Filed To Story: Craving The Wrong Brother Book PDF Free by Elysian Sparrow
Mateo smiles. “Look what we have here. I bet you weren’t expecting this, Knox.”
No. He definitely wasn’t.
Knox is staring straight into my soul, and I can’t tell if he’s about to strangle me or wrap me in five layers of bubble wrap and throw me in a locked tower. His eyes are hard, really hard, but there’s this other thing in them too. Worry. Part of him looks like he wants to shake me for disobeying him, and the other part is him trying not to fall apart just from seeing me here with a gun pointed to my head.
I refuse to look away, even though every instinct in me screams to drop my gaze and shrink into the floor.
My whole body’s tense, heat climbing up the back of my neck. Guilt sits heavy in my stomach, but I keep my eyes on him.
I mouth, ‘I’m sorry!’
And I am. Not for coming down here. Not for thinking maybe I could help. I’m sorry because of how it turned out. Because I walked in trying to protect the man I love, and now I’ve only made things worse.
“I said, drop the gun,” Knox says, “and let her walk.”
Mateo sighs. “Your problem, Knox, is that you’ve always been a difficult person. Always refusing to acknowledge when you’ve been defeated. Even now. I have the upper hand. So why don’t you do the smart thing and tell your men to lower their weapons before your boo’s brain gets blown out?”
The gun at my head nudges forward for emphasis. I curse under my breath.
For someone who seems to be the only person in this room without a weapon, Mateo is remarkably unbothered. Relaxed, even. Like none of this is real to him. Like we’re all characters in a game he’s won.
I don’t know why I ever doubted I’d pull the trigger if I came face-to-face with him. Maybe I thought I’d freeze, or that some last thread of empathy would hold me back. But standing here, seeing this man’s presence fill the room like a sickness, I’m certain of one thing:
I wouldn’t even pause to think.
“I’m not going to repeat this again, Mateo,” Knox says. “Tell him to put down that gun.”
“Or what, huh? You think you’ll be fast enough to shoot him before he kills her?”
Knox, of course, doesn’t respond to Mateo’s question.
His silence says more than words ever could. I think he believes he can shoot the man behind me before that gun goes off in my head. I only wish, for my sake, that he wouldn’t try.
Mateo’s hand moves down his left leg, like he’s reaching to scratch an itch. The hand disappears beneath the cuff of his pants, and when he straightens, there’s a gun in his hand. A tiny silver handgun. One of those compact ones that still manage to kill just as effectively as the big guys. He points it straight at Knox.
I suck in a breath.
“Do you think you’ll be fast enough to shoot him before I kill you, Knox?” Mateo says with amusement in his voice. “I had a plan, you know. A good one. Take you down piece by piece. Everything you care about. Your money. Your club. Maybe even that sex toy company-what is it? Bliss?” He chuckles to himself. “And those other little illegal ventures you’ve got tucked away. Not in your name, of course, but we both know who owns them.”
The more he talks, the angrier Knox becomes. I can see it in the way his jaw grinds tighter with every word, the way his fingers flex ever so slightly around the trigger like they’re trying to keep themselves from doing what the rest of him is begging to.
That anger is rubbing off on me too.
I want to scream. I want to shut him up. I want to be the one who wipes that look off his face and makes him regret ever laying eyes on us.
“But then,” Mateo continues, tapping a finger to his chin, “you’ve proven to me in the past few hours that those things don’t matter to you as much as I thought they did. In fact, no one else but one person matters to you. I shot your girlfriend’s sister to get you to give me what’s rightfully mine, a fucking apology. You didn’t break. I tried to kill your best friend. Nothing. Those two shrinks did a pretty decent job trying to mess with my head, bringing up my daughter as some sort of morality trigger and wanting me to admit it’s my fault I got captured instead of yours. They think I’m the villain here, but you are, Knox. You were prepared to let them die as long as it meant keeping your pride.”
The craziest part? I think Soraya might actually be agreeing with him, at least on the part about Knox being a villain. Her eyes shift toward him, and there’s this strange look on her face.
Mateo’s still speaking. “Soraya, darling,” he says, “you don’t need to worry about my relationship with my daughter. I have plans. I always do. First, I’m going to make sure my ex-wife and her husband are no longer in the picture, and then I’ll take my daughter someplace secluded, maybe an island, and raise her myself. She’ll love me eventually. Long-term hostages always do.” He laughs. “I did.”
I’m sure the disgust on everyone’s face is the same as the one on mine right now.
Finn spits in his direction. “You’re sick.”
“Haha. Says the man who’s almost ruining his life pining for a girl who no longer cares about him. Tell me, how did you break your arm again?”
Finn frowns and looks away, eyes falling to Serena, who’s still braced against that wall.
