Chapter Thirty-Five – Kayla
Jeremy cocks his head at me, slow to step inside the room. His mouth tugs into a smile, but it’s not a smile that puts me at ease; it’s a smile that chills me to my core. A calculated one, one that informs me of his intentions here.
Spoiler alert: the intentions aren’t good.
I swallow hard and drop the comforter back to the bed as my brother approaches me.
“Jeremy,” I whisper his name, my throat suddenly dry.
“What… what are you doing here? How did you—” I knew I had a lot of missed calls and texts from him these past few days, but the last thing I expected was to see him here, especially now.
“I’m not stupid,” he says, his green eyes narrowed.
He stops when he stands less than two feet in front of me.
Heavy bags rest beneath those eyes, and his short brown hair is a little greasy, like he hasn’t showered or really taken care of himself lately.
“I remembered the address. I thought I’d pop by since, you know, you apparently decided you have better things to do than come home and keep me in the loop. ”
He glances at the bed, at the pillow and the comforter. “Now I see what exactly you’ve been getting up to. You forgot all about me because you’re too busy throwing yourself at your new boss, huh?” He chuckles and shakes his head once. “Have to say, I didn’t think you had it in you.”
My heart hammers in my chest. I was in deep shit when I was alone with Bradford’s father, but this…
this is a kind of shit I’m used to being in, although the crazed glimmer in my brother’s gaze makes me wonder if he’s too far gone.
If he let himself get swallowed up by his thoughts, his rage, and his paranoia.
“It’s not like that,” I stammer out. Ten minutes ago, I felt like a new person, but facing my brother again—at such a time I wasn’t expecting to—puts me back in that old place, in my old shell. I want to cave into myself and disappear, tell him whatever he needs to hear so he can leave.
“It’s not, is it?” He chuckles again. “I can smell you now, sister, and I smell someone else on you. I think it’s exactly like that, and I had to come here and see for myself why my sister decided to forget everything we talked about. You and I, we had a plan, remember?”
The plan was never mine, but I can’t say that to him. I can’t say anything.
Jeremy reaches behind him and pulls out something I’ve never seen before: a gun.
It’s small. It fits in his hand easily, and yet anything with bullets is more than capable of killing when aimed at the right body part.
The moment I see him flash that gun, my stomach drops to the floor, and I swallow hard, already knowing how this is going to end.
It’s one step too far. My brother won’t let me leave him.
If he can’t use me, if he can’t control me…
I’m no longer useful for him. All this time, he’s never treated me like family.
I’ve been nothing more than a tool he could use, a second body for his schemes, and I had to nearly kill myself to play along.
And now that I’m not playing along? He’s done.
“It was a simple plan. You got this fantastic job babysitting some rich asshole.” He runs his hand over the top of the gun, drawing my attention to it.
“I didn’t think that rich asshole would ever steal you from me, but I should’ve known you’d abandon me at the first sign of something better.
” He says it with such confidence that I know, without a doubt, it’s something he would do to me.
Jeremy would leave me if it meant better opportunities somewhere else.
A better life. More money than he could handle.
Power and respect. He’s projecting, but I don’t dare to tell him that.
He’s dangerous as it is without a gun, but with one?
With one I have absolutely no hope in surviving with just bruises.
Hands can kill, but guns can kill in an instant.
“I can’t believe you thought I’d just sit back and let it happen,” he goes on.
“You’re my sister. Mine. It’s been you and me damn near our entire lives, and you abandon me just like that.
” He snaps the fingers on his gun-free hand.
“I saw you came here with another alpha. I don’t know who the hell he is, but it doesn’t matter.
I’m going to take care of him, and then I’m going to bring you home—and if you don’t want to come home with me, well… ”
He glances at the gun, finally bringing it up, “I suppose I’ll have to take care of you, too.
” My brother wears a hideous smirk. “Is that what you want? You ready to die for these guys? You ready to throw away everything you and I have for them? Is the dick that good, or is it strictly for the money? Tell me, I’m real fucking curious. ”
I don’t say anything right away, mostly because I know anything I do dare to say he’ll only take the wrong way. When he’s in a mood, nothing lands right. Everything just pisses him off more, and I’m the one that takes the brunt of his anger.
