Ryan (Mallick Brothers #2)(14)

So when the bigger guy slammed his fingers into my chest, making me stumble back and slam into my wall, knocking my lamp over in the process, I had somehow been able to realize that giving them that information wasn't going to help me.

Someone was going to hurt me.

The question really was would I rather my beating come from total strangers... or a man I had known my whole life?

The answer was simple.

I wasn't sure I could handle having Bry hit me.

I was under no delusions. He would have to hit me. He would have to make an example of me. Not because he wanted to. Not even because it was my fault. But because that was what was expected of him. He wasn't the boss in his little organization. He was a high mid-level guy. He had someone to answer to, someone who would want me to cough up some blood so everyone else knew that they had to do a better job of protecting the supply.

Because if he didn't beat me, he might get himself killed.

So I pressed my lips together and I didn't tell them.

Unfortunately, they apparently found them anyway.

I would like to say that hearing Ryan, seeing Ryan, had given me an overwhelming sense of relief. And there was some of that- he made the beating stop. He prevented something that might have been worse.



       
         
       
        

But him walking in on that, well, it took whatever image he had of me and shattered it. I wasn't just the nice, shut-in, shy neighbor he seemed at least somewhat into. No, I was some lowlife who got herself involved with freaking drug dealers.

Drug dealers.

God, I had sunk so low.

The me I had been three years before, yeah, she never would have believed such a thing was possible.

It was amazing what a crippling mental disorder could do. It was crazy the lengths one would go to to save their pride, to not have to grovel to the only person they had in the world to take care of them.

But the fact of the matter was, when every other person I had in the world gave up on me, Bry had been there. And Bry had an idea. He had too much of a record to ever be caught with pills on him, especially at a large enough scale to be considered distribution, so he offered me a 'job' sort of. I held the product, he gave me a little cash to do so, and that was that.

His money paid about half my rent.

The other half, well, I found a way online to make the rest up.

See, the one cool thing that happens when you're locked up all the goddamn time and can't see or talk to or experience anything or anyone new, well... the mind wanders. You create these huge, epic ideas in your mind.

Eventually, I just started writing mine down. And when I figured out how to, I started selling them online. I had a mediocre little following among the young adult paranormal crowd and they kept me off the streets and with food in my pantry. I had to pinch pennies and there seemed no end in sight for holding drugs for Bry, but I got by.

So that was how I became a criminal.

I hadn't gone into it with rose-colored glasses. I didn't think I was untouchable. I always knew that someday it would catch up to me. Though, I thought it would be more along the lines of jail time than a beatdown but it hadn't exactly shocked me that it came to that either.

But Ryan witnessing it? Ryan stepping in? Ryan cleaning up the mess I had been made into?

Yeah, that was not sitting right with me.

His opinion mattered.

And he was never going to look at me the same.

I heard him walk out of his apartment as I took my icepack and made my way down the hall.

I wasn't going to lie; everything hurt. However bad it looked, and it looked bad, it felt about ten times worse.

I saw another, closed, door in the hall and I figured that maybe it was a study or a second bedroom. But not feeling comfortable opening closed doors in someone else's place, I went into the open door to his bedroom and climbed into sheets that smelled like him- a hint of spice from his cologne and a unfeminine laundry detergent. I got in, pulled the covers up, put the icepack over my face in a way that it covered my eye and swollen lip, and started deep breathing. 

I should have been freaking out.

I should have been beside myself with anxiety over being out of my apartment, being in his, being in his bed, in his clothes, with none of my comforts around.

But the truth of the matter was, the second those men put their hands on my stuff, they ruined the comfort I attached to them. Somehow, leaving felt less stressful than staying.

I guess it was a form of progress in a way.

I heard the front door open and close and his feet moving around for a long couple of minutes before I slowly drifted off to sleep. But it couldn't have been for long because the next thing I knew, the bed was shifting behind me, a sensation unusual enough to make me jerk awake in time to feel his body sliding in behind mine.

