the cat. Surely, it has some sort of shelter to have survived this long, right?

I growl, slamming the locks into place on my window.

The cat has better survival instincts than me. It doesn’t chase murderers in its free-time.

Some content on the website is uploaded by users. If it infringes on your rights, please contact us.