Intrigued By Danger (The Danger Family #3)

Prologue

APRIL 2001

My eyes fluttered open to sun rays shining through the curtains. Instantly, my head thumped, forcing me to close my eyes again. Memories of last night flooded my brain. It was my twin brother Diesel’s and my eighteenth birthday, and he’d forced me to go out with him. Opening my eyes again, I tried to make out what the clock on the wall said.

3:30 P.M.

As soon as my brain registered the time, I immediately sat up in the bed, looked around, and realized I was in my bedroom at my parents’ home. My last coherent memory was of me and Diesel at a party in the Hamptons. I didn’t know how I got home. When my stomach churned and my mouth watered, I rushed to the bathroom, barely making it to the toilet before I started to vomit. When I was done, I went to the sink to rinse my mouth. Still feeling woozy, I held on to the edge of the sink and tried to gather myself. As the spinning room started to settle, memories of drowning shots back-to-back flooded my mind.

My brother was the drinker, not me. Though we were identical twins, he was the cooler guy. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that he’d only forced me to go to the party because he felt he was obligated to. After rinsing my mouth, I splashed three big handfuls of cold water on my face before grabbing my toothbrush. While brushing my teeth, I stared at myself in the mirror before my eyes widened at the two dark purple bruises on both sides of my neck.

Dropping my toothbrush, I leaned closer to the mirror and rubbed the marks, hoping it was makeup and part of a sick joke that Diesel and his friends played on me while I was drunk. Even though I was dark brown, the purple marks stood out on my skin.

“Shit,” I hissed.

Rushing out of the bathroom, I grabbed the first pair of pants I found and left my room in search of Diesel.

“Diesel!” I shouted at every corner.

Five minutes later, I found him in the kitchen, standing at the island and looking at the TV. He looked fresh like he hadn’t partied at all. If we both stared in the mirror right now, we’d look like two different people.

“Diesel!”

He turned and looked at me with a smirk on his face.

“What’s up, my boy? I’m surprised you’re up.”

I walked over to him and pushed him in his chest, making him laugh.

“What’s wrong with you?”

I pointed at my neck. “What is this!”

He glanced at my neck, then back at the TV, waving me off.

“Diesel.”

He looked at me. “What it look like to you? Somebody been sucking on your neck. Stop acting like a little girl.”

When he chuckled, it set me off and I pushed him, nearly making him stumble. He eyed me, then looked at my balled-up fists at my side before laughing again.

“Oh, you’re serious? What you mad for?”

“You know I’m with Winter! We were waiting together!”

He scoffed. “Waiting for what?”

It was embarrassing to admit that I’d turned eighteen and was still a virgin, but I met my girlfriend a year ago and we agreed to wait with each other. She knew all about my dad’s philandering public ways and I’d reassured and showed her I was nothing like my dad and my brother. They would hit any woman who opened their legs to them. It was disgusting, and I hated it, not to mention the freaky shit my dad was into, thinking nobody knew about it.

“What you think that broad doing at that boarding school? Getting gang banged, probably. Stop acting stupid.”

Just when I was getting ready to push him again, he turned and grabbed my wrists, staggering to keep his balance.

“You can’t do shit with me, boy. You know that,” he said, laughing and pissing me off even more.

Without a doubt in my mind, if Diesel got serious, he would win. He was used to fighting and I’d never been in a fight in my life, but with the way my adrenaline flowed, I’d go down fighting.

He laughed as I tried to wriggle out of his grip. “What you mad for?” He chuckled, keeping a firm hold on my wrists.

“What happened last night? Who put these on my neck?”

“I don’t know. Some broad. Shit, the way you were kissing her back, I thought you knew her.”

“What!” I hissed.

Pushing away from him, I rubbed my temples, trying to remember something—anything—from last night. Shaking my head in disbelief, I caught onto the island, struggling to catch my breath as my chest tightened and my pulse quickened, which only happened in stressful situations.

“You… you roofied me?” I choked out.

In my peripheral view, Diesel did a double take upside my head, then stepped back, rolling his shoulders around—a telltale sign that he was gearing up for a fight.

“What did you say to me?”

“You heard me,” I muttered.

“Declan, nobody told you to throw them shots back like that. Bold of you to assume I would drug you to get you some pussy. You not fucking these girls means more for me. I know you a weirdo, Dec, but you my weirdo ass lil’ bro, and I would never do that to you. I should knock the rest of the air out your chest for saying that shit.”

