Chapter twelve #2
“Yes, and in true Russell fashion, he made a sarcastic comment. I lost it.”
Shame starts to invade my chest as the memory of what I did to my brother comes clear in my mind.
I close my eyes, reliving the scene in real time.
“I pulled up my joggers and confronted him, then pushed him out onto the balcony. We wrestled, and he hit Samantha in the face by accident. I manhandled him back up to the ladder.”
The wetness seeps from my eyes again, more tears falling with each fact laid bare.
“He went for me again, and I reacted by pushing his legs. Then he fell into the blackness, he was gone.”
Damon looks at me, concern and terror marring his face. His focus moves from me to each man in the room. “We need to figure out why he was outside your apartment and where he could have landed when he fell,” he says almost to himself.
“He never hit the ground directly outside the building,” Harrison advises. “Matthew and his team have been scouring the surrounding area. They’re now starting door-to-door balcony checks within the building.”
“Where is Samantha?” Hunter asks. “And Violet?”
“Samantha went to look for him herself. Violet is at home with the baby,” I say.
“Call your girlfriend and tell her to get her ass up here,” Hunter says.
“This is fucking weird. She must know something.”
I pull my phone from my pocket, and her cell rings out.
I immediately redial, and then there’s a buzz on the penthouse intercom.
Harrison walks over to answer it, and Samantha’s trembling voice can be heard from the speaker.
“Let me in,” she whispers in clear pain. “I’ve just got on the elevator.” The sound of its approach buzzes, and Harrison hits the allow entry button. The doors open, and Samantha runs into my arms.
“They can’t find him,” she wails. “We’ve been walking up and down the streets, checking basement stairways. There’s no sign of him.”
“You’ve been outside like this,” I say, squeezing the bare skin at her midsection.
Her naked feet look almost blue against the dark wood floor.
“You’re freezing.” I look around the room for something to wrap her in.
Finding nothing, I hold her tighter to my torso, willing some heat to pass between us.
“I’ll get a blanket,” Damon says, walking off in the direction of the spare bedroom. I hear the door creak open, then the words, “Holy fucking hell.”
“What is it? Is it him?” Harrison shouts, running in the direction of Damon’s outburst. We all follow swiftly. Samantha’s hand is locked in mine as we step into the bedroom. Everyone comes to a stop in synchronization. We all stand in the doorway with our jaws hanging open.
“What the actual fuck,” Hunter grunts out.
“Oh…” Samantha says under her breath. “I mean, I knew…” She trails off as I focus on her.
“You knew what?” I hiss, my stare moving from her to the hundreds of photographs pinned to the walls of the room. “What the hell did you know and didn’t bother to tell me?”
“That he…” Her eyes widen as I take a step toward her but drop her hand. I lean down, unblinking, and she cowers slightly.
“What?” I repeat, demanding information as every possible perverse scenario pops into my head. “Were you fucking him? Is this some sort of sick joke the two of you are playing?”
“No!” she stammers, reaching for me. I step back out of reach.
“Samantha,” Harrison interrupts, his tone clear and firm. “Tell us what you know about all this.” He waves his hand, signalling the insanity around us.
“He was following me,” she says quietly, her eyes fixed on the floor. “He has been for a while.”
“Since when?” I growl, furious at Russell for his behavior and with her for not telling me.
I’m at a complete loss from the fact that this has been going on and I didn’t know.
The room is lined with images of her, candid snaps of her everyday life.
My brother has seen so much more of her routine than I have.
“Last year.” The words are barely audible as the fact catches in her throat. “Since I met him, the same night I met you.”
“That’s fucking months!” I shout, throwing my hands in the air and storming up to the photos on the wall.
“So these?” I start pulling images from their resting place, tearing them up, and throwing them on the perfectly made bed.
“You knew he was taking every one of these, and you never thought to tell me? You didn’t think I deserved to know that my brother was obsessed with my girlfriend?”
“Of course I did,” she says, walking toward me. “I didn’t know about the photos. It all started with him following me home from the club, and he intervened once when I was attacked.”
“You were attacked?” I yell. “Was I not man enough to know this? What is this, Sam? Did you get off knowing two brothers were into you?”
“No, it’s just…”
“Did you love the attention? Was that more important than your feelings for me? More important than our relationship?”
