REDEEMING THE ROSE: GILDED KNIGHTS SERIES BOOK 1 Page 24

  “Don’t say that shit,” I hiss. “It’s not funny.”

  “Well, don’t act like what I say isn’t the cold, hard truth. Do you think I don’t notice the micromanaging? Just because you switch up the faces doesn’t mean I don’t notice.”

  “We’re doing our jobs!” My temper snaps. Gone. Fucking disintegrated. “We will not stop doing them, so if you want to bring your teenage rebellion at us now that you’re twenty-five, I’m game. I want you to live and have fun, but I won’t tolerate danger or stupidity. You only get this one life, Ab, and yours is particularly special. Take care of it.”

  “What have I done that is stupid or dangerous?” she throws down. “I work in a flower shop, I do the arrangements for fancy weddings, and then I go home to eat with my brothers.”

  “You backtalk, for starters! You never used to shout back. You thought we were the masters of the damn universe, but now you have thug friends and commando guard dogs. It’s like I don’t even know you.”

  “Oh my gosh!” She waves her arms, like shouting isn’t enough. Now she needs her European roots to help her through her tantrum. “Thug friends and commandos? Are you serious right now? They’re clients who got married literally yesterday. They had two babies today, and invited me along to say hello. They’re not my friends. They’re not going to call me next week for coffee and a Snickers bar. I will still be sitting at your stupid house, eating avocado and salmon, because they’re oh so good for me, and then I’ll go home and find Beck on my front step. Or Nix. Or Corey. Or, if I’m really lucky, Troy will come home, and I’ll enjoy the smothering for a minute. Nothing is spiraling out of your control!”

  “You are sick, Abigail.” I lean in close and bare my teeth. “You are sick, you are fragile, and if you’re not going to follow the rules, then I’ll smother you until you do.”

  “I’m not sick anymore, Mitch.” She grabs my hand and squeezes. “Am I supposed to be afraid every day for the rest of my life? Am I supposed to waste my second chance, become a cat lady, and live in the dark until I’m finally gone? Why are you so set on keeping me locked up,” she whispers, “when you should be encouraging me to skydive, or swim with sharks, or travel the world, or raise alpacas? I should be living hard. I should be making it count. But you’d rather I melt into your couch and not move again.”

  Stress, anxiety, anger, and a near-fight in a tiny hospital room coalesce until my brain shuts off. I lose my mind. My temper. My maturity. I’ve lost all control of myself as I stand tall and the pressure of keeping my sister alive becomes too much.

  “I’m calling Mom.”

  I turn on my heels and whip my ID out of my pocket. I slam my way through security doors in search of privacy for two seconds, and leaving Abby all alone where she stands, I snatch my phone from my pocket.

  But it’s not my parents I call. That was a temporary lapse in sanity. Instead, I dial Nadia, and get her on the second ring.

  “Mitchell? Hey.”

  “My sister is running wild with a bunch of fuckin’ thugs!” My outburst draws eyes as I storm past a nurse’s station. “Nadia! What the hell is going on?”

  “Er…” She hesitates for a long moment. “I don’t… I’m not su—” Her words are a string of stutters. “Want to talk about whatever is bothering you?”

  “We were at Nix’s house, watching a damn movie and spending time with my sister.”

  “O…kay. I’m gonna need more information than that.”

  “Then Abigail gets a call! Her clients had a baby.”

  “Oh! Jess and Kane? They had the babies?”

  “Yes! Two of ‘em. And that’s cool. I don’t wanna see them, but Abby drags me outta the house and down to the hospital anyway. So I do what I do and follow.”

  “Sure is what you do,” Nadia mumbles. “Is Kane the thug friend you don’t approve of? Because you don’t have to worry; he’s obsessed with his brand-new wife.”

  “No! But Kane-the-thug naturally has other thug friends. And about an hour after we got here, some giant motherfucker stomps on in with flowers for Jess and eyes for Abby. He thinks he has some kind of claim on my sister!”

  “Mitchell Rosa!” Sharon Weeks, a senior nurse I know by face and her reputation of having worked here for thirty-five years, and with zero tolerance for assholes, stops in front of me and snarls. “You will take your cussing self out of my hallway right now, or I’ll be speaking to your superior first thing tomorrow morning.”

