Chapter 11: Tyrone

11

TYRONE

S carlet wasn't wrong, seeing my brother on that hospital bed, fighting for his life, had been hell. With our parents gone, and the weight of the entire family on my shoulders, I relied on my brothers heavily, knowing they were the only ones who I could count on entirely.

And he'd sacrificed himself to save us without hesitation, an act I was still proud of even today, even though it never should have been an option. I was the eldest brother, it was my duty to protect my brothers and keep them safe, and I'd failed.

The day he'd woken up had both been a miracle and a nightmare. The man who'd been foolish and reckless was now damn mad, a need for pain and chaos far worse than I could have imagined.

But considering what he'd done for us, when I was bleeding out, I'd move heaven and hell for him. He was my brother, after all, and he'd saved me.

"You're bleeding out. We need to do something!" Cristian barked as Julian tried to plug the hole in my chest that was oozing blood. Fuck, it hurt like a bitch, and gunfire was raining down on us now as we took cover behind the warehouse pillar. We were pinned down with nowhere to go, and my men were dropping like flies.

"What do we do?" Julian said, his voice low and his bloody hands frantically trying to stem the blood pouring from me as my brain struggled to come up with a way out of this mess. I was losing too much blood, and my head was spinning.

I had no clue on how to save them now. This wasn't how it was supposed to go down. We'd acted too rashly, rushing in to meet the Russos head-on after they'd stolen people we loved and cared for.

"Get him somewhere safe." Cristian's face blurred as I turned to look at him, but it was steeled, his mind set on something.

"What are you ? —"

He took off, firing with his handgun as he rushed out into the gunfire, drawing their attention from us.

"Fuck!" Julian cursed, but he wrapped one arm around my torso as he yanked me onto my feet and lurched in the other direction.

What the fuck was Cristian thinking? God, my head was swimming, and I stumbled along with Julian, praying our backup would arrive any minute now.

They needed to save Cristian.

I needed to save him.

I stared down at him in that hospital bed for months, visiting him daily, arguing with the doctors, hunting down the best of the best in my efforts to revive him. They said he was fighting hard, but he had a traumatic brain injury, and he was lucky he'd survived. I'd argued being comatose wasn't surviving.

I was supposed to be realistic, understand he may never awaken, and be prepared to pull the plug.

There was no way in hell I could ever do that. He'd nearly died for me, because I hadn't thought it all out properly, planned like I was supposed to. I'd let my emotions take the lead, and Cristian had paid the price.

I stood by his bed every day, telling him he needed to keep fighting, that I needed him, we needed him. Julian struggled to see him, hating seeing his big brother in a coma, a weakened shell of the man he was.

And by some miracle that had surprised the doctors and I, he'd awoken one morning. But my delight was short-lived when he'd asked what had become of Xavier, having seemingly forgotten the exact moment of his best friend's death. When I had shared it, he'd exploded, lashing out and destroying his room. I'd needed two of my men assigned to guard him to help me get him to calm down so the nurses could administer sedation. His brain was injured, and he was unstable.

So I'd done my duty, tried to help him with care at home, but it wasn't enough, and it was taking a toll not just on me, but on Julian as well. So we'd sent him to a prestigious mental hospital, where I paid incredibly well for him to relearn how he needed to behave and for optimal care. I still visited him daily, watching as his explosive tendencies slowly eased, but it became obvious that the Cristian I'd known before, he was gone. This more impulsive, angry, and aggressive Cristian was left in his wake.

I'd wondered if I could handle it, until the day Julian and I had visited, and he'd broken down, saying his own brain was working against him, that he just wanted to be himself again.

I'd never seen my little brother cry like that, never seen him in such despair and so broken that he was questioning if he should have survived.

So I vowed to never give up on him. And as the days became a year, then another, I watched him piece himself together as best he could.

And then he met her, Tessa, the woman who would wind up shattering him once more and making him spiral.

If only I'd known and had removed him from the hospital before then.

"You both nearly died that day," Scarlet's soft voice broke me from the memories, and I swallowed, setting my mask back into place. I was the eldest, the one who had to remain strong, hard as stone and unbreakable, unmoving and powerful. I could never be weak, because this family needed me.

"This life is one where we always nearly die, it's the price of living such a rich one." I knew our life was difficult, it came with risks and difficulties, but we lived a life others could only dream of. It was all we'd known. This was who we were, our name was one that got whispered about in the shadows, one that was feared. We could never leave it behind. We'd be hunted and gunned down like dogs if given the chance. No, we needed to embrace it and survive, maintain the power our parents had fought so hard to gain.

"I don't know how you do it," she whispered, and I turned to her once more, seeing the pain and sympathy in those piercing blue eyes. How could a woman we'd done so much to be so soft and caring? A woman who'd endured everything she had?

"Many would say the same about you, Scarlet. Surviving such a childhood, losing what you lost," I stated, and she sighed as she rested her head back against the headboard.

"Well, look at where my life choices have landed me." Her lip pulled into a smirk, and I couldn't help but return the expression. She had a point there.

"After Tessa died, so soon after their unborn child, Cristian spiraled all over again, and it got difficult. We found ways to keep him under wraps to some degree, but he's a twisted man now, although it's not his fault. Sure, this life makes us darker, but his darkness is something else," I said, not sure why I was still talking to her about this. Was it because she looked genuinely upset for my brother, or because Cristian had taken quite a liking to her, one that worried me.

He'd been an absolute mess after Tess and their unborn son, partying hard, being beyond reckless. Drugs, booze, women. The bodies I'd had to cover up, the men he'd shredded for simple smart-ass remarks, the women he'd hurt. Baby-sitting and cleaning up after him had become a near full-time job, one I'd delegated to Julian when needed, which was a lot for our youngest brother to handle, but he'd done so without complaint for a long time.

Eventually, I found my own ways to keep him under some control. Allowing him to do the torture of those we needed information from. He was sadistic, more-so than anyone I'd witnessed in our profession, doing things to people I hadn't even known were possible.

I'd remembered the time I'd walked in on him stripping skin off a man so carefully and feeding it to him that I wasn't sure how to feel.

Another time he'd managed to keep one prick alive while he fed him his own intestines.

We were messed up from this life, each of us having slipped into the darkness further and further with everything we'd endured and survived.

I knew mine had gotten worse just by looking after him, helping him move past Tess and his baby. His depravity had eased, his torture less extreme nowadays. Sometimes, it was like he was even bored, and a few times he'd jetted off across the world to party hard somewhere and do reckless shit just to feel something.

Julian would go and keep an eye on him for the week or two he needed to get that rush sated, and then he'd come home, assisting with the family as best he could in his state.

"Hey, are you okay?"

I blinked, realizing I'd just been staring at Scarlet as my mind had whirled. I was getting complacent around her now, letting her get under my skin too much.

But those blue eyes were so concerned, the expression sincere and genuine, and it stunned me. We'd done things to her, depraved things, used her, hell, Cristian had done wretched things to her, and yet she still gave a shit about us? Women would pretend, but you could see it in their eyes when they were just putting on a front. Reading people had become my specialty after all these years, but Scarlet, no, she was genuine in everything she did. She honestly felt some compassion or sympathy for us, and it threw me. I thought we were messed up, but this took the cake.

She was certainly something special, and I could see it now. I'd had my reservations despite Cristian getting far too interested in her. Perhaps his new way of thinking should be trusted more. It was more basic, more instinctual at times.

And he was sure Scarlet was one we needed to keep.

Maybe he was right.