Chapter 3
VINCENT
“Don’t sound so happy to see me, buttercup. I’ll get the wrong idea.” I suppressed a laugh at Brooklyn’s eye roll.
I hadn’t expected her to answer my sister’s door, but I wasn’t complaining. Riling her up had been one of my greatest joys in life since we met after a charity football match last summer. She’d already been friends with Scarlett, but none of us had known she was interning at Blackcastle yet.
Her addition to the team had been a welcome surprise; her relation to Coach had not, since the only thing worse than trying not to overstep with Coach’s daughter was trying not to overstep with Coach’s hot daughter.
Long, wavy blonde hair that shimmered like gold in the sunlight. Big blue eyes. Full lips and an adorable smattering of freckles across her nose. It was like God had sent her specifically to test me—I mean, us. The team in general.
“Apparently, you’re as bad at reading expressions as you are at reading Holchester’s plays.” She arched one brow. “What was that mess with Lyle yesterday?”
“Good job for cherry picking the one time I let him score. Don’t forget, we won yesterday’s match.”
“Thanks to Asher.”
“Does your boss know how bad your match analyses are? Because all Blackcastle staff should have a baseline knowledge of football, which you clearly don’t.”
“Is it bad analysis if I point out how you misjudged Lyle’s pass and fucked up the interception?”
“Wow. I didn’t realize you watched me so closely during our matches.” I placed a hand over my chest. “I’m flattered. Truly.”
“Please. I work for the club. It’s my job to follow every player closely.”
“Yeah? Then what was Stevens doing fifteen minutes into the first half?”
“His job, unlike you.”
I didn’t think anything could make me laugh today, but the sound that came out of my mouth was as genuine as it was unexpected.
Brooklyn may look angelic, but she had the tongue of a viper. It was oddly attractive.
I shouldn’t enjoy verbally sparring with her so much.
She was the manager’s daughter, which meant he would rip my balls off if I looked at her the wrong way.
On top of that, she was one of my sister’s best friends, which meant Scarlett would also rip my balls off if I looked at her the wrong way.
It was a lot of potential danger for one girl.
The problem was, I’d never liked playing it safe.
Brooklyn’s mouth curved. Her eyes dropped to the takeaway bags in my hands. “Did you rob the delivery guy on your way in?”
“It’s not robbery if he handed the food over willingly.” By pure coincidence, I’d arrived at the same time as Asher and Scarlett’s takeaway, so I’d offered to bring it in myself. The delivery guy agreed and promptly asked for a selfie afterward. I obliged; everyone was happy.
“Are you going to let me in, or are you waiting for the food to get cold first?” I drawled.
She wrinkled her nose but stepped aside. “Does Scarlett know you’re coming?”
“Nah. I just happened to be in the neighborhood.”
That was a lie. No one “just happened to be” in this neighborhood, but I’d spent the day seesawing between fear, anger, and confusion. If I didn’t tell someone what happened soon, I was going to explode.
After I opened the box last night—technically this morning—I’d immediately packed a bag and checked into a hotel. I didn’t know what the “gift” giver’s intentions were, but I wasn’t going home until I’d changed the locks and upgraded the security system. It was better to be safe than sorry.
Brooklyn and I entered the living room. Asher was the first to see me.
“Shit, DuBois, you miss me already? I just saw you yesterday.” He shook his head. “You’re getting clingy.”
“Fuck off. I’m here to see my sister. You’re like a wart on an otherwise cute little toad. Unwanted, but part of the package.”
“Play nice, boys,” Scarlett warned, but a hint of amusement gleamed in her eyes.
I set the takeaway on the coffee table and explained what happened with the delivery.
Asher and Scarlett had ordered enough food to feed a small village, though most of it was healthy stuff like grilled chicken and vegetables. We had to be careful with our diet during the season, so the only “fun” foods were courtesy of Scarlett.
“Actually, I think I’m going to head out,” Brooklyn said when I tried to hand her a plate.
“What? You just got here!” Scarlett protested.
“I know, but I already ate so I’m not…” Brooklyn trailed off. She glanced at her phone, her brow furrowing.
I put the plate down and leaned back. My bullshit radar clanged like a firehouse bell in my head.
Brooklyn lived too far away for a quick drop-in, and she wasn’t the type to leave a social gathering simply because she couldn’t participate in an activity.
This was the girl who arbitrarily gave up alcohol for a month over the summer and still outlasted everyone at the club.
Something was wrong. What did she see on her phone? Was it related to work or personal?
More importantly, why did I care?
“Sorry, I have to take this, but I’ll text you later, okay?” She hugged Scarlett goodbye. Her eyes met mine briefly over my sister’s shoulder. A small frisson of…something sparked in my blood.
I uncapped my water and took a swig, swallowing the sudden urge to ask her to stay.
Then she was gone, leaving nothing but a trace of perfume in my lungs.
Asher and Scarlett did most of the talking while we ate. Neither questioned why I’d showed up unannounced, but without Brooklyn here to lighten my mood, the weight of the past twenty-odd hours settled heavy on my shoulders again.
I finally spoke up toward the end of our meal. “I have to tell you guys something, but you can’t freak out.”
Scarlett set her fork down and eyed me with a mixture of intrigue and wariness. “Okay…”
I gave them a quick rundown of what happened after I parted with the team last night. “I opened the box and found this.”
