12. Games
Games
Anon
V oices drift through the cracks of the bedroom door from downstairs. Several masculine voices mingle with my angel’s.
My fingers clench the box in my hands tighter. It’s meant to be a gift. But she has company. Even more people to protect her. But she’ll soon find out that the only one capable of keeping her safe is me.
I am her savior, and I will be her God. Placing boot-covered feet down carefully, I approach her unmade bed.
I stare at it longer than necessary. She makes her bed up every morning. I’ve poured all over her social media and analyzed countless photos of her lounging on the neatly arranged bed. If she didn’t fix it, then she either plans to return to it soon or slept somewhere else.
My eyes glare at the wall separating her room from her brother’s. The mute one. The one who hadn’t moved out. Her socials revealed their names in old holiday pictures, but I can’t place it right this second.
All I can see is his limbs tangled around my precious .
No one but me should touch her. She is mine.
The voices from downstairs get louder, and I curse, hurriedly placing the box in the center of the bed and rushing out of the balcony doors.
The box contains both a gift and a message. Let the games begin, Zade . His name comes to me as I’m climbing down the latticework, soft grass breaking my fall when I jump the last few feet.
Let him see how well he can protect her now.
She’s mine, Zade, and you will lose.
Zade
Despite the thick envelope of tension weaving between me, Zephyr, and Zeke, we all gather around my laptop in the kitchen.
As soon as my brother and cousin flanked me, I reached behind me, snagging Siri’s hand, and pulling her into my lap. My eyes dared Zy to do something about it.
When I first learned ASL, Zy was easier to sign than his full name for introductions, especially since Mom and Dad were simple gestures.
The nickname sort of stuck, but there’s been rare chances to use it since graduating high school.
I rarely leave the house to meet new people, and he’s never around.
If he had been, he would’ve seen Siri develop into the woman she is now. Instead, his lecherous fucking gaze went directly to her as soon as he waltzed through the front door after I slid off of him.
I did not like the intensity of his attention lassoed onto Siri. Or the flush that stained her pretty skin when he’d blatantly flirted with her.
I don’t blame her for the reaction. I blame him .
The fucking sociopath notoriously charms people that he gives zero fucks about.
And I’ll be damned if my Siri becomes another one of his unwitting victims. He may not see her as a sister, and while my feelings are conflicted over our shared childhood after what we did this morning, I’d still kill to protect her from enemies within and without.
“So, what happened after he took the brunette? You don’t have any more footage of him?
He couldn’t have vanished into thin air,” Zeke says, rising to his full height after watching the same videos I showed Siri before their arrival.
He stretches his arms overhead, joints popping and letting out a satisfied groan.
His questions bring my mind back to the problem at hand, but that doesn’t mean I won’t do my damndest to limit as much as possible the amount of time Zy spends alone with Siri.
I have a theory concerning her would-be kidnapper but haven’t had time yet to test it out since I focused on our block.
You’re right, Zeke. Since he’s not seen on our street anymore after this, I think he dragged her between houses, suggesting he parked a few blocks away and avoided the ring cameras.
But that’s a long way to carry a struggling or unconscious woman, so the other theory is he lives nearby and carted her inside.
“Fuck,” Zephyr mutters. Fuck, indeed. It’s an eerie thought that one of our neighbors—someone so close that we’ve probably seen them out walking their dog or checking the mail—could be Soriah’s stalker. But it fit.
They had to have met her somewhere in the neighborhood or at school. How the fuck else would they know where she lives?
“So, you had cameras in Riah’s room the entire time?” Zy asks, lips shifting into a smirk and eyes mocking me.
“Leave it, Zef. He and I already hashed that out, and it’s not really any of your damn business, is it? Stranger, much?” I fold my lips in, fighting a smile at her retort, and shift her higher up my lap so her ass isn’t flush with my cock.
Feisty Siri and the warmth of her body so close to my dick aren’t a good combination for my self-control if I’m to keep my attention focused on the here and now.
