Chapter 11
11
Cecely
I’ve died and gone to hell.
That’s the only explanation for what Claudius is saying to me at this very moment.
“It’s about an hour's hike.”
I blink at him, hoping I misheard. Hoping the helicopter’s loud-ass rotors somehow distorted his words, twisting them into something ridiculous. But no. He’s standing there, arms crossed, looking completely serious.
“I’m sorry,” I say slowly, my voice hollow with disbelief. “We’re going to…?”
His lips twitch like he’s enjoying this.
“Hike to the house,” he says smoothly.
I stare at him. Then at the jungle stretching endlessly beyond the clearing. Then back at him.
Nope.
I laugh, a short, breathy sound that holds absolutely no amusement. “You’re funny. Really. Okay, joke’s over. Where’s the actual transportation to the house? Golf cart? Car? Anything?”
His expression doesn’t change.
My stomach drops.
“Oh my God.” My breath leaves me. “You’re not joking.”
He shakes his head, clearly unfazed by my rapidly growing horror.
I look down at myself. I’m wearing leggings, boots, and a t-shirt. I dressed for comfort, not survival.
“Claudius,” I say, voice carefully measured, “Do I look like someone who hikes?”
He gives me a slow, deliberate once-over, then shrugs. “You’ll learn.”
I could kill him.
I want to kill him.
Instead, I inhale sharply, tilting my head toward the sky like maybe, just maybe, divine intervention will swoop in and rescue me from this nightmare.
It doesn’t.
Claudius grabs a backpack from the helicopter, slings it over his shoulder, and gestures toward the tree line like this is just another day for him.
“Let’s go, Cecely. Before it gets too hot. Don’t forget to grab your bag.”
Too hot? It already feels like I’m wrapped in a humid death trap. And my bag? The one that weighs a ton? There’s no way I can carry it. I groan, dragging my hands down my face.
“This is actually my worst nightmare.”
He steps forward, eyes glinting with something dark and knowing. “This is nothing.”
I go into a weird mixture of survival mode and pure, unfiltered rage as I grab my backpack from the helicopter.
Survival mode because—fine. If I have to do this, I’ll do it. I’ll grit my teeth, suffer through, and somehow make it out of this jungle trek alive.
And pissed off because—seriously? I didn’t sign up for this. No one said anything about hiking through a goddamn rainforest just to get to a house. What kind of psychopath owns three islands and doesn’t even have a road leading to his front door? Claudius, that’s who.
I yank the straps over my shoulders with way too much aggression, my jaw tight as I stomp forward.
Claudius barely reacts. Just watches me with that obnoxiously smug look on his face before turning and leading the way into the trees. Oh, he’s enjoying this. That realization makes me even more pissed off.
I don’t even know where we’re going. I don’t know how far we have to walk, how long it’ll take, or if I’ll drop dead from heat exhaustion before we even get there.
What I do know is that I will not let him see me struggle.
I will not complain.
I will not give him the satisfaction of seeing me break down because of a stupid hike.
But God help me, if he makes one more smug comment, I’m throwing him into the ocean.
Minutes stretch into hours, the thick, humid air growing heavier and hotter, bordering on suffocating. Each step feels like I’m wading through syrup. My legs scream at me to stop, to sit, to beg for mercy.
I refuse.
Even as my stomach churns, threatening to upchuck my overpriced jet dinner, even as my hair clings to my face in a sticky mess, and sweat gathers in places I don’t even want to think about, I keep moving. And through it all, I keep my damn mouth shut.
Okay, that’s a lie.
My mouth is definitely open, because I’m huffing and puffing so hard I probably sound like I’m about to blow down the house of the three little pigs. I snort, unable to stop myself, which immediately earns me a glance from Claudius. His expression is unreadable, but I can feel the curiosity simmering beneath it.
If I wasn’t so out of breath, I’d tell him about the last time I went on a hike. If you could even call it that…
Lili and Harvey dragged me on a bus tour that stopped at Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon when we went to Vegas for spring break. I was more than happy to stay at the hotel, lounging by the pool, sipping overpriced drinks, and living my best life. But they begged. And begged. Until finally, I caved, because I’m a good friend. And also because they promised me an unlimited buffet afterward.
What they conveniently forgot to mention? Each stop of the tour was timed. As in, you had a set number of minutes to get off the bus, run like hell, take your pictures, and then get back on before they left your ass behind.
So there I was, standing in the blazing heat, getting ready for what I assumed would be a casual stroll up to Hoover Dam. Wrong. What I got was a five-million-step death march, all condensed into a twenty-minute window.
Twenty. Minutes.
For someone who doesn’t even glance at a Stairmaster in the gym!
And to make matters worse, there was a group of senior citizens on the same tour. Not just any seniors. Power-walking, camera-wielding, absolutely thriving seniors, dressed in matching windbreakers, moving like they had trained for this their whole lives.
