The Damaged (The Insiders Trilogy #2) - Tijan by Tijan

I tossed back my blankets.

Matt quickly averted his head, throwing up a hand. “Oh, God. Warn a brother next time. I don’t need to see you in your pajamas.”

“Relax. I slept in sweatpants and a shirt.”

I walked past him for the bathroom.

I could feel his glare on my back. “With no bra. That’s not an image I need to see of my sister.”

I paused. He was right. But I’d been cold in the middle of the night and had pulled on a sweatshirt. I yelled that, too. “I’m in a sweatshirt, moron.”

“Oh. Whatever. Listen, um…”

I used the toilet. Flushed. Washed my hands. I was waiting during all that time. I could hear his voice through the door, but he’d stopped talking. My alarms started going off, and while drying my hands I pulled the door open and stepped into the doorway. He was there, his head tipped back, one hand on his jaw as if he had no clue what to say next.

“Matt.”

He looked at me. Yep. I’d been right. His eyes were tortured.

I sighed. “Kash is right.”

The torture slid away to concern. “Kash is right about what?”

“I have baggage from being kidnapped by Quinn. Bad enough where it’s hard for me to go to the house to see my siblings. There’s the constant undercurrent of war going on between Kash and his grandfather, a war that Kash keeps me out of, but he hasn’t in a lot of ways. But both those things are going on right now, added to whatever happened last night—”

“What happened last night?”

“Plus, Quinn is out of jail, and she’s connected to a certain blogger who hates us, and I’m sharing all of this to express how much my plate is full. You’re standing in my room, hesitating, and I can’t handle anything more, so spill. Whatever it is, we’ll deal with it now, because I cannot carry any more, and I cannot stress how serious I’m being about that fact.”

“Right.” His hand fell away from his jaw. He faced me squarely, rolling his shoulders back. “I was with Fleur and Cedar last night when Fleur’s phone lit up. She didn’t answer. Cedar’s phone blew up right after, and she answered.” His eyes went hollow, for just a second, then hardened. “Victoria was on the phone. She’d been with Kash. In Greece. They went together.”

Hit.

Hit.

Hit.

Three hits, all right after another.

I drew in a ragged breath. “Oh.”

“Kash called me, said he’d talked to you, but he didn’t say anything about Victoria.” He hesitated again and was wary. “Did he say anything about her to you?”

What?

Victoria?

Suddenly, I felt my insides squeezing. Hard.

“No.” That word scraped over my throat to get out.

“Right. Well, she’s coming here, and she’s mad.”

“What?”

He shook his head. “Fleur, Vic, and Cedar have been around us and the guys all our lives. I know you don’t like ’em. I know you have reason not to like ’em. And I know they’re stuck-up bitches, and the only reason they’re stuck-up is because all of their families are old-money wealthy. That’s a different circle, if you get my drift. You. Me. Our dad. We’re not in that circle, but those girls are. Chester is. Tony and Guy, they aren’t.”

I was waiting.

“And Kash is most definitely in that circle. I’m sharing all this to help you understand why we put up with the girls. Some of it is power and connections. Some of it is because their families know our families. Some of it is because, when you hang with someone for so many years in a row, since you were all in first grade and on—those are friendship roots that don’t get cut so easily.”

My throat was getting raw. I knew he was winding to the point.

A stark sadness flashed in his eyes. His mouth tightened. “I usually treat those girls like trash. It’s fucked up, and I’m not justifying my ways. It’s a response to how bitchy they can be at times. I used ’em last night, but that’s not been anything new. Fleur, Cedar, even Victoria, back in the day—they aren’t sluts, but they do have healthy sexual appetites. They trust us guys, hence the reason why they get around, but it’s only our group.

“I’m sharing all this because they iced me out last night, and that’s not good. You need to understand the significance of them icing me out. They’ve never iced me out before. I don’t know how the cards are going to fall with the guys, but if the girls iced me out, something happened with their families or Victoria’s family. I’m sorry to lay all that on you, but when you walk down there for breakfast, Victoria is here, and I have a feeling you and I both might be walking into a bloodbath.”

Dread took root in my legs, anchoring me down.

My tone was dull even to my own ears. “I called Kash last night. Had a feeling something happened. He said he couldn’t talk about it on the phone because he didn’t know who was listening. This is bad.”

Matt was frowning. “This is bad.”

I tried to move. I couldn’t. I was still anchored in place.

“You going to be okay?”

“Yeah.” That cost me, too. “I’ll be fine.”

I think …

“Okay.” I wasn’t looking, but I could feel his concern. “I’ll wait for you in the hallway.”