Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Seventeen

  “Hayden,” Jonas growled aloud.

  “Matthews,” spat out Hayden. “I do believe that you have something that belongs to me.”

  “I don’t believe I know what you’re talking about,” Jonas responded. Hayden looked me over thoroughly and meaningfully, and then looked back at Jonas.

  “I’m taking her with me,” Hayden stated pointedly. “The only thing that I haven’t yet decided is whether or not I’m going to kill you.”

  I was astonished when Jonas offered Hayden one of his most stunning half-grins, full of confidence despite the pouring rain and our circumstances.

  “I don’t think you want to shoot me Hayden. Unless I’m mistaken, you’ll have hell to pay for it,” he hinted. “It couldn’t have been by accident that I came out as well as I did after your last little visit.”

  “I think I can take my chances with DeRuise,” commented Hayden. “If I let you live today, it will be out of pure pity, not because he scares me. Now, put your hands where I can see them, or I will shoot you, here and now.”

  Jonas complied with the order. “You don’t want to get on his bad side though,” Jonas reminded him. “Otherwise all this trouble would have been for nothing.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say nothing,” Hayden laughed, looking at me once again. I gritted my teeth as I waited for him to look away from me, a plan beginning to form in my mind. If only he would look away just long enough...

  “I knew I’d find you eventually. Although, I will admit, I did have to get a little help. However, once I found out that you had a sister, I knew right where I’d find you,” Hayden informed us with a smirk, still staring at me. I fidgeted slightly under his unwavering gaze, and he smiled more widely at me, his steel eyes glinting coldly, before he finally refocused on Jonas.

  “I do think I’ll let you live though,” he decided, looking Jonas over. “After all, you’re still in quite an awful state,” he laughed. “It wouldn’t be worthwhile.”

  At that moment there was a sudden flash of lightning that drew Hayden’s attention, and, seeing my chance, I sprang for Jonas’ sidearm that I knew beyond a single shadow of a doubt was tucked behind his back. I whipped the handgun out and aimed it at a shocked Hayden. He was speechless a moment, but then he laughed again, clearly amused and not at all appearing to feel threatened.

  “Britney, I know enough about you to know that despite your father’s amazing capabilities, you are by no means a gun woman. In fact, your father tells me you’ve never even held a gun before. Now, I suggest you put that down before you hurt yourself,” he instructed me in a soothing but controlling tone that I immediately made a point of hating with all my heart.

  Jonas stared at Hayden with a totally straight and serious expression on his face. “Terrence, I think you’d do well to leave before you make her too angry,” he cautioned.

  “I’m hardly afraid of her,” he said wryly. “She looks cute like that I’ll admit, but she’s hardly a threat.”

  “You wouldn’t think she looked so cute if you’d seen her in action,” Jonas continued in his same completely serious voice. “She’s learned a few new tricks this past year. One of which is to be an uncannily good shot. She’s definitely her father’s daughter in talent in that area.” Hayden’s face took on the faintest shadow of doubt, and for the first time, he appeared unsure of himself.

  “Put it down Britney,” Hayden told me again. My only answer was to speedily aim a shot less than a foot from his head; grateful Jonas had a silencer on his gun so it wouldn’t bring any curious bystanders to see what was going on.

  “You missed,” laughed Hayden, a quaver barely evident in his voice, but there nonetheless.

  “Trust me, she didn’t have to,” a voice said from out of nowhere. Hayden spun around in time to see Alaric step from hiding, pointing his own gun at Hayden’s chest.

  “Now, I’ll be blunt,” Alaric started off slowly, evenly, as he moved forward to join them, seeming to be oblivious to the downpour. “That’s my little brother you’ve got that gun aimed at, and despite the fact that I might not have known him long and he tends to be a royal pain in the a*s, I wouldn’t think twice about shooting you dead where you stand if it meant protecting him. You see, even if you doubt their sincerity about shooting you, you have no need to doubt me when I swear that if I can still see you in exactly sixty seconds, I’m going to shoot you, no questions asked.” An especially bright streak of lightning followed by a loud crack of thunder added emphasis to Alaric’s words.

  “Who the...who are you?” Hayden asked, squinting through the rain.

   “Alaric Matthews, also known as one of this country’s most sought after freelance cleaners,” Alaric introduced himself lightly, as if he were saying he was a freelance photographer rather than a deadly killer. “Now, you’ve only got about half of that sixty seconds, so if I were you, I’d start running now before you have two rather expert shooters gunning for you. I may never have seen Britt in action, but I generally tend to hold to that anyone who manages to survive training by a Matthews’, survived for a good reason.”

