Shane (Mallick Brothers 1)

“Deal,” I agreed. “But… Hunter. I really think you should stay with Fee and…”

Hunter snorted. “Please, it took a lot of persuasion to convince her to keep her ass here. I’m going. Accept it.”

“Alright,” Charlie said, clapping his hands. “Mark, you have that giant SUV. We’ll take that. Eli, go raid the kitchen for shit to eat so we don’t have to stop. Helen…” he said, looking at his wife. He made a ‘come here’ jerk of his head and she untangled from me and went to him, putting her hands on his hips as he leaned forward and planted a kiss to her lips. “Hold down the fort.”

“Always do,” she said, giving him a saucy smile before stepping away.

We all filed out then, Ryan at my back like a body guard. I would have thought I would find it oppressive, his commanding aura all around me. But in that moment, in that circumstance, I found it oddly comforting. When we all climbed into he car and he moved into the seat beside me in the far back, I was glad for it. Even though, in general, I got on with Mark best, finding it easy to throw barbs at each other and joke around and the fact that Eli and I had connected on a deeper level, Ryan was who I wanted beside me then. And he somehow sensed that and stayed beside me.

Hunter drove for the first leg, Charlie beside him, awake, while Eli and Mark slept in the next row back. Beside me, Ryan was awake and silent.

The radio was on, somewhat loud, as if to try to drown out the overall tense feeling inside the car. No where was it stronger than in my little seat, knees pulled up to my chest, arms wrapped around them, rocking ever so slightly, too anxious to be sitting still in a car. My skin felt electric. My stomach was tied in a thousand small knots, each with their own worry stitched in- most for Shane, some for the Mallick family as a whole charging into such a dangerous situation, and a few, yeah, for me. For facing my past. For going back where I swore I would never go again. For maybe seeing my family who I now saw in a different light after Shane’s emphatic speech about their behavior with regard to my abuse.

“You’re going to explode out of your skin,” Ryan told me, surprising me after a couple hours of tense silence. When my eyes went to him, I saw actual worry in his eyes. His hand went out, landing on my wrist and squeezing. “Why are you rocking?”

And something about him asking me, someone as stitched up tight about their worries as me, wanting me to share, it made it almost easy. “Ross stabbed my brother,” I told him. “And he killed a friend of mine. After doing some awful things to her.”

“You’re worried about Shane,” he surmised.

“And all of you. And me.”

“Why you?” he asked, his hand still holding my wrist. “I think you know us well enough at this point to know that we won’t let anything happen to you.”

“Not physically,” I agreed.

“Hey, if you’re strong enough to live through whatever he put you through, you’re strong enough to give him the finger from a safe distance. Maybe it will feel like closure.”

I wasn’t sure anything would feel like closure, not while Ross and I shared the same planet.

“Can I ask you a weird, hypothetical question?” Ryan asked, watching me a little thoughtfully.

“Sure.”

“If you were in a room with your ex and you had a gun…” he broke off when I laughed, I think both of us shocked that I was capable of doing that right then. “What?” he asked, shaking his head.

“Shane asked me the exact same question. Is that from the Mallick brothers manual or something?”

His lips tipped up at that, a rare sight for him. And it was something to see, let me tell ya’. “And your answer?”

“I’d shoot him in the dick and then unload the rest of the bullets into his head and heart.”

“So it has to end,” Eli said from the seat in front of us.

To that, I shook my head. “Shane said something like that too. Do you guys have his warehouse wired or something? Do you know my favorite color too?” I teased.

“It’s blue,” Eli said, shrugging. “But I guess we all just think alike in some ways.”

“How did you know it’s blue?” I asked, sure I had never consistently worn the color around them.

“Eli just knows stupid shit like that,” Mark said, getting a glare from his brother for the ‘stupid shit’ comment.

The shift changed an hour later, all of us scooting upward. That put Mark at the wheel with Eli asleep beside him. Charlie and Hunter were now in the far back, passed out. Ryan was still awake beside me, us right behind the front seat then.