Most people thought twin telepathy was real, and though I’d never felt anything, I believed Diesel did. Anytime I felt the weird chest tightness or my heart racing, Diesel seemed to show up, ready to antagonize me. Sometimes he’d distract me from the feelings and sometimes he made them worse. Either way, his comment about knocking the rest of the air out of my chest told me that he knew or felt the same as me.

He looked at the TV and then back at me.

“You were continuously throwing back shots of Whiskey. Shit, I thought you were finally growing a pair of balls with the way you were drinking and flirting. When I didn’t see you for a while, I found you talking to the girl in the corner. After that, y’all disappeared. When I found you, both of y’all were passed out, assed out, and sleeping like babies. I looked for a condom, so congratulations, maybe.” He laughed.

Because he laughed, his stance weakened, and I used all my strength to push him into the wall. Even that wasn’t enough to make him get serious. He hardly ever took me seriously, and it had been that way since we were younger.

“Me and Winter were supposed to lose our virginity together,” I stressed.

“That ain’t got nothing to do with me. Be lucky you got some practice—”

“I’m not like you!” I shouted at him. “I’m not like Dad!”

He raised his eyebrows. “Stop talking stupid.”

“Not like me how?” I heard behind us.

I turned around to see our parents standing in the kitchen doorway, and suddenly, memories rushed back to me. The only reason I agreed to go to the Hamptons with Diesel was because he promised to talk to Dad for me about finally securing a position within our family company. I wanted to be able to take care of Winter after we got married.

“Declan, why are you naked in my kitchen? Where is your shirt?” My mom asked with a confused look on her face.

“Not like me how?” Dad asked again.

My shoulders dropped and I backed away from Diesel, looking at him before turning to Dad.

Mom’s eyes darted between us. “What is going on? Were you guys fighting?”

“He got some action last night for his birthday and somehow he’s mad at me about it,” Diesel said, shrugging his shoulders.

Diesel hardly cared about what he said in front of our parents, and it seemed like it made our dad respect him more.

“Okay, Declan,” Dad cheered, and my mom nudged him in his side. He approached me with his hand out. “Oh, so you a man now?”

With my father, that was a loaded question, spanning from, “Will I finally keep my mouth closed about him cheating on my mother?” to “Am I going to start being more like my brother?” The smirks on their faces were hard to read. My mom’s lips parted with a look of disappointment. I’d probably always disappoint my dad, but disappointing my mom was different. She was the only one who cared or showed interest in getting to know Winter.

“Yes, no. Yes,” I sputtered, shaking my head and shrugging my shoulders.

“Which one is it?”

My eyes darted to my mom and then back to my dad.

“Duncan, can you go do whatever it is that you were about to do and stop picking on our son? Having a harem of women doesn’t make him a man,” Mom snapped.

He turned and looked at her. “And because you always jump in when he gets a little nervous when I’m talking to him like a man, he’s never going to learn to speak up for himself,” he snapped.

I sighed inwardly. I hated when they spoke about me like I wasn’t in the room.

“Come on, Diesel,” Dad commanded.

Glancing at Diesel, I hoped he remembered his promise from last night. I’d already made peace knowing I’d never have Dad’s love the way he gave it to Diesel, but I wanted his respect. Getting responsibility within the company would prove that. Mom’s eyes softened when they headed for the door without inviting me. Dad believed I was her spy, but truth be told, she’d never asked me for any of the information I’d ever shared with her. I simply felt she should know.

When it was clear that Diesel wasn’t going to talk to Dad, I blurted out the news I’d been holding in for the last week.

“I’m marrying Winter,” I announced.

The room went so quiet that the wind blowing through the open window could be heard over the TV. I looked from entrance to entrance at my parents and Diesel who were all wearing unreadable expressions. I didn’t want to tell them about my plans to marry Winter that way, but there was no time like the present.

My dad looked at Diesel. “What did he just say?” he asked, as if he needed clarification.

Diesel shrugged his shoulders like he hadn’t heard me, but I knew he did.

Dad looked at me. “What did you just say?”

Diesel’s eyes shifted, signaling me not to engage with him.

“I said I’m marrying Winter.”

When he started for me, Diesel grabbed his arm, keeping him in his spot. My mom must’ve noticed my body tense because she came to my side and rubbed my back.

“What do you think that girl is doing at that boarding school? You think she’s being faithful to you?”

