52. IMPRESSION
alistair
“Come on. Let’s get you cleaned up.”
I’m about to scoop her into my arms and carry her toward the in-suite bathroom when a violent knock rattles through the apartment.
She startles instantly, scrambling upright and grabs the bedsheet, clutching it over her naked body.
“Were you expecting someone?”
“No,” worry flashes across her face, though it does nothing to diminish the sight of her—flushed, disheveled, and freshly wrecked by me.
I wouldn’t mind spending the rest of the night worshipping that sight if not for the insistent pounding at the door.
“I’ll get that,” I say, already pulling up my pants and heading toward the bedroom door. “You stay here.”
Before she can argue or insist on coming with me, I’m already stepping outside and clicking the door shut behind me.
The knocking continues as I make my way through the apartment toward the main entrance.
“Ariella, open the goddamn door,” a male voice shouts from the other side. Sounds familiar.
I glance through the peephole and find two impeccably dressed men waiting on the other side. Where have I seen them before?
Oh. I immediately tamp down the grin threatening to break free across my face.
Without further delay, I unlock the door and pull it open, stepping aside to let them in although I’m shirtless and have very recently fucked their sister.
Asher Keinston strides in first, Adrian Keinston following close behind without sparing me so much as a glance.
The amount of alcohol in my system might have dulled the edges of my judgment, but not enough to miss what stands in front of me.
Well-dressed monsters wearing perfectly tailored Tom Ford suits. I can practically see the blood staining their hands.
“Ari—” Asher is already halfway to shouting for her when he finally registers my presence.
Adrian sweeps his gaze over me from head to toe, his brows drawing together in immediate recognition.
Now that’s interesting.
“Who the fuck are you?” Asher demands. “And why are you at my sister’s place like this?” his hand already reaches for the suppressor tucked behind.
Asher doesn’t wait for an answer. He crosses the space in a single stride and points the gun right at my forehead.
It’s not the weapon that matters but the intent behind it.
“What did you do to her?” he growls low, his voice stripped of all cockiness now.
Adrian moves immediately after him. He’s not stopping him, just controlling the angle.
“Where’s Ariella?” Adrian asks me with eerie calmness that would send any other man to their knees, begging for mercy.
Asher takes a step ahead and presses the cool barrel on the dead center of my forehead, ready to blow my brains away at any second now.
My silence only triggers his anger.
“I don’t care who you are,” Asher says. “I don’t care what you do or which building you walk out of. If you touched her—”
“I did,” I cut in mildly.
Silence drops instantly. Even Adrian stills.
“In fact, I just fucked your sister,” the grin I’ve been suppressing till now finally breaks free.
“You son of a—” Asher gears back his other arm to throw a punch at my face with the certainty to fracture my cheekbone.
Ariella chooses that exact moment to emerge from the bedroom looking nothing short of a disaster waiting to happen—hair tousled, lips swollen, bite marks blooming across her shoulders and legs where the bed sheet wrapped around her body failed to conceal.
I mentally face-palm myself. I was so ready to tackle the blow.
“Who’s—” she freezes mid-sentence the second she spots not only her brother about to hit me but her cousin prepared to take his side.
“Asher, stop,” she rushes forward in a hurry.
I’m glad she hasn’t yet tumbled over the bed sheet that’s now trailing behind her.
“Ariella, get back inside,” he orders without looking at her.
“I said stop!” her voice cuts through the room like a blade.
Adrian glances between both of them, already reading the situation as unstable. Asher still hasn’t let go of me, but the tension in his arm shifts—he’s listening now, even if he doesn’t like it.
Ariella walks into the space between violence and intent like she belongs there.
“You’re going to let him go,” she says to Asher, calm but firm.
Asher finally looks at her. “He said he—”
“I know what he said and I’m standing here,” she adds, softer now, “which means nothing happened the way you think it did,” a blush creeps up her face.
He forces his instincts to stand down rather than agreeing with her. With much unwillingness, he finally lets me go with a deliberate push and puts the gun down.
“What are you doing here, Asher?” her wide-eyed gaze frantically darts between them. “And Adrian, what about you?”
She tightens her grip on the sheet gathered over her chest as though she might somehow disappear beneath it.
The names confirm they are exactly who I thought they were.
I’m dying to check the time. Since Asher decided to visit his sister first, I can already tell he’s running ahead of schedule.
“Jesus Christ, Ariella. What the absolute fuck?” Asher snaps at last, taking in how Ariella is standing before them.
Adrian merely shakes his head with a long-suffering sigh when Asher adds. “And who’s this motherfucker you’re defending?”
My eyes narrow slightly.
“Uhh… yes,” she attempts to sound normal but fails miserably. The color flooding on her cheeks is enough to betray her.
“Alistair, this is Asher, my brother, and” she points at Asher first then, “this is Adrian, our closest cousin, best friend actually,” at Adrian.
She offers me an awkward smile before turning back toward them. “This is Alistair. My EEE prof—well the one who freed me from HINR.”
“Wait—fuck.” Asher’s eyes widen. “This is Alistair? The one you told me about?”
I notice Adrian immediately snaps his head toward Ariella before looking back at Asher.
Which tells me there’s definitely more happening beneath the surface.
Before Asher can launch into whatever fresh disaster is forming inside his head, Ariella abruptly points toward the hallway.
“I’m going to leave you three alone for a few minutes to get to know each other,” her voice rises an octave.
Then she flees into the messy bedroom.
“You’re seriously leaving us alone with this psychopath?” Asher sharply points his thumb at me, ignoring the fact that I’m present here in person.