  Instead of arguing, I spin and lope back in the direction I came. “He had flowers from Abigail’s shop, Nadia!”

  “Pretty sure I know who you’re talking about,” she murmurs. “I served him this afternoon. Tall.” Understatement. “Short hair. And a long, jagged scar here.” I have no way of seeing where she points, but I see it in my mind anyway. The scar on Spencer Serrano’s cheek.

  “Yeah,” I grunt out. “That’s him. He stepped up, Nadia.”

  “Stepped up? To who?”

  “To me! He saw me and Abby together, and he wanted her for himself. She’s a child, Nadia! She’s a fucking baby.”

  “No,” she argues. “She’s not a child, Mitchell. She is a grown-ass woman. A business owner. A single woman, living alone and doing a fantastic job of it. She’s independent, strong, and opinionated if you let her get started on something.”

  “You’re on his side?” I shout. “Are you seriously cheering this shit on?”

  “Whose side?” she snaps right back. “I met the dude for two seconds while he bought flowers. Now you’re saying he’s crushing on your sister. Fine, I’m cool with the protective big brother act. You want to lock her away and keep her for yourself, I can get on board with all of that nonsense, but I’m not playing ball if you’re gonna coat it in lies too.”

  “What?”

  “She is not a child. She is twenty-five years old. She is old enough to make grown-up decisions for herself.”

  “Twenty-five isn’t that grown! It’s barely out of her teenage years.”

  “I’m twenty-six! You’re twenty-eight. We’re talking a matter of two and three years’ difference. No one is telling me I can’t move halfway across the country to live on my own in a home I’ve had to order security for, because I’m fairly certain it housed squatters before I came. No one is telling you you’re not allowed to work as an EMT and run toward danger.”

  “Nadia—”

  “No one is telling me not to sleep in your bed at night, or you in mine. We’re sneaking around from my bed to yours, and you’re completely okay with me sucking your dick for fun. But Abigail is only a minute younger than me, and suddenly—”

  “Argh!” My stomach heaves, but my throat closes up. “Don’t finish that sentence! Nadia Fucking Reynolds. Don’t you finish that sentence.”

  “I’m just saying!” she laughs. She fucking laughs at me. “I assure you, your sister is as innocent as a spring flower. But she’s beautiful, she’s smart, and she’s got an opinion. Some men like that in a woman.”

  “Not seven-feet-tall army commandos.”

  “Funny,” she drawls. “Pretty sure I’ve heard that description before. Troy is that tall, no? He’s military?”

  “What are you saying?”

  She shrugs. I don’t see it, but I sure as fuck feel it. “That Abigail idolizes her brothers, Mitch. It wouldn’t be surprising to me if she just so happens to meet a guy that resembles one or all of you, and if he’s charming and sweet, she’s going to like that.”

  “We’re her brothers!”

  “And there’s a reason it’s already a saying that we marry someone like our daddy. What is your daddy like? Is he like you and your brothers?”

  “Stop it.”

  Snickering and acting like, somehow, the crisis has been averted, Nadia moves from where she was when she took my call, and walks along flooring that makes her shoes click. “You’re gonna be okay, Mitchell. Everything will be fine. So a dude just so happened to walk in, and he liked what he saw.”

 
“He stormed in and demanded I die. At his hands, or my own, he didn’t care.”

  “But did you die?” she jests. “Did he lay a single hand on you?”

  “No. She…” I breathe through the nausea. The worry. The… ickiness. “She touched his arm. She, like… placed her hand on his arm.”

  “The scandal!” she cries out. “Oh my word, Mr. Rogers. She touched the thug’s arm! How will we go on?”

  “I hate you.” But I turn back in the direction I left my sister. Somehow, I feel just a little lighter. Nadia pisses me off more often than not, but somehow, she makes it so I can share the load and worry a little less. “I’m hanging up now so I can go find her.”

  “Good.” She’s smiling, and I guess that’s the only thing I have going right this moment. “Be kind to her, Mitchell. Eventually, she’s going to have her teenage rebellion. You don’t want her to shut you out while she’s doing it.”