I didn’t respond, but without a doubt in my mind, I knew she was faithful to me. All we talked about was spending the rest of our lives with each other, regardless of what our parents said. According to Winter, her parents didn’t trust me because of who my father was.

“Duncan, enough,” Mom spoke softly.

“No. No, it’s not enough, Vivian. This is what I be talking to you about regarding him. He’s impulsive. He gets one idea in his head, and he doesn’t stop to think about the consequences of anything. And then, once again, look at you, at his side, rubbing his back like he’s a child that got a little boo boo on his knee. He’s a man.”

“Then you need to start treating him like one,” my mom hissed through gritted teeth.

Once again, they talked about me like I wasn’t in the room. When he ran his tongue back and forth across his top teeth, I knew he’d swallowed his thoughts.

Mom looked up at me. “Declan, do you want to think about this?”

“There isn’t anything to think about. According to him, I’m not good at anything, but at least I’ll be a better husband. And when the time comes, I’ll be a better father than he’ll ever be,” I snapped, keeping my eyes on him.

Mom gasped as Dad’s eyebrows nearly lifted off his forehead while Diesel’s eyes were about to pop out of his head.

“Declan,” Mom called out, but I was already walking out of the kitchen toward the backyard.

I didn’t have to turn around to know everyone had followed me outside. On the back porch, I latched onto the banister of the deck and rocked myself to calm down. I heard my dad’s shoes approach first.

“Excuse me? What did you say to me?” he demanded, his voice sharp.

I turned to face him.

“Duncan,” my mom interjected, trying to keep the peace.

I wasn’t worried about him striking me because he wasn’t physically abusive, but sometimes his words cut deeper, causing more pain than if he’d struck me.

“Repeat what you said to me.”

In my peripheral view, Diesel once again signaled for me not to engage.

“Vivian, Diesel, give me a moment alone with my son.”

My mom walked away, leaving Diesel standing firm.

“Diesel. Do as I ask,” my father commanded.

“No. I’m good right here, Pop.”

Some of the air released from my chest, knowing Diesel’s presence meant he wouldn’t go too far. Diesel was my biggest bully, but he’d never let anyone else, including our father, bully me.

“Now, say it again. How I’m terrible at being a father and husband, repeat that.”

I didn’t respond.

“Exactly, because I think you better look around,” he spoke through gritted teeth, referring to our multi-million-dollar home that was the biggest in the area.

“That doesn’t mean anything when everybody in the house is not happy.”

He stepped closer to me. I’d gotten my last growth spurt, so we stood nose to nose. “Everybody or you?”

I responded with a shrug of the shoulder.

“No. Speak up. Everybody or you?”

I looked over his shoulder and saw my younger sisters, Denim and Demetria, playing in the pool, helping each other do handstands. My little brother, Dymon, sat at one of the patio tables with parts of a computer in front of him. None of them were paying attention to us, per usual. The girls were daddy’s girls, and he could never do any wrong in their eyes. Dymon was the baby and didn’t care to be around us since he spent a lot of time at our grandfather’s house.

“Don’t look at them, look at me. Speak up. Tell me how unhappy you are, Declan. And tell me how getting married is going to fix that?”

He cocked his head to the side and folded his arms across his chest.

“I’m waiting for an answer, Declan. Speak loud and clear.”

I nearly bit a hole through the lining of my jaw.

“You don’t love me. You don’t respect me. You don’t—”

He’d grabbed my jaws and squeezed so tight that my lips nearly pursed off my face. Out of the corner of my eye, Mom stood at the window with her fingers to her lips, probably silently praying. According to my father, she babied me too much, which caused me to be so scary, as he called it.

“I don’t love you? I make sure you have a pot to piss in and a window to throw it out of. Everywhere you’ve needed me to be, I’ve been there and never missed a goddamn day if I didn’t have a pressing matter out of the city. Any time you’ve needed me, I’ve been there. The only person who has drawn an imaginary line in the sand is you. You’ve busied yourself with what your mother and I have going on so much that you’ve forgotten your place. You are our child. I will love you until the day my eyes close for the last time. Do I have to like every decision you make, no, and I don’t. The stupid decisions you make piss me off far more than anything you could ever tell your mother about what you think you know about me.”

When I tried to move out of his grip, he squeezed tighter. Mom made her way to the door, but Diesel waved her off.

“And Respect? I don’t even know what ‘I don’t respect you’ means, but even if that was the case, how can I respect a man who makes decisions just because he’s mad? You can’t even tell me why you want to marry that girl, and please don’t tell me it’s because you love her. You think I married your mother because I loved her? I loved your mother before I married her, so I need something better than that because I can definitely tell you why she wants to marry you.”