Ariella stops halfway through the doorway. Slowly, she turns back around, peaking through the door.
“No fighting,” she warns.
Both Keinston men immediately straighten as if they’ve been caught committing a crime.
“We weren’t—”
“Asher.”
His mouth closes.
“I’m serious.”
“I am too,” he says. “There’s a shirtless man in your apartment.”
“A half-naked man,” Adrian corrects.
“Not helping.”
Ariella ignores both of them. “I’m leaving for five minutes, and I don’t want to come back to blood on my floor.”
“Depends on whose blood we’re discussing?” Asher mutters.
“Asher!”
He flinches.
I’ve never seen anyone successfully weaponize his own name against him.
“Promise me.”
“No.”
“Promise me.”
“No.”
“Ash,” the stare she gives him could probably stop traffic.
Eventually, he throws his hands up. “Fine. Whatever. I promise not to kill the dude. Or hospitalize him.”
She shifts her attention toward Adrian. “You too.”
Adrian looks offended. “When have I ever started a fight?”
“When have you ever stopped one?”
“Fair enough.”
She points between all three of us for one last time. “Behave.”
I can’t help but smile at her authority over men like us, all together. She’s impressive.
Satisfied, Ariella vanishes into the bedroom.
Adrian sighs heavily before fixing me with another frown.
For a moment, neither of them speaks.
“You almost lost control in front of her,” he shifts his focus to Asher, his tone flatly.
“I didn’t.”
“You did,” he corrects. “You just didn’t finish it.”
Asher doesn’t respond immediately. His eyes are still fixed on the hallway where she disappeared.
Adrian looks at me again. “If this turns into a pattern, you won’t get the luxury of being warned twice,” he says evenly, echoing his cousin’s earlier words but with less heat and more precision.
“And Keinston blood doesn’t bluff.”
That’s not a threat. It’s a fact.
I simply smile at him, “Pleasure meeting both the CEO and COO of the CynoTech Group in person,” but don’t bother offering my hand.
Neither of us seems to care formalities at the moment.
Asher just stares at the bedroom door.
Then at me.
Then back at the bedroom door.
Then at me again.
His expression worsens each time.
“Jesus fucking Christ.”
Adrian pinches the bridge of his nose. “She’s twenty, not thirteen.”
“That isn’t the point.”
“It’s exactly the point.”
“She brought a man home.”
“A grown woman brought a grown man home.”
“My sister brought a man home.”
“Your adult sister.”
“My sister.”
“You know this was eventually gonna happen, right?” Adrian lets out a long sigh.
“No,” he says almost immediately.
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Ash.”
“She studies engineering.”
Adrian blinks, clearly thrown off guard. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“She studies engineering.”
“Still not seeing the connection.”
“She voluntarily attends extra lectures.”
“Unfortunately.”
“She alphabetizes books for fun.”
“Psychotic behavior, honestly.”
“And somehow this happened,” Asher throws his arms at me, as if presenting me with extra exaggeration.
Adrian just stares at him.
“Ariella having sex isn’t a system malfunction, but your reaction to that is. It’s fucking normal, asshole. Stop making a fuss out of it.”
The horrified look on Asher’s face is almost impressive.
I suppose I should feel some degree of concern for my current situation.
Standing shirtless inside a Keinston apartment while one family member debates murder and the other debates whether murder is legally excessive isn’t generally considered an ideal social interaction.
However, it most definitely is a remarkable first impression.
Strangely, I find myself enjoying it.
Asher’s protectiveness isn’t performative. It’s instinctive.
Adrian’s restraint isn’t softness. It’s containment.
One acts first and thinks later.
The other thinks first because someone has to.
Together they’re a surprisingly efficient system. Not unlike a feedback loop.
Though if either of them knew exactly what had happened in that bedroom less than fifteen minutes ago, I suspect the system would become catastrophically unstable.
A fascinating hypothesis. One that I’ve absolutely no intention of testing tonight.
Mainly because I suspect Asher Keinston would attempt to shoot me again, and this time Adrian Keinston won’t even try to stop him.
I still need to be alive and well to go somewhere important. Can’t seem to die before I finish what I started.
Nonetheless, I find myself smiling again.
Asher snaps his gaze toward me. “Stop doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“That,” he points at my face.
“Being happy?”
“That creepy smiley face.”
Unfortunately for him, that only makes the smile wider.
“Why are you always smiling? It’s fucking creepy, you know that?”
“Just because you see a smile doesn’t mean you have the slightest idea of what’s happening inside my head,” I reply, keeping that smile intact.
His expression immediately crumples.
“Yeah. No,” his gaze flicks across my face as if searching for hidden warning labels. “I definitely don’t like you.”
“That’s unfortunate,” I say pleasantly. “I was moments away from basing my entire self-worth on your approval.”
Adrian snorts.
Asher glares at him.
“Are you seriously gonna stand there while this freak insults me at my own sister’s apartment?”
“Considering you’ve known him for less than five minutes and he’s already gotten under your skin,” Adrian glances at me before returning to Asher. “I’d say you’re doing most of the work yourself,” he says dryly.
I smile back.
Finding an excuse, I glance over at the wall clock. Right on cue.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me,” I say, already staling toward the door, “Some important matters demand my attention.”
Neither looks convinced.
Ignoring them entirely, I slip my shoes back on—the same shoes I’d discarded by the entrance in an Ariella-induced haze—and head outside.
I don’t particularly care that I’m still shirtless or looking like I’ve just crawled out of a porno or more interestingly, fucked their sister dearest.