I refused to be outdone by them. So I hiked. Step after agonizing step, legs burning, lungs betraying me, sweat dripping into my eyeballs, but I hiked. By the time we reached the top, I was so out of breath that I wheeled off to the side, bent at the waist, silently questioning all my life choices.
Lili and Harvey? Completely unbothered. They raced ahead, all excited, pointing at whatever engineering miracle they were there to see. The seniors? Laughed and chatted as they passed me. One even jogged back down just to take a photo and then hurried back to the top. Me? I waved them off, sucking in what little oxygen I could find, feeling my soul actively trying to leave my body.
God, I was woefully unprepared.
And now, here I am. Another hike. Another hellscape. Only this time there’s no tour guide to drag me back onto an air-conditioned bus. Just Claudius, a never-ending jungle, and a sweaty, hellish sense of déjà vu.
I glare at the back of his head.
If I die out here, I’m haunting his ass.
“Pick up the pace,” Claudius calls over his shoulder, his voice irritatingly steady. “We don’t want to be out here when the sun is overhead.”
I blink. Isn’t it already overhead? I tilt my head back, instantly regretting it as the blinding sun sears my retinas. The sky is a brilliant, merciless blue, and the humidity wraps around me like a wet, suffocating blanket. I sway on my feet, feeling every inch of exhaustion settle into my bones.
This is it. This is how I die.
Not in some grand, dramatic fashion or even by being chased by a masked man through a forest. No. I’m going to keel over in the middle of the jungle. Some godforsaken island animal is going to find my overheated, sweaty remains and gobble me up. I bet Claudius would just step over my corpse and keep walking.
I huff, moving forward. Because if I do die out here, I at least want to haunt him properly. In a freaking house!
The trail steepens, forcing me to adjust my footing, my legs burning with each step. I stumble as the trail suddenly dips into a decline. The air shifts, too. It’s subtle at first and then impossible to ignore. It’s cooler. Darker. The relentless heat that had been beating down on my skin is suddenly gone, replaced by a strange, damp chill that seeps into my sweaty clothes. The sunlight barely filters through the dense canopy above, casting long, shifting shadows along the forest floor.
I slow my steps, my breathing uneven. It’s not just from exertion, but from something else. Something primal. The hairs on the back of my neck lift, and a heavy sensation settles in my chest. I don’t like this. The air feels thicker here, charged, like something unseen is moving just beyond my line of sight. Like something is watching me. Or someone.
I swallow hard, forcing myself to keep walking, to ignore the way my skin prickles with an undeniable sense of wrongness. I quicken my pace until I’m closer to Claudius, my voice low, hesitant.
“Where are we?”
He doesn’t slow, doesn’t look back. “We’re almost there.”
I glance around again, the feeling intensifying, wrapping around me like unseen fingers pressing against my spine. I don’t know where ‘there’ is. But I have a feeling I won’t like it.
“Your brother took me into a wooded area like this,” I say, closing the gap between us, suddenly feeling a whole lot less comfortable trailing behind. “Must run in the family.”
Claudius stiffens.
“Whoever you saw that night was not my brother, Cecely,” he snaps.
I blink at the sudden shift in his tone. Hit a nerve, did I?
“If the identical face matches…” I mutter under my breath, not quite ready to drop it entirely.
But I take the hint.
Doesn’t mean I stop thinking about it. Because if it wasn’t Gabriel, then who the hell was it? The only logical explanation would be that it was Gabriel, but that doesn’t make sense, because Claudius is acting like his brother is dead and buried. And last I checked, people don’t just come back from the dead looking exactly the same.
Unless… A weird thought snakes its way into my mind. It’s not like someone can pay to turn their face into another, right? I mean, people get plastic surgery all the time. But to completely duplicate someone’s face? That’s insane… right?
A shiver runs down my spine, and for once, I don’t think it’s from the cold. I glance at Claudius again. His jaw is still tight, his posture rigid, like he’s holding back a hundred things he wants to say but won’t. Which means I just stumbled onto something bigger. Much bigger. I’m not sure I like where it’s leading, but, for some reason, I have a feeling it has something to do with my father.
“Can I ask you a question?”
Claudius doesn’t even glance back. Typical.
“What?” he says, flat, disinterested.
I quicken my steps, closing the distance between us. “How do you know Dimitri?”
That gets something. He slows. Just a fraction. Whether he meant to or not, I can’t tell.
“I’ve known him for years.”
“That’s not an answer,” I press. “Do you know him through work? Church?” I snort, already knowing that’s a joke. “The Brotherhood?”
I clock his reaction instantly.
He’s good. I’ll give him that. But he’s not good enough to stop the subtle widening of his eyes when I drop that last one.