  “Heh.” I hit release on one door and push through. “I said something to that effect just before. Something about her finally rebelling, and me being ready for that war.”

  “Smooth.” I can’t be certain, since I’m not in front of her, but my stomach says Nadia is rolling her eyes. “Go and make up with your sister. Be friends. Become her confidant, so when she does start dating, she tells you, instead of hides from you.”

  “I don’t want her to tell me.” My stomach lurches. “I don’t want the details.”

  “So you’d rather she hide away? And if she finds herself in an unsafe situation with a guy, and she wishes, ohhhh, she wishes she could call someone to get her out, that someone won’t be you.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “Because you’d have already succeeded in making her ashamed and scared of being in that situation in the first place. She shouldn’t be there. She especially can’t ask you for help now and risk the,” she lowers her voice, “but if you’d just listened to me in the first place, Abigail, this wouldn’t have happened.”

  “I wouldn’t say—” Scowling, I lift my ID for the final door to reach my sister. “I don’t sound like that.”

  “If you say so,” she singsongs. “Go find your sister, Mitchell.”

  “Can I come over later?” I lower my voice until it’s a husky plea. “Spend the night with my girl.”

  “Your girl?” She snickers under her breath. “And speaking of hiding away; who do I call if I find myself in an unsafe situation?”

  “You call me and I’ll make you safe.” Lifting my ID, I swallow down whatever it is that lodges itself in my throat. “I’ll come by soon.”

  “Sure thing. See you in a bit. I’ll lock Milo in the laundry for a minute so we can touch and you don’t get more claw marks on your ass.”

  “Nadia?”

  “Mm?” She makes sounds on her end. The closing of a fridge door. Opening of a microwave. “What’s up?”

  “I like you. With… uh…” I clear my throat. “My heart.”

  The call goes silent for a minute. Tense, loaded, and with a million things going unsaid. “Um… I like you too. Now go deal with your sister, then come find me later. I wanna like you… but closer.”

  “Alright. See you.”

  “See ya.” She hangs up and kills my connection to the salve that cools my burns.

  She’s the one able to slow my temper, to calm the storm of thoughts that race through my mind. Doing exactly what she does, she calmed and allowed me to go from red-hot rage, to a tranquil this’ll be okay.

  Hitting the release on the final security door, I push through with the intention to apologize to Ab, to ensure I won’t be written off when my baby sister needs a confidant in a scary situation. But what I find isn’t Abigail standing on her own while she waits for me to finish my bullshit; instead, I find her backed up against the wall, cloaked in all things commando, while Serrano pushes himself into her space.

  For just a beat, Abby’s eyes meet mine—round, stunned, and emotional—then they’re back on her friend, and her lips move. She speaks in a rush, though the rush seems to have more to do with my approach than it does with fear.

  Hitching her handbag onto her shoulder when Serrano steps away, she walks in my direction and meets me halfway down the hall. “Let’s go.”

  “Let’s not.”

  Forgetting Nadia’s it’s all gonna be okay, I blow straight past Abby, and keep going when she grabs on to my arm in an effort to stop this confrontation.

  “Mitchell, no. We’re leaving.”

  “I just wanna talk to your friend.”

  “Absolutely not!”

  She digs her heels in and uses all of her strength to stop this. But in front of us, Serrano only turns and awaits my arrival. He squares his shoulders, and balls his fists. He’s ready to fight, and hell, I can relate to that.

  “Mitchell!” Abby shouts. “I said no!”

  “What’s your business with my sister?”

  “No business,” Abby grunts and tries, she tries so hard, to slow me down. “Mitchell!”

  My temper is like flames in a fire. Licking, snapping, stretching and doing damage. “Speak, soldier!”

  Crying out, Abby gives up on dragging me back, and instead races to my front and plasters her back to my chest. “Walk away,” she pleads to her commando. “I’m begging you to please walk away.”

  His eyes switch. From hard, flat, and ready to kill, to a softer gaze.

  Why are his eyes softening for my fucking sister? Why is this happening to us?

  With a single nod, he turns on his heels and walks away.

  Gone.

  Like he was never here.