“Why?” I mumbled through pursed lips.

“Dad…” Diesel called his name, but he never took his eyes off me.

“She sees you as a sucker that needs to be licked, Declan. When she looks at you, she sees dollar signs. I picked that up the very first time we had dinner. How are y’all going to get married without her parents’ permission to begin with? This is what I’m talking about with you and these stupid ass decisions. What normal parents are going to sign off on their daughter getting married at seventeen?”

He released my jaws and folded his arms across his chest. My face and lips stung. I ignored what he said about Winter because, in our conversations, she never talked about my money or my family like that. That same night, Winter picked up that my dad didn’t like her, so she limited her visits to when he wasn’t around. Even though her family didn’t trust me, they still treated me kind. During the dinner, my father hardly talked, but no one missed his facial expressions and the grumbling under his breath.

“You don’t respect me because I don’t have a position within the company. Diesel does and even Dymon has a small position, and he doesn’t want anything to do with the company. And I think you don’t want me working there because you are afraid of what I might find out and tell Mom.”

He massaged the bridge of his nose, sighing before he chuckled. “That’s what this is about? You want to work? You haven’t shown any interest in wanting to work within the company, Declan, and according to your mother, I shouldn’t force you to do things you don’t want to do.”

I had no response, because the one time I did mention to my mother about wanting to work for the company, she didn’t agree with me. She said the hospitality industry wasn’t as hospitable as it seemed, and she didn’t want it to change me so soon. I’d heard the words she said, but what I really heard was that she didn’t want me to turn into my brother. When Diesel started working with our father, he’d changed a lot. He became meaner and colder, walking directly in our dad’s path.

“Okay, after graduation, you start as my intern. This fall, you attend Cornell and work for me. Do you understand? Do you think that is something that you can handle?”

I tried to hide my smile, fearing that he’d renege. With Diesel getting into M.I.T., he’d be gone most of the time, and the relationship with my dad would get better.

Before I could respond, he added a caveat. “So long as you get cold feet.”

“I knew it,” I snapped.

“You won’t have it both ways,” he said. “Look on the bright side, if she loves you like you believe, she will stick around. Plus, if she wants to marry or be with you after looking at your neck, that should tell you everything you need to know about her. Let me know your answer by the time me and Diesel get back,” he said before walking away.

Diesel walked up to me. “What have I been telling you? Closed mouths don’t get fed. You need to learn how to speak up for yourself, Dec.”

“Yeah, but…”

Movement in the kitchen got our attention, and I glanced over to Winter entering. Diesel looked at her and then back at me, smirking like he knew what I would choose.

“I know you’re going to choose right,” he said and walked away.

Diesel nodded at her on his way back into the house. She walked outside with a big smile on her face.

“I have my parents’ permission, Declan…” She looked around to make sure we were alone. “We can get married,” she whispered.

I looked at the door to Diesel standing there as if he was waiting to see what I would do next.

I scratched my head. “Yeah, uh, about that…”

“Declan, please don’t tell me you let them change your mind, please…” she begged.

Her eyes dropped to my neck and then back into my eyes. She stared at me, speechless. Not being able to read her mind had everything Dad and Diesel said swirling around in my mind. Shaking off those thoughts, I prepared to explain that I didn’t remember what happened and run with the theory that Diesel drugged me if needed.

“I see you enjoyed your birthday.”

“Yeah, but…”

She held her finger up. “Is this going to affect our relationship?”

“No. I’m never going to do it again, ever. I promise.”

She rubbed her lips together. “Then, good, but you will owe me. Okay?”

I nodded quickly. When she pulled me into a hug, I looked at Diesel to him shaking his head before pushing off the wall and walking away. He could be mad all he wanted, but I got to keep my girl and got a starting position with my family’s company. Even though I was happy, that last line about me owing her had me on edge. I looked at my mom and she had an unreadable expression on her face.

“What did he say? Tell me what he promised you for you to change your mind,” She asked, as she kept her face planted against my chest.

I didn’t want to tell her that he’d promised me a position within the company, but I didn’t want to lie to her.

“Work.”

“Hmph. Already choosing work over me. Maybe you’re more like your father than you thought.”

“No. Hell no.”

She didn’t respond but kept a tight grip on me.

I was going to show her that I was nothing like them and never would be.