Gotcha.
I let the silence stretch, waiting. Daring him to correct me. To deny it. He doesn’t. Instead, his shoulders tighten, and just like that, his pace picks up again.
“So, you do know him through the Brotherhood,” I say, my voice steady.
Claudius doesn’t confirm or deny it. He just keeps walking, eyes forward, posture tight. Telling.
I push further. “Is that how you know my sperm donor?”
He stops. Not abruptly. Not dramatically. Just enough to make me halt, to remind me that I’m not the one in control here. Then, without turning, he speaks.
“I believe I warned you earlier,” he says, his voice quiet but edged with steel. “Not to ask questions you’re not prepared to hear the answers for.”
A chill crawls down my spine. Which means I hit the mark.
“I’m taking that as a yes.” I step closer, tilting my head slightly, studying him. “What is the Brotherhood?”
Nothing. No reaction. Except for the slight clenching of his jaw. My mind races, piecing things together faster than I probably should.
My father. The Brotherhood. Claudius. And then there’s the man who looks like his dead brother—the one who wants me dead. The one who I fucked…
“Is that why someone who looks like your brother wants me dead?”
Claudius finally turns. His gaze pins me in place, dark and unreadable. For a moment, I wonder if I just made a mistake. A big one. But then, he smirks. It’s slow and calculated, like he expected this. Like he was waiting for me to put the pieces together.
“Yes.”
“So, what exactly is the Brotherhood?” I ask again, pushing forward, my curiosity outweighing common sense. “Some secret society?”
Claudius doesn’t break stride. Doesn’t flinch.
Instead, he just says, “If it’s a secret, do you really think I can speak about it?”
I hum, pretending to consider that.
“To be fair,” I say, keeping my voice casual, “Lili only knows about it because of her ex.” I glance at him, watching his reaction. “She said Dimitri wasn’t pleased when he found out that she knew about it.”
Claudius looks at me again. But I see it. The tiniest flicker of something behind his eyes. Interest? Annoyance? A warning? It’s there, but it’s gone before I can pin it down. Which means I just confirmed something.
He mutters something under his breath and starts walking. I follow, lost in my thoughts.
The Brotherhood isn’t just some underground group. It’s something more. Something they don’t want people knowing about. And the fact that Dimitri cared about Lili knowing? That means it’s dangerous. And I just dragged myself right into the middle of it. Well, to be more specific, my mother did when she decided to hook up with my father.
Something else Lili said drifts back to me, a memory pricking at the edges of my mind. She mentioned that Dimitri was high-ranking in the Brotherhood. Not just a member, but something more. What was it she called him? An Elite Member.
The words click into place, and before I can stop myself, I ask, “Is my sperm donor an Elite Member?”
Claudius stops. Just like that, the jungle disappears. It’s just him and me. He turns slowly, his expression unreadable and calculated. When he speaks, his voice is low, deliberate.
“Your father is the Head of the Defiant God Brotherhood.”
I swallow hard. Before I can process what that means, he moves closer.
“He is the most powerful man in the world.”
Closer.
“That is why you’re in danger.”
Closer.
“That is why you’re here,” he murmurs, his breath warm against my skin, “on my island. The one no one else in the world knows about.”
My breath catches. He’s so close, I can feel the heat of his body.
I shouldn’t find him attractive.
I shouldn’t!
But his little power speech?
Yeah, huge turn-on.
Still, I force myself to focus, because something doesn’t add up. I tilt my head up at him, keeping my voice steady.
“Are you sure you’re the only one who knows about this island?” I ask. “Because you just said it was your twin who found it.”
Claudius’ entire demeanor changes. The air shifts. His jaw tightens. His hands curl into fists.
His voice is sharp and absolute when he says, “Gabriel is dead.”
But the way he says it? It’s not convincing. Not even to himself. Like he’s not sure. Like there’s a part of him that doubts it. That maybe, just maybe, his twin is still out there.
So I push a bit more.
“How do you know he’s dead?”
I see it the instant something snaps in Claudius. His whole body goes rigid and his breathing shifts, like he’s trying to keep something dangerous from spilling out.
Then he breaks.
“Because I killed him!”
His voice slams into me, raw and filled with something I can’t quite name, and I flinch.
“I pushed him off a cliff on this very island,” he continues, stepping closer, his eyes dark, haunted. “And I watched him fall to his fucking death.”
The jungle around us feels eerily silent, like even the trees and the wind know not to interrupt.
“That’s how I know.” His voice is lower now, but no less lethal. “Now drop it.”
I don’t move. I don’t breathe. My heart pounds, drowning out everything else. His words, the sound of leaves rustling, the distant hum of ocean waves… it all goes away.
He killed his own twin. His other half.
And now?
Now, I’m stuck here with him.