Trouble: (A Bad Boy Mafia Romance) (Made & Broken Book 3) Page 18

  “Home sweet home.” Louis sounded awfully cheerful all of a sudden, and I had the feeling it was because of my less than thrilled demeanor. I shot him a glare that he completely ignored as he moved into the shack and let his flashlight move around the small space. “Ah, we’re in luck. No rats’ nests, and the firewood’s still here from last time we came.”

  Rats’ nests? I turned my head to stare at Liam in horror. Surely this was some kind of joke.

  “It’s a mountain bothy,” Liam explained. “They’re set up around the country for anyone to use. This one hardly ever gets any traffic, so we picked it for our emergency plan. We’ll be able to hide out here until Blaine gets in touch, without our dad finding us.”

  No wonder it never got any traffic—I looked back at the small hut and shuddered. I don’t know what I’d expected, but it certainly wasn’t this.

  The last—and only—time I’d been camping, I’d been seven. My dad had gotten the great idea to take the family to a campsite on the coast. We’d stayed in a nice camping wagon, but my mum had complained about the communal showers and tight living quarters non-stop for two days until he finally gave up and drove us all to the nearest hotel. I wasn’t a nature girl in any way, shape, or form.

  But then again, not getting killed by the mafia might rank higher than comfortable accommodation, I told myself as I drew in a big breath and finally walked inside. Even if only slightly.

  The hut had a dirt floor and a small fireplace. And that was it.

  Louis was currently kneeling in front of said fireplace, messing with some tinder. It didn’t take him long to get a small fire started that lit up the tiny space. It was maybe ten by six feet, with the open doorway located at the other end to the fireplace.

  Liam dropped his heavy pack next to Louis’ by the far wall and stretched his strong body with a sigh. “Right, let’s get some food on. You hungry, Audrey?”

  “I could eat a horse.” I rubbed a hand against my growling belly. “But if all you’ve got are more protein bars, I’ll pass.”

  “Nah, we packed actual food.” Louis flashed me a smile. “And coffee… No horses, though.”

  The promise of coffee made me perk up just a little. “Okay, great. Hey, where’s the bathroom?”

  Liam rummaged through his pack and pulled up a small shovel and a roll of brown toilet paper that he held out toward me. “Turn left once you’re out of the bothy—the forest is more even in that direction, but don’t go too far.”

  I stared at him. “You have got to be kidding me.”

  He looked genuinely surprised for a moment, but then lit up in a grin when my horrified expression finally clicked. “You’re a proper city girl, huh?”

  “Well, yeah, if by ‘proper city girl’ you mean ‘definitely not going to dig her own goddamn toilet out of the ground,’ then sure.”

  “I can come along and dig it for you, if you really prefer,” Louis offered from his crouch in front of the fire. The slight gleam of amusement in his eyes told me he was definitely enjoying my horror.

  “No thanks,” I hissed, snatching paper and shovel out of Liam’s hand. “I’ve got it.”

  The twins’ chuckle followed me out into the dark clearing.

  They both shot me amused looks when I came back in a few minutes later, but thankfully didn’t comment on my traumatized expression as I plopped down on the rolled out square of tarp they’d placed on the floor a little ways off from the fireplace. A small pot was resting on an iron ring over the flames, and food-smells from it made my stomach growl. A kettle hung from a hook on the iron ring—probably where our coffee would come from.

  “How long do you think we’ll have to stay here?”

  Liam shrugged. At least I thought it was Liam—they’d both moved after I left, and I wasn’t close enough to check their hands for scars. “A while. Our brother Blaine will be working on a plan while we hide out here—he’s got a larger network than we do.”

  I wanted to ask what would happen after their brother pulled said plan together, but frankly, I didn’t think I had it in me. Not tonight. Too much had happened in the past twenty-six hours, and I couldn’t stomach anymore. So I propped myself up against the rough stone wall, ate the plate of beans and sausages Louis offered me, and tried not to think about what the future held.