Zeke lets out a soft chuckle, not showing the same restraint as me. Zephyr scowls at them both, shooting glares from one to the other.
Shaking my head at them, I move my finger over the mouse pad and jump to my feet so damn quick, I nearly drop my sister.
“What?” my brother demands.
Someone stay down here with Siri. The cameras in her room went dark.
I don’t wait to see who followed my command, bolting from the room and skidding to a halt to collect the discarded knives. He’s not getting away a second time .
“Kill. Kill. Kill.”
Fuck, I may need to talk to my mom about switching up meds , I think, racing up the stairs. At least no visual hallucination assaults me on the quick journey to Siri’s room. The door’s still wide open from last night, and I pause in the doorway.
A quick scan reveals an empty bedroom, but a box that definitely wasn’t there last night rests in her bed.
Thump.
I run to the open balcony doors—the lock-picking fucker!
—and lean over the railing once outside, just in time to see a shadow disappear around the corner.
My heart thumps rapidly in my chest, but I can’t leave to give chase.
They took a risk and I’ll use my fucking computer skills to make sure it’s what gets them killed.
Because if it’s a trap, I’m not leaving Siri behind. Who’s to say they’re working alone?
“Where are they?” Zy murmurs behind me, not stepping too close. I give him a mild look of surprise. I wasn’t thinking clearly earlier, but I figured he would’ve been the one to offer to stay downstairs with our sister, not Zeke.
Gone. I’d run after them, but that could be what they want us to do. Did you touch the box on the bed?
Instead of waiting for him to answer, I stalk past him, and there it is.
An innocuous black box that looks small enough for a piece of jewelry to rest in.
“That wasn’t there before?” he asks unnecessarily, but I shake my head in the negative anyway.
Tell them it’s all clear, but I don’t want her in this room. They did something to the cameras, and I need to do a system analysis to make sure they didn’t hack it. And figure out how the fuck they made them all go dark without covering them up. My alarms should’ve ? —
I pause.
A jammer. Maybe. I won’t bet my sister’s life on a maybe. But they could’ve used a jammer from outside and entered once the cameras shut off. No alarm. And what the hell was I doing at the time?
Wrestling my twin.
My hands rake claws through my hair. Siri was so fucking right. Fighting left us distracted and look at what the fuck happened? He got in, right under our fucking noses.
“Zade?” I jerk my head toward my brother. Blue eyes sparkle with anticipation.
Suddenly, I don’t care if he’s a sociopath. He was right, too. A truce.
We’re twins, yin to yang. His coldness was a lethal edge to my incendiary fire. We’re a team, and it’s beyond time for us to play to our strengths.
He wants to kill, and I want to hunt. I don’t care how it’s done, but I want him to bring me that motherfucker’s head. Maybe his skin, too. It can be an early gift to Zeke’s dad.
The masked man fucked with the wrong family.
I’m going to hunt, scour the entire damn city for him. Once I have a lead, you, Zeke, and Tito can take care of it. I’ll stay behind to protect Riah. Maybe ask Uncle Zac to keep watch outside. I don’t want to risk her being vulnerable if her stalker overpowers me somehow.
For once in his damn life, Zephyr doesn’t argue with me. He simply nods, striding out of the room to carry my message below.
My eyes land back on the box. I can’t put it off. And it’s better I open it than Siri.
I walk toward the bed with steely resolve, back straight and fingers tight around the handles of the knives. I toss one down, picking up the box with the now free hand. Using a thumb, I flip the lid off, gaping down at the—It drops from my hand.
I rush to the bedroom door, pulling it shut and locking it, baring my sister from seeing what the fuck her stalker left behind.
A heart. Not an actual heart, but four severed fingers stitched together in the shape of a heart, black hair wound around them like decorative ribbons.