  Hayden seemed to hesitate, likely wondering if it weren’t all just an elaborate bluff of some kind. However, common sense finally won out, and he took off. He turned around when he was almost to his car, continuing to run backwards.

  “This isn’t over,” he called. “For any of you.”

  Alaric voiced his own private opinion of the threat by firing a couple well-aimed shots after Hayden. One ricocheted off the car he was scrambling into, and the other just barely grazed his shoulder.

  “Oops,” Alaric murmured to himself, as if he hadn’t actually meant to hit Hayden at all, though his face only showed satisfaction rather than remorse. I closed the distance between Jonas and me, sidling up to him to give him some extra support, knowing he had to be tired. I slipped his gun behind his back once again, and looked up to see him smiling down at me with pride, despite the fact that I was so wet I had to resemble a drowned rat.

  “I think my kitten was turned into a real tiger for a minute there,” Jonas declared.

  “That tends to happen when their mates are threatened,” Alaric teased.

  “Oh, and exactly what was your excuse?” I demanded. “You realize that by having actually hit him you’ve only made him madder,” I pointed out as we all walked together back towards the building.

  “To be honest, I really don’t give a damn,” Alaric remarked, “And even though some people seem to refuse to truly accept me as a brother, I’m not going to let some little Irish punk turn my little brother into Swiss cheese.”

  No one said anything for a few minutes as we slowly made our way back at Jonas’ pace. I was sure that Alaric’s words had hit home with Jonas. Today, Alaric had knowingly and irrevocably put himself into the middle of this war. In fact, he had made sure Hayden wouldn’t just dismiss him by giving Hayden a “gift” to remember him by.

  “Thank-you, Alaric,” said Jonas, sounding sincerely grateful. “You’re right, I’ve been less than accepting, and I’m sorry. You saved my life, kept Britt safe, and got yourself into the middle of something you had nothing to do with.”

  “Oh, I’m always looking for a good time,” laughed Alaric. “This mission seems to fit the bill well enough. Besides, there’s just something about that little...twerp that just grates on my nerves. It took a lot of self-control not to just kill him, believe me.”

  “Well, nevertheless, you didn’t have to get involved in any of this, and we’re both extremely grateful for yours and Kara’s help,” Jonas insisted.

  “Don’t mention it,” Alaric shrugged it off. “Now, I think we’ve bought ourselves a little time. That little skunk will be licking his wounds for a while. Still, we’re going to have to start getting ready.”

  “Getting ready?” I asked, confused.

  “To leave,” Alaric explained.

  “But, to where? When?”

  “As soon as Jonas can drive, we’re going to Washington,” announced Alaric as we went inside the loft and closed the door behind us. “He’ll drive his Maserati with you, and I’ll follow in the Mercedes. We’ll have to split things up between the two cars, but we ought to be able to get everything in a single trip. With any luck, we can make it a two day trip, only stopping one night.”

  “But it could be some time before Jonas is able to drive,” I pointed out. “What if they come back again, now that they know where we are?”

  “I think they’re going to think twice before doing anything too rash. It was different when they thought that Jonas was alone with you here, injured and unable to really protect you. Now that they know you’re capable of protecting yourself to at least some extent, and that Jonas has a professional big brother playing guardian angel,” he smiled widely at his own comment, “they won’t be too quick to try again yet.”

  “Yeah, by the way, nice touch with the ‘one of this country’s most sought after freelance cleaners’ thing,” Jonas mentioned as he settled onto our sofa, not seeming to care that he was getting it wet with his soaked clothes. “Vain much?” he joked.

  Alaric gave his brother a lop-sided grin. “Maybe a little. I thought it’d give a nice little added effect, and it’s not too far off from the truth.”

  Jonas snorted. “Righhhht,” he responded.

  “I think we all better change,” I suggested, longing for some dry clothes myself.

  “Yeah, the last thing we need is for one or both of you to catch a cold,” Alaric agreed.

  “Or you,” Jonas added.

  “I don’t get sick,” stated Alaric. “I’m invincible.” Jonas gave his brother another look that said that he highly doubted it.

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  I carried Alaric’s guitar down to the living room later to play while Jonas worked on his drawing. When I got to the living room, Jonas was settled with his work as I had expected he would be. However, what I hadn’t anticipated was Alaric’s activity for the evening.