  It turned out to be much easier than it’d been during the car ride here. The late time of day—or night—the food, and the crackling of firewood all worked to melt the stress from my body until my eyelids grew heavy and my limbs felt like lead.

  “Ready for bed?” one of the twins asked, his voice softer than usual. Probably so as not to stir me from my near-comatose state.

  I nodded and he rolled out a sleeping bag on top of the tarp and unzipped it for me. “Climb on in.”

  I kicked off my shoes and obeyed with a pleased hum. It didn’t even matter that I was laying on a dirt floor only covered by a tarp—my mind switched off the moment my head touched the ground.

  29

  Aubrey

  I cared a lot more about my lack of mattress early the next morning, when I woke up to every muscle in my body aching from the rock-hard surface I’d been sleeping on all night. I was also sweating buckets, thanks to going to bed in my clothes, and when I rolled over with a groan to try and ease some of my discomfort, my elbow hit solid flesh.

  That’s when I realized I wasn’t alone in the sleeping bag.

  Whichever twin had climbed in beside me after I’d fallen asleep grunted at the impact and then proceeded to roll over and wrap his arms around my midsection.

  “Stop that!” I hissed, just as desperate to escape his body heat as I was dismayed at the uninvited closeness to one of the men who’d tricked me so gruesomely. It was one thing to trust them to keep me safe from their mafia ties—the intimacy of waking up in the same sleeping bag was something else entirely. Especially when I felt something hard begin to grow against my backside.

  “What?” the redhead grumbled as he nuzzled his nose in against my hair, obviously still mostly asleep. A few feet away, on the other end of the tarp, the other twin cracked open a pair of sleepy, silvery eyes at the disturbance. He was, thankfully, in his own sleeping bag.

  “Touching me!” I pushed at his arms until he released me and then fought my way out of the confining bedroll. I scampered to my feet, wincing at my sore back’s protests, and placed my hands on my hips as I glared down at both of them. My less than quiet awakening had seemingly pulled them both out of their slumber. They looked like identical, sleep-mussed images of confusion.

  “Why were you in my sleeping bag?” I asked the twin whose grasp I’d just escaped.

  “We only prepped for two,” he said, hiding a yawn behind his hand. “One of us had to bunk with you.”

  I opened my mouth to lay into him, but nothing came out. All right, so that was a pretty good reason. Not that that made my foul mood much better. I was still hot and sticky and sore all over, and judging from the light shining in through the open doorway, I’d had less than six hours’ sleep after what’d been the most stressful and traumatizing day in my entire life. What I needed was a shower. And coffee.

  “I need to wash, but I’m afraid to ask about the bathing facilities,” I said, glancing from one twin to the other. They’d both stripped down, it seemed, from what I could see of their bare, tattooed torsos.

  “I’ll come with,” my bed partner sighed. “Sleeping with you was like holding a damn toaster oven all night.” He climbed out of the sleeping bag, and I was somewhat relieved to see his maroon pair of boxer shorts. That is, until I noticed the unmistakable bulge in them. Quickly, I looked away, only to catch his twin’s amused gaze. He’d clearly seen what I’d been looking at.

  With an irritated huff I grabbed my toothbrush and stomped out of the shack, hoping the flush I could already feel spreading across my cheeks would die down before any of them woke up enough to start teasing me.

  Maroon boxers came out a few moments laters, sti
ll only dressed in his underwear and with a towel over his one arm and what looked to be a bar of soap, some toothpaste, and his own toothbrush in his hand. He stretched, making all those taut muscles in his abdomen and chest roll in the most mesmerizing way. He looked like a big cat waking up after a nap. A disturbingly sexy cat.

  I looked away before my cheeks could heat up again.

  “Nothing like waking up in nature,” he said with a happy sigh. “Come on, I’ll show you where we bathe.”

  Clearly someone hadn’t woken up with a sore everything.

  Damn youth.

  I shuffled after him through the small clearing that housed our shack, ignoring the stunning beauty that surrounded me. I was way too sore and way too grumpy to appreciate the lush little enclave, the woods surrounding it, and the mountaintops lining the horizon as far as the eye could see.

