“You’re a fucking smartass.”
“And you’re a fucking dumbass. We all have our faults.” Marcus stuffed his hands in his pockets and glanced toward Bellisario. “I told you to give me ten minutes, but I didn’t mean you should jump into a cage-fighting match with him.”
“You took more than ten minutes.”
He bared his teeth. “All the fucking interdepartmental red tape. I hate bureaucracies.” Then he sighed. “Bellisario could’ve killed you, Vaughn.”
“He didn’t.”
“You’re lucky.” Marcus didn’t take his eyes off the stretcher until the medics carted it away. His lip curled in disgust. “They say the bastard’s going to live. You should’ve finished him.”
The uncharacteristic darkness in his tone had Vaughn sitting up straighter against the cage. “Why? Who is he to you?” But even as he asked, he realized the answer, saw it in Marcus’s posture, his jawline, his skin and hair color. Fighting with a guy, you got to know him pretty intimately—the way he held himself, the shape of his body, the way he moved—and there was no mistaking the similarities he saw right now between Marcus and Bellisario. “Holy fuck. You’re related.”
Marcus’s jaw—which was the same shape as every other man’s in the Bellisario family—tightened. “He’s my grandmother’s youngest son. My mother’s half-brother.”
“Giuseppe Bellisario is your uncle?”
Marcus finally faced him again. “As far as my mother and I are concerned, the Bellisario branch of the family tree is dead and rotten.”
“But you said you’ve had personal dealings with Bellisario.”
He nodded. “I have. When the FBI found out my connection, they didn’t share my view on the subject of the family tree. My acceptance to the Bureau came with a caveat: Reestablish ties with Bellisario or else.”
Vaughn winced. No wonder Marcus was bitter. His family had cut ties with the Bellisarios, and the FBI had shoved him out onto that rotten branch in hopes of gathering information about the crime family. “It didn’t go well, I take it.”
A muscle ticked in his cheek. “All I’ll say about it is you should’ve sent the bastard straight to hell where he belongs.”
He thought about Dahlia and her soft hands on his face, dragging him back from oblivion. He’d scared himself. He’d been so lost in rage and fear he’d nearly drowned in it, and he could have so easily killed Bellisario. It was only Dahlia’s voice pleading with him to stop that had snapped him out of it.
He leaned against the cage and heaved out a breath that caught on the pain in his ribs. “It wasn’t my call to make.”
Marcus only grunted in reply.
Dawson returned with a buddy, and the two of them wrestled a stretcher into the cage. “All right, Rocky. Up and at ‘em.”
Vaughn eyed the stretcher. “If I have to go to the hospital, I’m not riding on that thing. I’ll walk.” He held out a hand and Marcus helped him to his feet. Standing took a lot more energy than he had anticipated, but he’d never before left the octagon flat on his back, and he damn well wasn’t going to start now. He used Marcus as a crutch, and together, they hobbled out into the parking lot, which was clogged with emergency vehicles—cop cars, marked and unmarked, and several ambulances. He spotted two medics lifting Bellisario’s stretcher into the back of an ambulance.
Cam sat on a stretcher in another ambulance, and Vaughn nudged Marcus in that direction. He hadn’t had the opportunity to talk to his twin yet and needed to more than he needed to go to the hospital.
“Hey.”
Cam lifted his head and blinked. He looked like he’d gone a few rounds in the octagon, himself, and the medics had stabilized his leg. Vaughn climbed up into the ambulance and clasped hands with his brother. He nodded toward the leg. “Is it broken?”
“Yeah,” Cam said on a sigh and settled back against the pillow.
“Hey, we’re even then. A broken leg for a broken leg.”
Cam lifted his head again and scowled. “Bullshit. This does not make us even. And goddammit, Vaughn! I told you to stop playing hero.”
“You told me I couldn’t take anymore car bombs for you, and I haven’t.” Though it kind of felt like he had. At least after the bomb, he’d been doped up on meds through the worst of the pain. Right now, every muscle screamed, and if his ribs weren’t broken before, they sure as fuck were now.
“No,” Cam agreed. “You just climbed into the octagon with a champion fighter with a sadistic streak the size of Texas. No big deal, right?”
“I was supposed to let Bellisario kill you?” Vaughn shot back, getting annoyed. “Sorry, I didn’t get that memo on the twin hotline.”