  “What are you doing?” I asked upon seeing various different guns, explosives, and knives spread over the living room floor, with Alaric in the middle of all of them. He looked up at me with a broad smile.

  “Just going over our arsenal,” he informed me.

  I shook my head. “Alaric, your love for weapons is just slightly disturbing,” I commented as I walked over and sat near Jonas with the guitar, beginning some random fingering while I switched between watching Jonas and watching Alaric.

  “You’re getting good at that,” Alaric complemented me, after I had been playing for a little while. “For a beginner anyway,” he added with a teasing smile.

  “Thanks,” I replied. I had been working hard trying to improve my playing since I hadn’t had much else I could do for the past month or more now. “Did you get a hold of Kara yet?” I questioned, remembering that Alaric had said earlier that he was going to call Kara and explain what was going on so that she could stay in Washington and get ready for our future arrival rather than come back to LA.

  “Yeah, I did. She and Ana were still together actually, so they both found out, and neither of them was very happy with the news. They are glad we’re going to go join them in Seattle though,” answered Alaric.

  “Well, I guess I’m glad that they’re happy we almost got killed,” said Jonas sarcastically.

  “Oh come on Jonas,” I said. “We all know they just want us all together.”

  “I know, I know,” he quickly assured me. “Just let me know if you decide to reconsider my offer,” he told me with a wink.

  Alaric looked from one of us to the other, clearly perplexed. Then he shook his head and returned to going over his supplies.

  “I don’t for the life of me understand you two kids. Weren’t you just fighting with each other earlier today?”

  “We were having a disagreement,” corrected Jonas. “We were hardly fighting. Besides, near death experiences tend to bring people together,” he laughed.

  “Apparently.”

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  Hayden slammed the door behind him as he stormed into the Larkin mansion. He began ripping off his button-up dress shirt as he made his way to the stairs.

  “What happened?” demanded Lawrence Larkin, having come out of a nearby room upon hearing the door slammed closed. “Where’s Britney? Wasn’t she there?”
  “I’ll tell you what happened,” Hayden snapped, eyes flashing. “She was there alright. I saw her with my own two eyes but that b*****d shot me!”

  “Who, Jonas?” Larkin asked in shock.

  “No, his brother,” Hayden replied, throwing his ruined shirt on the floor with disgust. “Where are your bandages?” he asked. Larkin motioned for the younger man to follow him, and made his way into the kitchen where he produced the required supplies. He began to help Hayden clean and bandage the wound as Hayden explained what had happened.

  “You’re lucky, the bullet only grazed your shoulder,” announced Larkin.

  “Only because he chose to only let it graze my shoulder,” growled Hayden angrily. “DeRuise failed to mention that Jonas has a brother that stayed in the family’s old line of work. Or for that matter, that he had a brother at all.”

  “I’ll speak to him about this. Maybe now he’ll lower his protection of Jonas. Perhaps he can also shed some light on who exactly this brother of Jonas is,” replied Larkin.

   “He said his name was Alaric Matthews,” Hayden informed him. “He also claimed that he was one of this country’s top cleaners as well.”

   Larkin snorted. “Well, he’s obviously arrogant if nothing else,” noted Larkin with scorn. “Tell me, how did Britney look? You’re the first one to see her in all this time.”

  “She isn’t the same girl she was when she left here,” disclosed Hayden to his godfather.

  “What do you mean? What’s he done to her?!” Larkin demanded. “If he’s harmed her in any way, he’ll pay dearly for it; I can assure you of that!”

  “Oh, he hasn’t hurt her,” Hayden answered in a reassuring tone that was foreign to him and he felt odd using, astonished by the transparent protective love and concern the man had for his daughter. He hadn’t realized that Lawrence actually cared that much about Britney. Obviously, he had underestimated the man’s affections for her.

  “However, Britney is all too familiar with guns now, and from all appearances, she has her father’s skill,” revealed Hayden, gritting his teeth as Larkin started stitching up his wounded shoulder.

  “What? But that’s impossible!” Larkin exclaimed. “I tried to teach her to shoot once, but she absolutely refused to even touch the gun. Are you telling me my daughter can actually shoot a gun?”

  “Not only can she, but she can do it well.” Hayden went on to tell what had happened when he had attempted to take Britney away that afternoon. When he was finished, Larkin was just putting the final addition on dressing Hayden’s wound.