  Maroon led me through the trees until they gave way to a calm, slow-moving river.

  “It’s the same river you heard when we were walking up. It’s just much safer in this part—you can swim if you like, but only here. It’s got some nasty undercurrents further down, and a lot of sharp rocks.” My bed partner dropped his belongings on the shore and stuck a toe in. “Refreshing!”

  I wanted to bitch about the fact that he clearly expected me to wash in a goddamn river, but given the fact that I’d had to squat behind a bush to pee last night, I just didn’t have any more fight left in me. With a resigned sigh, I grabbed the toothpaste and sat down to clean my teeth.

  Next to me, Maroon dropped his boxers—giving me an eyeful of his perfectly sculpted arse—and then ran into the goddamn water like an over-excited Labrador. I squealed as ice-cold river water splattered me and got a deep laugh in response before he finally—at the middle of the river—dove headfirst into the water.

  “You jerk!” I growled when he finally popped up again, red hair plastered to his scalp and eyes sparkling with mischief and pure zest for life. I hadn’t seen that expression on either of them for more than a week, and despite my general annoyance—and soaked top—seeing it now made something in my chest warm.

  “Come on in—the water’s great,” he said, splashing in my general direction, but without hitting me this time.

  “Yeah, it’s not.” I held out my wet top for emphasis. “It’s colder than a melted glacier.”

  “Unless you plan on smelling like ripened cheese, you’ll have to come in eventually,” he teased. “We won’t see a hot shower for a least a month.”

  I paled. “A month? You’re joking.”

  The twin’s teasing smile fell for that look of seriousness they’d both had all day yesterday. “It’s going to take Blaine some time to figure something out. We’ll be here for quite a while. And after that, we may have to move to another safe location. I know this is a lot for you to deal with, love, and I’m sorry. I tried to protect you from all this shit, and I know I’ve failed.”

  “But… my job,” I croaked when it finally fully sunk in that I wouldn’t be back to my regular life for quite possibly a very long time. “I can’t just disappear. They’ll fire me! I have to call them, I have to let them know—”

  “I’m sorry,” he repeated, and from the look of him, he truly was. “You can’t. Perkinson knows where you work, it’s not safe to get in touch with them.”

  “But—”

  “Your job is not more important than your life, Audrey.” His voice was suddenly stern, demanding obedience. It was such a sharp contrast to his usual self, it finally cracked through the last defense I’d put up around myself to get through this insanity. With a rush of startling clarity, I finally understood that my life would never go back to how it had been. If I even made it through alive, I’d never go back to my old job, I’d never gossip with Eileen over piles of reports, and I’d never get the promotion I’d killed myself to get for the past three years.

  My career was over. You didn’t just take off for more than a month with no warning or explanation and not have it go on your permanent record. Everything I’d worked for for as long as I could remember was over.

  The twin was as surprised by my tears as I was. When the first deep sobs broke free of my awfully constricted chest, he flinched as if the sound caused him physical pain. Then, without hesitation, he came out of the water and onto the shore to wrap me up in his wet embrace.

  I leaned in against his chest, not caring that he soaked me through with cold river water, just grateful to be held as everything I’d held dear seemed to fall apart and leave me feeling so naked and alone I could barely stand it.

  All my life, I’d worked myself to the bone trying to get the perfect career, and within a day it had been stripped from me, leaving me with nothing. I was nothing without my job—it was my entire identity, my entire life. I couldn’t even imagine what my parents would say when they found out their youngest daughter had ruined her prospects. It wasn’t like I’d be able to tell them it was because I’d somehow gotten involved with the mafia. No, I was completely on my own now.

  Except for the twins who’d caused this disaster in the first place.

  As I cried my eyes out on the redhead’s shoulder, I had the vague realization that I wasn’t angry at them for dragging me into this. Angry that they’d deceived me, yes. Angry and scared that they were mafia—yes.

  But not angry that they’d inadvertently lost me everything I’d ever worked for. Because… because the only way they could have avoided it was if we’d never met at all.