"Just me," Ryan's low, smooth voice said from right behind me as I felt his legs cock up behind mine and his arm slid gently around my belly, pulling me back against him slightly. "How's the pain?"

What pain?

All that my brain could focus on was the fact that he climbed into bed with me, he draped himself around me, he ducked his head into my neck, and asked about my pain.

He didn't shrink away from me. He wasn't repulsed by me now that he knew the truth.

"It's fine," I said, shrugging a little as his arm gave me a squeeze.

"Your cat claimed the TV cabinet as his bed," he offered, making me feel guilty for not checking on him myself.

"I know you're not a cat fan. If you want me to bring him back across the hall so that..."

"It's fine, Dusty. Don't worry about him."

"I don't know how to thank you for tonight," I admitted, hating how weak my voice sounded.

"You have nothing to thank me for. I'd be a pretty shitty man if I saw a woman being attacked and didn't step in."

That was true enough.

"But you let me stay here," I went on, feeling my heart flutter as his fingers started moving absentmindedly across my belly.

"You're always welcome here."

There was a sincerity there that did something awful to me inside- it gave me hope.

"I, ah, didn't know if the other room was a office or guest room. I could move..."

"Like you here," he said, sounding tired.

That was the last thing he said because not more than a few minutes later, his arm went heavy on my stomach and I knew he was asleep.

I, however, didn't sleep for a long time. This was mostly because my mind decided to take the fact that he 'liked having me there' and run with it until, on one hand, things ended with me back to work, in a happy relationship with him, and mostly-normal. But the more likely way it would probably get my hopes up, turn to hell, and leave me more screwed up than before.

And on that lovely note, I drifted off to sleep.





I woke up to Rocky jumping up onto my hip and letting out a loud 'meow'. "Get," I whined, whipping off the room temperature icepack and glaring at him with my good eye, somewhat relieved to realize that the other one wasn't completely shut anymore either. It wasn't open per say, but I had a slit I could look out of.

He let out another meow, somehow with more attitude, and I sighed and folded upward. Rocky jumped up and ran toward the door where he paused as if waiting for me. "I'm coming," I told him, but turned to make a quick stop in the bathroom where I already found a wrapped toothbrush waiting for me. Grateful, I brushed my teeth, wiped off what was left of the antibiotic cream, and made my way back out toward the kitchen.

"I did feed him. But the stubborn fuck apparently won't eat unless you're around," Ryan informed me, not having even turned away from where he was standing at the stove, looking freshly showered in a tight black tee and dark gray, thick sweatpants.



       
         
       
        

As if agreeing to that statement, Rocky sauntered over to where Ryan had set up his bowls beside the front door and started eating.

"He's finicky," I supplied. "Are you... cooking?" I asked, smelling heating butter in the pan but not quite willing to accept that a guy like him was capable of mundane tasks like cooking. That was why he had his housekeeper, wasn't it?

His head turned over his shoulder with an amused smirk, no doubt picking up on the incredulousness in my tone. "Omelettes," he supplied. "I stole the eggs from your apartment. And the cheese. And orange juice. Apparently Anita hasn't hit the grocery store recently."

God, could he possibly get any better?

Seriously.

"Alright, so I need," he started, tone slightly more serious, turning to me as he whisked eggs, leaning back against the counter.

But he was cut off by the sound of two loud raps on his door before it suddenly flew open, making me stumble back a step, my heart flying into my throat before I saw who came walking in.

One of his brothers.

Really, there was no mistaking them. They all had the same perfect bone structure, dark hair, and light eyes. They were all tall though their shapes varied. Ryan was tall and lean as was one of the other brothers who I had seen visiting. Another was a giant wall of muscle. This one was something in between. He was a little more broad than Ryan, but not hugely muscular.

And he had stopped dead three feet in the room, frozen completely in place.

What had him frozen you might ask?