I turn to face her once again, shredded images of her scattered on the bed and around my feet.
“How could you not tell me? My brother, who I trust with my life, was stalking you, and you didn’t think to say.”
“Of course I did, but he’s so important to you. I didn’t want to be the reason you fell out.” Her face twists in despair. Both of us stand gaping at the other with no idea where to go from here. “He didn’t hurt me. He was just there.”
“How often?” I continue, wanting but not wanting to know the details. My brain throws every interaction between her and my brother in my face as a memory. The small gestures, the smiles I noticed and ignored. “How often did he follow you? What did he do exactly?”
“It started at the club, I told you that,” she whispers, her voice broken and cheeks now stained with tears.
She sits down on the bed and throws her head into her hands, sobbing into her fingers.
“It started when he came to watch me dance, not long after I came to tell you about Violet being held prisoner by your father. The next thing I knew, every shift he was there. He would wait outside the rear entrance, then follow me home. We rarely spoke except on a few occasions.”
“What else?” The other men in the room stand silently, but I know they are taking in every last detail.
“Then after he collected me from work in January, and we were late back here.” She stops speaking and looks up, and I glare back at her.
“The night you went drinking instead of coming here from work. Are you telling me you knowingly socialized with him even when you knew he was obsessed with you?” The unbelievable scenario is mindblowing. My brother has been stalking my girlfriend, and she seems to have fucking enjoyed it.
“Yes,” she admits, her face reddened beyond anything I’ve ever seen before. “But I told him to stop after that night. I told him to stop following and contacting me.”
“How did he contact you?” I ask, clinging to the new piece of information.
“By message from an unknown phone.”
“Did you contact him?”
“No,” she replies firmly. “I never encouraged him, but I will admit to enjoying the attention. It was nice to feel wanted.”
“You don’t think I want you?” I stammer, shocked and even more furious. “These last months, have I not proven I want you?”
“Yes, but that’s not what I mean…”
“Well, fucking enlighten me, because if you’re wanting an unhinged, obsessive arsehole, you picked the wrong fucking brother.” She reaches for my hand, and I push it away. “Don’t touch me.”
“I didn’t do anything,” she wails again. I hate the sound of her pained voice—all I want to do is make her happy. All I’ve wanted to do these past months was build an amazing life together.
“You did!” I counter. “Omission is still a lie, Samantha. Not telling me what the fuck was going on is still untruthful. Your actions are more eye-opening than what you say.”
“I didn’t want to cause you trouble.”
“Well, while you were not causing trouble.” I lift my hands to form speech quotations on the word trouble. “You were enjoying my brother’s attention.”
She falls silent, her eyes dropping away. I expect her to cry again, but she doesn’t. After a few moments, her gaze lifts and fierce blue eyes hold mine. She stands and straightens her shoulders.
“Is it too much to ask for understanding? Could you possibly entertain the idea that by not telling you perhaps I was protecting you?”
“Protecting me?” I scoff. “How does lying protect me?”
“I didn’t want to be the one who wrecked your relationship with the man you put on a pedestal. The man you think the sun shines from every fucking day. I didn’t want to be that girl.”
Her hands ball into fists, and she looks from me to the other men then back to me.
“Maybe I thought I could handle it? I knew he wouldn’t hurt me. He would never do that to you, never mind me.”
I blink, unsure how to respond as her words start to make an insane kind of sense.
Nothing about this situation or our lives, in general, is normal, so why would this be any different?
Of course my brother and I would be obsessed with the same girl.
Russell and I have always fought over everything while patting each other on the back.
What hurts most is that deep down I knew there was something, but this I wasn’t expecting.
“Russell loves you, Connor, you’re the most important person in his world.” She deflates slightly as the height of our argument starts to dispel. “Part of me wondered if he was looking out for me because he knew I was important to you.”
“Important to me?” I repeat back. “Samantha, I’m in love with you.” She swallows visibly, taken aback by my admission. “But this is a lot to take in—you, him, and everything that’s gone on behind my back.”
“I’m sorry,” she says, reaching for me again. “How can I—” Her words are interrupted by the elevator sounding, and we charge back through to the living area.
Matthew stands in front of the open doors. He smiles broadly before saying, “We found him, and he’s alive.”