  As I clung to the twin whose name I wasn’t even sure of, I knew I’d never been truly alive until the day I met Liam. I didn’t know why, or even how, but I knew it was the truth.

  “You okay?” he murmured against my ear when my tears finally stilled.

  I nodded shakily. The coldness of his wet flesh was finally starting to seep through my emotional state. My clothes were soaked now—there was no way I could leave them on, or I’d risk getting sick. I pushed against his chest and he released me.

  “I need to wash. And I might as well give my clothes a quick rinse too. I’ve been wearing them for nearly two days and I didn’t exactly get a chance to pack any spares.”

  He didn’t say anything as I slipped out of my clothes, but I could feel his eyes on me when I stood naked—and freezing—by the side of the river. I fought back a blush at the knowledge of his attention—he’d seen me naked before, and I’d just been cuddled up against his bare form as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Now was not the time to get bashful.

  I washed my clothes as quickly as I could, using the bar of soap he’d brought, and then forced myself to wade out in the freezing water. It was even colder than I’d thought from the splashes I’d received, and I squealed the entire way until I slipped on a smooth river stone and plunged under.

  When I came up again, gasping and spurting water like a lost orca, deep, masculine laughter rang through the quiet woodland.

  “Prick!” I shouted. I didn’t turn around to glare at him, knowing full well I’d just get another eyeful of his naked body if I did. His only answer was more laughter.

  I washed up as quickly as I could, with my back turned to the near shore to preserve just a smidgen of modesty. That’s probably why I didn’t realize we’d gotten company until I was on my way back to dry land.

  I looked up from the riverbed once I was almost all the way to shore and reasonably certain I wouldn’t slip on any more stones, and the sight that met me made me stop in my tracks, still ankle-deep in cold river water.

  Both twins were sitting on the grass by my wet clothes, watching me. The brother who’d brought me to the river was still gloriously naked and sporting an erection—the other was dressed, but I was pretty sure I saw a bulge in his jeans before I managed to quickly avert my gaze again.

  “For fuck’s sake! Don’t you two have anything better to do than creep on me?” I hissed.

  “Not really, no.” The newcomer shot me a cheeky smile and tossed a towel at me. “You’ll find
the WiFi reception out here is pretty poor.”

  “Ha ha.” I wrapped the towel around myself, then folded my arms as the cool air made my skin break out into goosebumps, and leveled the clothed twin with a glare. I wasn’t feeling another accidental take of bared penis, so I purposefully didn’t look at his naked mirror image. When he opened his mouth again, the mirth was way too prominent in his silver eyes to ignore. I bent for my wet clothes and toothbrush and stalked off without giving him the chance to continue. They might have forgotten what’d happened between us in the panic of suddenly running for our lives, but I hadn’t. I wasn’t about to subject myself to more of their teasing charms and pretend like they hadn’t broken my heart.

  We might have to live together in this camping version of hell, but I wasn’t going to let their natural humor and charm pull the wool over my eyes ever again.

  But as the days passed, it became increasingly obvious that both their moods were far from the warm, joking demeanor I’d come to know.

  The first day, I assumed it was a natural reaction to our circumstances, and I was too wrapped up in how miserable I was myself to pay it much mind.

  By the second night, I realized there was more to it than just the stress of the situation.

  I was feeling kind of off, so I’d curled up in one of the sleeping bags to rest for a bit after dinner—another exciting meal consisting of tinned beans and bland meat—but the rough ground felt harder than normal, and my muscles were already sore. I was too uncomfortable to fall asleep, so I just lay there with my eyes closed, feeling sorry for myself.

  “It’s time to turn on the phone,” one of the twins said.

  “I know.” Ruffling as one of them searched through their bag followed, and shortly after, the tune of a phone being turned on.

  “Do you think there’s any chance Blaine’s found a way in yet?”

  “No.”

  The first twin sighed, an irritated sound. “This isn’t getting any easier by your refusal to speak in more than one-syllable words.”