Forbidden (Blood Ties #7)

The place was barely big enough to swing a damn cat. I headed along the cramped hallway to the single bedroom in the back. Muted yellow lights barely made a dent in the darkness, but it was enough to see the curled figure on the bed. If it hadn’t been, the wet, labored breathing sounds were enough to draw my gaze.

“Has he woken up?” Glass clattered as I dropped the bag to the bed.

“Once or twice.”

“Has he said anything?” I yanked open the bag and rifled through the bottles.

“You mean apart fromhe’s sorry?”

I said nothing. What good was fucking sorry? That wouldn’t get us what we wanted. A gurgling moan came from the hunched over form in front of me. Slowly my brother turned his head, his blood-shot gaze finding me.

“You look like shit.” I pulled out a vial of antibiotics and a syringe.

“Thanks,” he moaned. “Motherfucker St. James.”

“No,motherfucker you,”I snapped as I plunged the needle into the vial and pulled the plunger back.

I was always cleaning up their goddamn messes, one way or another.

Her face rose instantly. Wide brown eyes fixed on mine.

Creamy skin.

The pink scar line.

Knocked out cold in my apartment.

I froze, my focus on the filled syringe.

“What is it?” Kane asked.

“Nothing.” I pulled out the needle and turned to Thomas, yanked down the sheet and stabbed my brother in the thigh.

He hissed as I plunged it deep and shot him full of antibiotics. The painkiller was next before I tugged down the dressing on his other thigh and checked the bullet wound that motherfucker St. James had left behind.

“Any word?” Kane asked.

“From who?”

“Both.”

I shook my head, tugged the dressing back in place, and lifted my gaze. “No.” I straightened. “But you need to get this shit cleaned up. We need to be ready. If he’s gone to ground, then that means there’s another facility we don’t know about.”

“There isn’t,” Kane muttered, looking down as Thomas’ eyes fluttered closed from the drug. “There can’t be.”

“He’s gone somewhere, hasn’t he?”

Kane scowled, thinking.

But there wasn’t a damn scenario I hadn’t considered.

“The bodies.”

“Being disposed of.”

He looked at me. “You’re back there?”

“I don’t really have a choice now, do I?”