I retrieved the item from my pocket and set it on the table.
Asher and Scarlett stared at it, their baffled expressions mirroring what I’d felt when I first saw it.
It was a doll. A large, painstakingly detailed crochet doll of me, to be exact, complete with a buzz cut, black button eyes, and a full Blackcastle football kit. Instead of my name on the shirt, it featured the letters BFF.
“BFF? As in Best Friends Forever?” Asher sounded confused. “What the fuck?”
“It could mean that. It could mean Big Fucking Failure. Who knows? There was no note or anything. Just the doll.”
In the grand scheme of things, it could’ve been worse.
The intruder could’ve left a severed body part or a stalker-y surveillance photo of me, but the innocuous nature of the doll somehow made it more insidious.
I didn’t know what they wanted. Why would they go to the trouble of breaking into my house, thereby risking arrest, just to leave a basic “gift”?
“God, this is creepy. Please tell me you went to the police.” Scarlett picked up the doll. Leaned in. Flinched. “They even got your scar right.”
I had a faint white scar on my knee from a childhood injury. Most people didn’t know about it. It was too small to see from afar, and magazines usually airbrushed it out of my photoshoots.
I hadn’t noticed until Scarlett pointed it out, but whoever crocheted the doll had nailed the exact shape and size of the scar.
A chill swept down my back, but I took the doll from her and forced a blithe tone. “If a fan is dedicated enough to make this, they’re dedicated enough to know I have the scar. It’s not a secret.”
“Normal fans don’t break into your house,” Asher said. “You have a stalker, or at least someone obsessive enough to do something like this. Scarlett’s right. You need to go to the police.”
“An intruder is not the same as a stalker, and absolutely not. I don’t want the press catching wind of this and making it a big thing. We have Champions League matches coming up. I can’t afford to be distracted.”
I doubted the police would even care. Yeah, breaking and entering was a crime, but nothing got stolen and I hadn’t received any threats. What were they supposed to do?
“It is a big thing,” Scarlett argued. “You weren’t home this time, but what happens if they come back while you’re there? You could get hurt.”
“Someone’s coming by tomorrow to upgrade the security system. Whoever did this”—I held up the doll—“isn’t getting in again.”
“Did you see anything on the cameras?” Asher asked.
“Uh.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “Cameras were on the fritz last week, and I haven’t gotten the chance to fix them yet.”
“Jesus.” He groaned.
Asher was way more security-minded than I was, but he also had more, uh, enthusiastic fans than me. The man was usually hounded by paparazzi everywhere he went.
Don’t get me wrong. I had my issues with the paps too, as well as piles of fan mail every week. But my fanbase felt more restrained compared to his, and I’d never had a reason to worry about them stepping out of line—until now.
“Do you think it’s the same person who left you the note on your car?” Scarlett asked.
A few weeks ago, I’d left training to find a note tucked under the windscreen wiper of my car. It congratulated me on renewing my sports drink sponsorship. Pretty standard stuff except for one thing—the words were cut out from magazines, making it look like a ransom letter from some nineties movie.
I’d chalked it up to a prank, but Scarlett’s question had me viewing it from a whole other angle.
“I have no idea.” I’d tossed the note immediately after getting it.
“You shouldn’t go home until we figure out who this person is and what they want,” Asher said. “Doesn’t matter if you upgrade your security. They could be dangerous. Remember what happened to Tyler Conley?”
I grimaced. Tyler Conley was a famous pop singer who got hospitalized months ago after an obsessed fan followed him home and stabbed him three times before a neighbor heard his screams and called the police.
Thankfully, he’d pulled through and his attacker was currently in prison, awaiting trial, but he’d since become the poster boy for the dangers of fame.
I had no desire to be another Tyler Conley.
“Go to the police,” Scarlett repeated. “Even if you think it’s not a big deal, it should be on record.”
I hated to admit it, but she was right. “I’ll go later tonight.”
“Forget the hotel. Move in with us until they catch the creep,” she said. “Our security is unbeatable, thanks to Asher’s paranoia”—Asher shrugged in agreement—“and our address isn’t publicly available. Yours is.”
“I can’t do that. A hotel is fine.”
“Yes, you can, and no, it isn’t. A hotel is too open to the public. You’re my brother. As annoying as you are, I’m not letting you die on my watch.”
“You’re being dramatic.”
Yet warmth trickled through my veins at her words. I hated making my sister worry, but it was nice to know I wasn’t in this alone.
Although we weren’t biological siblings, Scarlett and I had always been close.
Our parents adopted us when we were babies, and we looked nothing alike, which was why people were often surprised to find out we were related.
She was pale and petite, with black hair and gray eyes; I was tall and muscled, with brown eyes and light brown skin that spoke to my biracial background.
We lived together as young kids, but we were separated after our parents divorced.
She grew up in England with our mum; I moved to Paris with our dad, where I went to an international school.
But we’d always spent the summers and holidays together with one parent or the other, and we’d gotten even closer after I moved to London a few years ago to play for Blackcastle.
“As long as you don’t mind the construction, we have plenty of room here,” Asher said.
Arguing was useless. Scarlett and Asher were both stubborn as fuck.
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll move in. Just don’t do any weird couple shit while I’m here, okay?”