My heart won’t calm and I sink to my butt with the door pressed to my back. He killed the woman from last night and used her to leave a macabre message for Siri.
She won’t ever fucking see it. Whatever sick game he’s playing, he’ll lose. My eyes land on the fingers lying across from me, resting on the floor.
He’ll lose, but I can't help but wonder what it’ll cost me to win. It won’t be Siri, but it may as well be. I’m betting it’ll take whatever sanity I’ve got left because I won’t rest until he’s dead and desecrated like the innocent woman he killed.
A self-fulfilling prophecy of a Daniels going mad. It’s in our blood.
And I’ll spill it all for her .
Soriah
Standing in the open doorway of the kitchen, Zeke crossed muscled arms over a broad chest, one dark brow cocked as if daring me to try to slip past him and follow Zephyr and Zade.
Damn him!
Giving him my back, I place trembling hands on the kitchen island, willing my heart to slow. The masked man has intruded twice now, and in broad daylight no less. He’s either getting bold or desperate now that my cousin and other brother are here.
God, that poor woman he took in my place. Is she alive? I don’t think it bodes well if he’s here , back to finish the job he started last night.
Footsteps sound closer, and I whip around to spot Zephyr’s carefully blank face.
“Where’s Zade? What happened?” I demanded, rushing toward him. His eyes show a hint of sympathy, but even that could be an act.
“He’s checking your room for any cameras left behind, then he said he’ll make sure his own weren’t hacked. He’ll be down in a minute. And you,” he raises a finger to point at my chest, “aren’t allowed back in your room anytime soon.”
He sounds oddly smug about that, but I dart into the narrow space between him and Zeke, dodging my cousin’s grasping hand. I make it a couple of feet into the living room before one of them latches a hold on to my arm.
“Zade! Get down here, now!” I shout up in the direction of the second floor.
“Jesus, Riah. Give him a chance to work,” Zef complains, and I whirl on him, skin flushing red.
“Zade can do that after checking on me. It’s not like him to linger. How do I know he’s not up there wrestling with the intruder? Why didn’t he come down with you? What aren’t you telling me?” My voice becomes more shrill with each question, panic rising along with my tone.
A sharp whistle fills the air, and my gaze snaps toward Zade’s approaching form. His face sports an almost identical mask as his twin. Warning bells ring in my head. Something’s wrong, and they’re keeping it from me.
A pall of foreboding hangs in the air. Each thump of his feet landing on another step sounds like a gavel slamming down. I barely notice the way his gray sweatpants cling to muscular thighs or how his biceps strain against the sleeve of his black shirt.
Normally, I’d appreciate all of those things, but that monster was in our home again, in my room, and my brothers’ silence puts me on edge. I’m on the verge of a panic attack by the time he’s less than a foot away from me. I jerk my arm free and rush at him.
His arms close around me, lifting my feet off the ground and pulling me as close to his chest as possible.
My legs raise on their own, winding around his waist, and I tighten my grip on his neck.
It’s like I’m trying to absorb his calm through force of will by eliminating every inch of space between us.
Only then I’ll feel safe. Because right now, my entire world feels violated. Nothing is sacred. Not my bedroom, not the only home I’ve ever known, and what’s next? He’s stalking the streets, so the neighborhood doesn’t feel cozy and welcoming like I’d always thought it was.
Any one of our neighbors could be the stalker. And it leaves me shaken, clinging to the only source of comfort present. If Dad was here, I’d probably revert to the childhood habit of climbing into his lap just to feel safe and protected. He and Zade would never let anything happen to me.
Call me a Daddy’s girl, but he and Zade were the ones I ran to for comfort, as if I knew on an instinctive level they had the means of protecting me, of slaying my enemies and laying them at my feet. Mom’s a nurturer, and right now, my entire being is demanding a protector.
Sons go to their mothers to be nurtured, and daughters seek out their fathers for protection. Right now, I’m a slave to my instincts, and Zade would have to peel me off of him.