“All I asked for,” Mateo says, “was a simple apology for all the hell I went through because you made a stupid decision and ruined my life, Knox. You know, they kept me alive just for fun. Back in the camps. Beat me. Broke me. I made these weird noises whenever I cried, and they thought it was funny. So they found creative ways to make me cry every day, things you wouldn’t even imagine.” He pauses. “Then one day, they were ambushed, I was the only one they didn’t kill because I yelled, ‘Don’t shoot. I’m an American.’ That was a stupid thing to say, claiming I’m a citizen of a country that left me for dead. And the fact that they were Russians coming to retrieve their captured soldiers didn’t help my situation. I managed to survive because I could communicate with them in their language. From one prison to another prison. Well, if I thought the Afghans were creative, I certainly hadn’t met the
Russians. They took out my eye before deciding that I was probably telling the truth when I said that I’m not a spy. A lot of things happened after that. Blurry memories of me acting as a translator. A bomb going off. Running. Living amongst locals. When I finally got into the country I called home, I went looking for your grave, Knox. Actually, the empty grave I thought they’d dug in memorial to you since I believed you died in that camp. I wanted to say goodbye properly. Imagine my surprise when I found out you were alive and well.”
Mateo leans forward now.
“You owe me an apology. And I’m going to get it, or so help me God, your girlfriend’s brain will be scattered across this floor.”
Knox’s eyes never leave mine. In a weird way, he looks calm.
“You’re right,” Knox says. “I do owe you an apology for refusing to kill a child. For that, I’m greatly sorry.” Knox’s eyes narrow. “You really shouldn’t have pointed a gun at the head of the woman I love.”
Mateo grins. “Desperate times. I’m sure you understand. But that apology is half-assed, Knox. That’s not the only thing you should be sorry for, How about my life?”
Knox’s lips twitch. “Right. You’ll get your apology. I’ll say it over your fucking grave.”
And then Knox’s gun goes off.
It happens so fast that I don’t even realize what’s happening until a few seconds later.
The man behind me collapses. One second, his gun is pressing into the back of my head, and the next, he’s a dead weight crashing onto my shoulders. His body knocks me forward, and I lose balance, hitting the ground hard. Blood pours down my
I don’t even have time to scream because guns go off all around me.
There’s a lot of shouting.
I gently push the dead man off me, and his corpse lands on my left side. back.
My teeth are chattering even though the basement isn’t cold. Dust kicks up with every bullet that hits the floor or the wall. I don’t know where to look. I can’t look. My lungs feel too small for the panic I’m trying to breathe through.
I force my eyes open and see the gun.
His gun.
The man’s fingers are still curled loosely around the handle, but his grip has slackened enough that I can pry it from him. My hands shake as I take it.
I start crawling. There’s no time to think. Only move. Only survive.
The concrete scrapes my knees raw as I drag myself forward, and the dead man’s blood makes everything slippery. I spot an old metal filing cabinet two feet away-tall, dented, and covered in rust that flakes off when I touch it. It’s not exactly bulletproof, but it’s something. Better than lying in the open as a target. I duck behind it just as a bullet whizzes past and lodges itself into the concrete wall behind me. The sound resembles that of a hammer hitting bricks.
I press my back to the cabinet, breathing hard. Then I peek around the edge.
Most of the men are no longer standing in the open. They’ve taken cover behind the wide concrete columns that line the basement. Knox is behind one.
Mateo is crouched behind a large stack of old wooden pallets and some sort of collapsed cardboard box setup. The pallets look like they’ve been there for years, warped and stained with water damage.
Two masked men lie dead on the floor. Mateo’s men.
I duck again just in time.
A bullet slams into the filing cabinet right where my head was, the impact so loud and sudden it makes me bite my tongue.
“Oh God,” I whisper, pressing my forehead to my knees. “This is so much worse than the movies.”
In the movies, they always make it look heroic. But this? This is terrifying. I can’t hear anything except gunfire and my own scream that hasn’t left my throat yet but sits there like a caged bird desperate to escape.
I’m going to die here.
I can feel it in my bones. My whole body is vibrating like it’s moments from giving
I peek again, slower this time.
Serena has crawled under the stairs, sitting on her ass with her injured leg elevated. She’s halfway hidden in the shadows, looking as scared as I believe I look.
Hunter is crawling fast toward her now that the ropes are off his wrists and ankles. I can see the red marks where they bit into his skin. The man who’d been cutting him free is down. He’s been shot but obviously not dead.
Finn and Soraya are still tied to their chairs, but they’re on the floor now. They must have thrown themselves down. They move together, their chairs grinding against the concrete as they drag themselves inch by inch toward the stairs.
Another bullet hits the wall beside me, spraying concrete dust that gets in my eyes and makes them water, I drop back down, my spine hitting the filing cabinet hard enough to rattle my teeth.
I close my eyes and cross myself. It’s not something I’d normally do. I’m not even religious, and I’m pretty sure I’m not doing it right. But there better be a deity listening right now.
“If i make it out of here alive,” I whisper under my breath, “I swear I’ll be good. I’ll listen next time. I’ll stay where I’m told. I won’t get curious about things that aren’t my business. I won’t-“
But even I don’t believe myself. I’ve never been good. Not in the way that word means when people talk about being saved or blessed or worthy. Not in the way that would impress whatever deity might be watching this horror show and taking notes.
I keep mumbling anyway. Pleas to anyone who might be listening. Deals I know I won’t keep even if I live long enough to try.
New Book: Returned To Make Them Pay
On her wedding anniversary, Alicia is drugged and stumbles into the wrong room—straight into the arms of the powerful Caden Ward, a man rumored never to touch women. Their night of passion shocks even him, especially when he discovers she’s still a virgin after two years of marriage to Joshua Yates.