CHAPTER 1 #3
He knows why. Or at least…he thinks he does.
I love my brother. I tell Mal everything.
Though I do give him an expensive stiletto in his ass just as much, the life adjustment has been a little hard for me.
Everything lately’s been hard for me. But Dec also knows that there’s plenty I do keep from Malek for obvious reasons…
one of them being the fact that we’ve been fucking on and off for about four years and completely dropped the bomb on Mal in the middle of an explosive emotional moment.
I don’t blame him for being a little apprehensive if I’m sneaking off at night to go play house with the only sister I’ve ever known…
my track record for keeping an actual relationship is a bit…
lacking. What I do blame him for…is having the audacity to feel that way when he knows exactly how I am.
The minute this starts to get all ‘Bridget where ya been?’ …
I’m out. He’s just lucky I haven’t already mapped out a death worthy of a true crime documentary, or have some need to see him bleed out.
I also don’t have Malek at my disposal anymore.
He’s got the life he’s deserved before I had to go and get myself a heartbeat. I’m not taking that away from him. I’m a big girl now. Wear thongs and everything.
“I don’t need a reason why, Dec.” I grabbed a spoon out of the drawer next to me and started digging into the carton. “Chubby Hubby?” His arms were crossed when he looked down at my offer, and he shook his head.
“Not unless ya want me to become one. I’m not a huge fan, anyway. You ate all the Cherry Garcia.”
“So complain a little…I ate it off your taint.” I smiled while I flipped my spoon over and dragged it out of my mouth.
I love it when he looks at me like that.
I also hate it. It gets my pussy throbbing, but…
Declan’s the only man I’ve ever ravaged that doesn’t make me feel like I’m gonna puke as soon as his eyes light up with tiny hearts.
I don’t like that. It makes it feel too real, and I’m not good at real.
Not this kind. I also have this persistent asshole of an elephant sitting pretty in the room every time we’re around each other…
and it’s getting a lot harder to pretend it doesn’t exist.
“Sounds a bit more appealin’ now.” A few loose curls of his brown hair hung over his brow, one of his hazel eyes peeking through strands…
the other one adding to the spike in my pulse rate while he mentally undressed and fucked the dog shit outta me.
I’m not gonna last five minutes under that look…
or that man bun. I never do. It’s why it’s always been so damn hard, not going back to his bed every time one of my playthings pissed me off.
I pressed my spoon to the center of his chest and inched him backwards until his ass met the counter.
“Can’t right now. I’ve gotta go meet the contractors at the house. Adult kinda shit. You know…the boring kind you only like paying attention to if they’re talking about tech?”
“Look at ya. Growin’ up on me.” He smirked and flicked my nose and I snatched that finger, bending it backwards until he dropped his mouth open in pain.
“Ah…shite. Quit it.” I grinned and pressed myself against him, tossing the ice cream on the tiny kitchen island and inching up on my tiptoes to shove my tongue in his mouth.
That always shuts him up. Distracts him, so I can sneak off to do some more ‘growin’ up’.
The Byrne house was sold months ago. Almost a year, actually.
Malek got his half, and I got mine. He and Sev are more than happy, keeping it simple in her apartment.
I’ve got expensive taste. Nearly a year in this little dump is about to drive me crazy.
It’s a tiny condo on the middle floor. Our upstairs neighbors have small kids, I never get any damn sleep, and shacking up with a hacker, of all things, means ten times less room for all my shit.
I can’t wait to get all my accumulated must-haves outta storage.
Can’t wait to start decorating our custom-built house the way I want it.
It’s almost done, and I’m convincing myself that it’s gonna help quench some of that thirst I have for something normal in my life.
“I’ll be home in time for dinner. Keep it hard for me, ‘kay?” My hand gripped his crotch, and he groaned into my mouth, squeezing the life out of my ass and kissing me back.
His choice not to respond after I broke away and eased off of him just proves to me that there’s a lot he’s not saying.
Which means I’ve got more of those pesky relationship problems I’m not good with.