  “Oh cheese on a cracker. Mitchell!” Abby spins and smacks my chest. “You don’t have to confront him! You don’t have to even speak to him.”

  “Why was he in your face, Abigail? Why are you so defensive about this?”

  “Why are you so defensive?”

  “Because there is a clear power imbalance between you two. It’s like a teacher and his student. A boss and his intern. A doctor and his patient. It’s not okay, and I will not stand by and let shit spiral.”

  “I am not a child! Dammit, Mitchell!” Fixing her bag, Abby does exactly what Nadia said she would. She shuts me out and walks around me. I follow, because that’s what I do. Along the hall, into the parking lot, and all the way to her little car. “You’re not invited to my home for dinner.”

  I jolt, like her words are a shot of lightning. “Abby Cadabby.”

  “And I’m not coming to yours,” she continues. “You can walk home, or call one of the guys. Or you can sleep here. I don’t care. You’re on shift in the morning anyway.”

  She beeps her car and opens the door.

  “Ab.” I jump forward. Shaking hands, thrumming heart. “I wanna come with you.”

  “I want to be alone.” She lifts her chin in the air. I guess to some, it looks like she’s feigning snobbery. But what she’s doing is clawing for any scrap of independence she can find. “For just one night, I want to feel like a grownup.”

  “I’m sorry.” I stand on the other side of the car and press my palms to the roof. “I’m sorry, Ab. I just want to keep you safe.”

  “Maybe he’s right,” she ponders quietly. “Maybe I am in a controlling relationship.” Her eyes come to mine, sparkling with unshed tears and heartache. “I wouldn’t call it abusive, and I know you love me, but you guys are demanding and controlling. You stand over me so I never see the sun, which means I never get the chance to bloom.” She swipes a hand over her cheek. “Everyone needs to see the sun, Mitchell.”

  “Abby.” My voice cracks. “I’m sorry.”

  “I know you are.” She slides into the driver’s side and closes the door, and though I scramble to open the passenger side, she’s quicker, smarter, and hits the locks so I can’t.

  Winding the window down just a little, she folds her neck and meets my eyes. “I’ll come over tomorrow, okay? Everything is fine. Everything will go back to normal soon. But for t
onight, I need space to breathe.”

  “You’ll call me if you need me, right?” Nadia’s words flash through my mind, but I shove them down. I won’t say I told you so, I swear!

  Nodding, Abby fakes a small smile. “Always do. Love your guts.”

  I back up. One step, then two, and pray my legs don’t give out. “Love you too, kiddo. But if you don’t call at oh-six-hundred, I’m coming for you.”

  19

  Nadia

  Soothing Mitchell’s Troubles

  It’s our routine now, I think. For Mitchell to come to me when he’s stressed. For him to use me; body and soul, so that he can face the world just a little lighter. His work is stressful. His family life is stressful—though, we can all acknowledge he brings that upon himself. All of the weight on his shoulders, real or self-imposed, is stressful, but instead of turning to booze, drugs, or bad habits to deal with it, he turns to me.

  Which, I guess, is exactly what I want him to do.

  He came to me last night with shaking hands and a voice that trembled with pain. His cheeks were flushed, his lips, thin. His eyes were wide and scared, and though, to me, a sibling fight doesn’t sound like such a big deal, that doesn’t give me the right to dismiss his feelings, or his absolute terror about losing the most important person in his life.

  It’s easy for me to sit on the sidelines and know he’s overreacting. It’s easier yet for me to know Abigail in a way that her brothers don’t. I was the one dragging her into the back before the Bishop wedding, and dressing her up in something that actually showed a little skin. I was the one helping her into a push-up bra before the gown, all because I know that while her brothers treat her like a child, what she wants most is to feel like a woman.

  I know Abigail Rosa, the woman. I know her as the boss, the shrewd businesswoman, though she coats it with a layer of sweet. I know her as a woman with a steely spine—most of the time.

  And I know Mitchell worries far more than he ever has to.

  So since I know this family now, since I know how each person acts and reacts around each other, I know that Mitchell needed a soft space to land when he came to me last night. He needed hands, lips, breasts, and synced breath. And once that was done, he needed hard, fast, rough, and mean. Both of which I can give to him.