The Bastard (Filthy Trilogy 1)

“Good. Because we’re together now. That means we don’t hide. And if that makes the Kingstons uncomfortable, fuck them. Do you have a problem with that?”

“No,” she whispers. “You’re right. Fuck them.”

“Then I’ll handle Isaac, sweetheart. No one has my brother’s number like I do.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Eric

“Oh no,” Harper says, catching my arm as I try to leave her to answer the door again. “I’m fine with Isaac knowing about us,” she says when I turn back to her, “but you’re shirtless and commando with your pants unzipped. That screams ‘we’re fucking’ not ‘we’re together.’ I draw the line there.”

I cup her face and step into her. “Anyone in the same room with us for sixty seconds knows we’re fucking, sweetheart.”

“Don’t taunt him with me. I don’t like that. I don’t want to feel like a weapon between two brothers, not even in a war I invited you into.”

“I don’t like how that sounds,” I say, catching her hips and walking her to me. “What the hell does that mean?”

“Not now. Later. Right now, we have to deal with him so please, zip your pants and put on a shirt before you walk to the door.”

I reach down and zip my pants before scooping up my shirt, my eyes never leaving her face. “You’re going to explain whatever that was to me.”

“I will,” she promises. “I’ll tell you.”

“Yes, you will, princess.”

Her eyes go wide and flare with anger that I don’t stay to answer. Not when Isaac is shouting at the door again and pounding while holding a finger on the bell. “Jesus,” I murmur, running a hand through my hair. “His degree of ridiculousness obviously hasn’t changed.” I take off for the door and this time Harper lets me go.

The ring and knock cycle has started again by the time I get there, along with another shout of, “I know you’re in there, Harper! Damn it, open up.”

I unlock the lock, open the door, and greet my brother, who’s wearing a trench coat over the same three-piece suit he had on today that no doubt cost thousands. It also, from what I can tell, comes with a stick up his ass. “You’re here for me, right?” I ask. “Here I am.” I step forward, crowding him and forcing him onto the porch.

“I’m here for Harper,” he says, unbuttoning his jacket and settling his hands on his hips.

After the exchange I just had with her, those words punch me in all the wrong ways. “To warn her away from me,” I state, disliking the obvious history I don’t know and Walker Security didn’t tell me about in advance.

“Her mother is worried about her.”

My lips quirk. “And you’re the superhero here to pretend to save her while saving yourself? How’d that superhero routine work for you in the past?”

“There’s nothing here for you.”

“We both know that’s not true. We both know that’s never been true.”

“You don’t need the money. You want what no bastard deserves and you’re using her and her ridiculous paranoia. She’s your damn stepsister and you’re fucking her, you sick fuck.”

I smirk, unaffected by the ridiculous remark meant to get under my skin. He stopped getting under my skin about a year into this family. The problem for him is that’s when I started getting under his skin. “Harper and I aren’t blood,” I say, “but we are, and we both know that’s why she doesn’t scare you, but I do.” I step closer to him, damn near bringing us toe to toe. “And you should be afraid because we both know you’re hiding something and we both know how good I am at finding out your secrets.” It’s a past that he can’t run from, a past I don’t want to run from. But then why wouldn’t I? I’d fast-tracked to law school and joined him there. He’d hated it. He’d wanted an edge. He fucked our law professor to try to destroy me. He almost succeeded, but I one-upped him.

“I could have ended you.”

“You should have done it while you could because that ship has sailed. Walk away, Eric. You don’t know what pot you’re stirring.”

“But I want to and I will.”

“I don’t care about your fortune or the Bennett Empire behind you. Walk deeper into this and you might not walk away in one piece.”

I arch a brow. “You’re threatening me?”

“I don’t need to threaten you. I’m stating a fact. Consider this a brotherly warning. The only one you’ll receive. Get away from her before you take her down with you and all of us for that matter.” He pokes a finger at my chest and that’s one thing Isaac doesn’t do. He doesn’t get physical. “Go home now.” He glares at me, but in the depth of his eyes, I see fear, the kind of fear I’ve seen in men’s eyes seconds before they ended up dead. He turns and walks down the stairs, leaving every instinct I own saying this is bigger than I thought it was. Isaac is into something he can’t get out of and it’s time I meet with my father and find out if he’s in it, too.