Breaking Her (Savage Brothers Second Generation 4)

“You couldn’t wait for her to come back from the bathroom on her own?” Thea mumbles as she catches up to me.

“W-w-where’s your cane?”

“Bite me,” she mutters, which is code for she’s not using one and I can shut the fuck up about it.

“No th-thanks. N-n-not hungry.”

“You quit your therapy, T?”

I rub the back of my neck as we keep walking down the hall. I let out an annoyed breath. “It was b-b-better until r-r-r-recently,” I defend.

“Mattie told me about what happened with the she-bitch from hell. I told you to stay away from her.”

A thought occurs to me, and I stop walking, turning to look at her. “D-d-d-did you know about her and D-d-dom?”

I immediately see the guilt that burns on her face. It hits me hard, because of anyone I expected to keep secrets from me, it would never have been Thea.

“Don’t look at me like that, T. You said you weren’t pursuing anything with her. You said you weren’t interested. I figured Dom would tell you about it all.”

“Yeah, w-w-well he didn’t. You were my b-b-best friend. You sh-sh-sh-should have t-t-t-told m-m-m-me.”

“Maybe I would have if I had known you were fooling around with that skank.”

“Y-y-you s-s-st-st-still sh-sh-should have t-t-t-told me,” I mutter. Then I take a breath and try to control my emotions because I know that makes everything worse. “You know how I h-h-h-hate se-se-se-se-se-cr-cr-cr-crets.”

“I’m sorry. I just didn’t want to be the one to hurt you. I thought your brother would step up.”

Jesus. Does everyone see me as weak? Do they all think I need to be protected from the truth? I push it all away. I don’t give a fuck. I just need Lyla. That’s it. She doesn’t pull her punches with me. She doesn’t make me feel weak, or see me like that. If anything, she looks at me like I could do anything. When I’m around her, I’m pretty sure I could… for her.

When we turn the corner, I see her and I finally breathe easier.

That is, until I see Dom standing there with her. His hand reaching out to touch her hair.

Motherfucker.

Chapter 30

Lyla

“I don’t need anyone to follow me. I can make it to the bathroom by myself,” I mumble, when it becomes clear that Dom isn’t going to say anything.

“Thomas wouldn’t want you to be out here alone. So I’m here,” he says with a shrug, staring a hole through me.

“If he wanted to come with me, he could have,” I mutter with a shrug.

“He was visiting with Thea. He hadn’t seen her in a while. So I came instead.”

I swallow down the way it makes me feel when he talks about Thea and Thomas. There’s a burning in my gut, though. I can’t help but feel this is just another instance when I come in second—or third.

“Do you always try to do clean-up for your brother?” I ask, frowning at him.

“I try. Thomas hasn’t had an easy road. I’m his big brother.”

“Thomas is a grown man,” I snap. “He doesn’t need a nursemaid. He needs people who have enough faith in him to handle his own life.”

“You haven’t known him very long. You wouldn’t understand,” he says and it’s so weird. It’s like he’s talking to me, but he’s barely paying attention to the conversation. He just keeps looking at me.

“I think I know him better than most of you have tried.”

“What’s that mean?” he questions me. His voice is gruff. It’s clear I’ve upset him, but that’s okay. He’s starting to piss me off, too. Of course, right now, I’m pissed off at everything and everyone. If Thomas was here, he’d get the brunt of it. Dom just happens to have the bad luck to be the one here at the moment.

“It means, from what I can see, you’re all so busy trying to make things easier for him that you don’t even notice that you’re making him feel worse. Thomas may have some speech difficulties, but that doesn’t mean he has trouble anywhere else.”

“I didn’t say he did,” he says, narrowing his eyes at me.

“You didn’t have to. It’s clear in the way you’ve all treated him,” I huff.

“You don’t like me much,” he says.

“I don’t know you,” I counter. For some reason, that makes his lips twitch.

“And what you know, you don’t like.”

“Okay, then, no, I don’t like you. Your actions hurt Thomas and to be quite honest, they are also the key factor that led to me being hurt, so you’re not my favorite person.”

“Are you always so… passionate?”

“The word is honest. You should try it sometime. On that note, I’m going to go to the bathroom. Kane is rolling around on my bladder.”

I mutter that last part mostly to myself, having already dismissed Thomas’s brother. If my mind doesn’t change, I’m going to dismiss Thomas, too. It’s too damn painful and exhausting.