What Dec doesn’t know…is that I’ve been paying some close attention to what he does, ever since we’ve been sharing a bathroom.
He only thinks I was at Mal’s last night.
Everybody thinks I’m just some child that has to be managed.
They can fuck off. I figured out how to use a proxy, write code and hack my own GPS to let Declan and anyone else believe I’m where I’m ‘supposed to be’.
The only hard part was applying it to the IP address on my phone…
but I managed to figure that out too. I’ve set the route and hidden my exact location within a code I’ve seen Dec write, himself.
It would take a hacker just to figure me out.
Last night I fed one of the demons. I’m starting to understand why my sick need to see all the pictures of my exes with their insides hanging out, just never quite scratched the itch.
I’m also starting to understand how easy it is to corrupt the soul by embracing the darkest parts of it.
Malek started learning all this at sixteen.
The same age I learned what my favorite whiskey is, and the right way to milk a cock.
We’re two different sides of a really fucked up coin.
But I’m starting to like blood better than booze.
I’d like to say that all this started back at the O’Dell compound before it made for a spectacular fireworks show…
with my Daddy inside it. That’s only half true.
The real start of it happened two months ago.
Dec wasn’t home, and I got notified that I had some certified mail with my name on it in the post center.
Thank Christ he wasn’t here. I thought I was safe from what I found inside…
but legally…I’m far from it. Mal promised me I wouldn’t die last year when all of it happened.
He also promised I’d never be an O’Dell…
But I’m officially the sole heir to everything they have. Or…had.
None of Nolan’s sons ever managed to procreate.
No one to leave anything to. I might have rammed a knife into Jonas’s pecker, and then into his jugular vein…
but that apparently was after he sent off a signed marriage license with his lawyer.
And that lawyer obviously made it out of the compound before Declan and Malek brought the cavalry in to light the place up.
I didn’t know it then. I know it now. I’m Jonas O’Dell’s widow.
I knew what I was doing when I went upstairs with them that night, leaving Seven in that creepy ass basement.
I knew the only way out of marrying the fucker was death.
But I also knew my brother was coming for me.
And signing my name on that line, I thought, would mean nothing if one or both of us were dead by the end of that night.
I never expected any of this to happen.
As I’m not experienced in any of this, I turned to the one person I knew that could help me figure it out, without blowing a fucking gasket.
And that’s where I’m heading now. Malek spent about a month bunking with Simon Kensley.
We got used to being in each other’s company pretty quickly.
For a man of few words…he’s actually a fucking genius when it comes to numbers and legal documents.
But the other thing he’s good at? Well… that threw a bucket of fuel to this fire that’s started in me.
There was a reason Malek trusted every phone number in Seven’s cleaner phone, but not a single person in our house other than Declan.
They’re killers. And they don’t apologize for it.
They knew it needed to be done, and they rained the fires of Hell on that compound to get us out.
Mal trusts Simon, so I do too. He looks at murder like part of his business…
the way Sev used to disconnect herself when she cleaned bodies.
I’m slowly learning how to be part of this family and find a better use for myself than just bouncing on a cock.
I’d rather make that a perk of the job. I consider my visits to Simon’s the education one needs to become someone that nobody fucks with.
That’s a hell of a lot more productive than anything college will get you.
The app I created to mask all my extracurricular activities definitely needs to be perfected…
but I just don’t have time right now. It seems to glitch the hell out of my phone, though…
and it’s fucking with my baddie playlist while I try to unravel my tight nerves on the drive over.
I tried to distract myself with my conversation with Sev last night.
That’s something Simon can’t help me with, for sure.
This morning would have been a good opportunity to talk to Dec about things, but…
I’m so fucking unprepared. I’m not sure what I’m so afraid of. He’ll give me space if I need it.
But part of me doesn’t want that, either.
“Fuck me,” I whispered under my breath, shaking my head while I pulled into Simon’s manicured driveway. I gotta put this on the back burner for now. We’ve got some Irish houses to…Byrne.
Tee-hee.