  “I would suggest you find yourself a clean shirt,” Larkin suggested to his best friends only son, whom he had been charged with responsibility for. “I believe we are going to pay a visit to Mr. DeRuise.”

  About two hours later, they were ushered into a private library where DeRuise awaited them. He silently motioned for them to be seated in the chairs across from his own comfortable-appearing wingback chair. They sat down and DeRuise decided to cut to the chase rather than skirt around the purpose for their visit.

  “What is it you want?” he asked the two men before him.

  “Were you aware that Jonas was not the only son of Alec Matthews?” inquired Larkin flatly.

  “Are you trying to tell me that Jonas Matthews has a brother?” asked DeRuise incredulously. “Impossible!”
  “Apparently not,” remarked Hayden, partly amused that these two men, who seemed to believe they knew absolutely everything, didn’t even know Jonas had a brother. “His older brother’s name is Alaric Matthews.”

  “I looked into the Matthews family extensively, if Jonas did have an older brother, I assure you that I’d know it,” argued DeRuise. “It must just be a friend posing as a brother.”

  “Just as you knew he had an older sister?” Hayden couldn’t help querying smugly. DeRuise gave him a murderous glare, but Hayden let it roll off him, completely unbothered by it.

  “I assure you gentleman, once you seen them together, there can be no doubts that they are brothers. Although their builds are quite different, and Alaric’s hair is a rich black color, they’re identical right down to the way they smirk at you,” Hayden added with clear dislike.

  “Black hair you say?” DeRuise asked grimly. When Hayden nodded affirmation, DeRuise sighed. “Ana’s hair is black as was her mother’s. So he is in fact a brother. How did you happen to meet him?”

  “How do you know what color the mother’s hair was?” wondered a perplexed Larkin, “I thought she died before they ever came to the states.”

  DeRuise hesitated momentarily before answering, “Pictures of course. I was friends with Alec Matthews. Now, how did you meet him?” he asked once again.

  “I went to collect Britney from where you said Ana used to live. Sure enough, they were both there. However, they were not alone there. Alaric ambushed me and shot me in my shoulder.”

  “It seems that Alaric still performs his family’s old line of work,” Larkin told his friend, “which will, of course, complicate things for us.”

  DeRuise nodded, understanding what it was they wanted now, but being unwilling to admit he already knew. He wanted them to ask for it, although he intended to refuse them anyway.

  Larkin had essentially retired after he’d been shot. Hayden might be a good shot, but he struck DeRuise as being rather too arrogant. Truth be told, he was more interested in getting his hands on this Alaric Matthews, or, better yet, both brothers. He would dearly love to have what he was sure would be an extremely lethal duo working for him. Perhaps he would find his way to the sister’s old loft soon, and offer to help Jonas keep the Larkin girl in return for their service.

  “We would like you to fully revoke your declaration of protection of Jonas Matthews,” Larkin revealed.  “We’d also be very grateful if you were to assist us with getting my daughter back,” he hinted not too subtly.

  “I’m afraid I cannot and will not help you,” responded DeRuise, sounding truly regretful, though he was not even close to being so. “I will remain neutral in this thing, as I have been, and I won’t withdraw from my pledge of protection either. I will not be taken for a liar. This fight is not my own.”

  “Very well then,” Larkin answered in a stiff tone of voice. “That is all we wanted to ask of you. Thank you for seeing us.”

  “I assure you my friends, it was a pleasure, as always, to see you,” DeRuise lied. The only pleasure he had had was in the discovery that there was not just one exceptionally trained Matthews, but two brothers. “You should return again soon for dinner some night,” DeRuise extended an invitation. “And, please keep me abreast of this situation. I am very curious of the outcome of it all.”

  “Of course you are,” grumbled Hayden under his breath.

  DeRuise smiled as he walked them out, pretending not to have heard the obstinate young man. His dislike for him was growing by the minute. Perhaps Jonas wasn’t always the easiest to control, and he was sure the older brother would only be worse, but if nothing else, Jonas was extremely respectful. Respect didn’t even appear to be in Hayden’s vocabulary.

  “Good evening gentlemen,” he said, bidding them farewell.

  “Good evening,” Larkin replied.

  “It appears as if we’re on our own,” commented Hayden as they walk to their car.

  “It would appear so,” observed Larkin, sounding as if deep in thought. “It would appear so.”

 

 

Reviews

[Zachary_James]

Hayden was SNIPPY to Jonas rivalery I LOVE IT