Jeremy glares at me. “Come on. Speak your mind. Don’t just stand there like they cut out your tongue or something. Tell me why you thought you’d turn your back on everything we had.”
He’s furious I dared to leave him, pissed off that I might be happier somewhere else.
He’s seeing red right now, and there is no way anything I say can lessen the rage in his heart.
My brother is an ugly human being; I knew it years ago, but he was all I had.
Now? Now I know that life can be fun, that I can actually be happy—but I cannot be happy if I go back to the way things were before.
That life? I don’t want it anymore. I’m not ready to die, but I won’t go back. I won’t.
“I love them,” I say, the simplest answer. Although it might be simple to me, someone like my brother doesn’t really love anyone. Only himself. He could never understand the feelings inside of me and why I’m so ready and willing to step into the unknown, into a new life.
He laughs. He actually laughs at me, like I made the world’s funniest joke. “You love them? Oh, come on. Seriously? You—” He stops talking seconds before Hayden appears in the doorway.
Hayden spots the gun instantly. He might not know who Jeremy is, but he must automatically assume the worst in a split second, because he goes to reach for the holster on his hip, where his own gun rests.
My brother already has his gun out, though, and he points it at Hayden and says, “I don’t think so.” And then he does the one thing I don’t want him to.
He pulls the trigger.
The sound of the gun in my brother’s hand is louder than I thought it would be, considering how small it is. The bam echoes in the air, reverberating in my bones and causing me to jerk and widen my eyes when I realize what he did.
A wet spot appears in Hayden’s stomach, and Hayden leans back on the bedroom door. His gaze flicks between Jeremy and me as he brings a hand to his wound and slowly slides down the door, smearing blood along it as he goes.
No. No, no, no. This can’t be happening.
Jeremy whirls to me, saying, “Look at what you made me do. This whole thing is your fucking fault. If you would have just stuck to the plan, none of this would be happening. I want you to remember that.” That gun he has in his hand he now points directly at me, and with how close he is to me, there’s no way he can miss.
While my brother is focused on me, while he yells at me, patronizes me, and blames me for his actions, out of the corner of my eye, I see Hayden lift a finger to his mouth. With Jeremy’s back to him, my brother can’t see him as he gets to his feet, all without making a sound.
Back on his feet, Hayden doesn’t go for his gun. Instead, he creeps closer while Jeremy glares at me, and though he keeps a hand on his injury, he is remarkably fast and quiet.
“The more that I think about it,” Jeremy goes on, “the more I don’t know if you and I could ever go back to the way things were. Maybe this should be it for us—” His finger tightens on that trigger again, but he doesn’t get the chance to shoot a second time.
Hayden lunges for him. He stops applying pressure to his gunshot wound so he can use both arms to subdue my brother.
One arm goes for the hand holding the gun, knocking it down and away from me while his other arm curls around Jeremy’s neck and squeezes as he yanks him back to put more distance between me and my bloodthirsty brother.
The sudden action causes my brother to fumble and loosen his grip on the gun, and as Hayden tugs him away from me and squeezes his neck harder, Jeremy’s fingers drop it.
The gun clatters on the floor as he struggles with Hayden.
Hayden’s bigger, though, more muscular, and it becomes clear that even though he’s injured, my brother is still no match for him.
My eyes drop to the gun. I do something then I don’t think I would’ve done in the past: I bend over and pick that gun up, and then I point it right at my brother and Hayden.
Jeremy is fighting for air, the skin on his face growing redder and redder as the seconds tick by, but Hayden sees the gun in my hand and releases him, taking a few steps back and then to the side, so he’s not within my brother’s reach or under the sights of the gun.
Jeremy coughs, hacking up a lung as he tries to regain his breath, and when he sees the gun in my hands—the one I point directly at him—he laughs.
That laugh is hoarse and wheezy, but it’s a laugh all the same, and it immediately ticks me off.
“What are you gonna do? Shoot me? Please, you don’t have it in you to pull that fucking trigger.
You never have. You’ve always been weak. You’re just a fucking omega.”
Everything he says doesn’t land how it would have weeks ago. Hell, the me from weeks ago never would’ve dared to go for the gun.