Chapter 25
Twenty-Five
Rook
Silver is shouting at me, and I don’t blame him. How can I? He has broken one of the chairs. Luckily, he missed my head and slammed it into the wall instead of my skull. It’s in four pieces on the floor, and the drywall has several holes in it.
My face hasn’t fared well against his fist, but I won’t hit him back. He’s in the right.
I am an asshole.
Dante and Talon are holding Silver back, but his face is red, and he’s still screaming. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Have you terrorized her even after you knew she was my sister?”
I nod. Because I have.
I terrorize Briana every hour of every fucking day. I can’t stop myself. I’ll never stop. It’s a deep-seated desire. And it’s one she shares. She needs me to control her as badly as I need to do the controlling.
“Why? Fucking explain to me why. She’s my goddamn sister!” he screams.
“She’s my girl,” I tell him calmly as I rub my jaw where he got me good.
Silver lurches forward, trying to get to me, held back by two strong sets of arms. “Your girl. Are you fucking kidding me?”
Lucien is at my side. “Rook? What the fuck were you thinking?”
I take a step back. “Do you think I wanted this? Fuck, no. I didn’t set out to break the rules, and I sure as fuck didn’t know Briana was your sister.
I followed all the rules to the letter the night I grabbed her.
We were at a party. I pulled her into the dark pantry.
But I couldn’t shake her from my system. I needed to see her again.”
“How did you even know where she lived?” Dante asks.
I blow out a breath, my shoulders dropping as I admit. “I saw her before that night. I happened to jog past her house when she was moving in. She caught my eye. I started following her.”
Silver jerks against Dante and Talon again. “Following her? That’s against the rules.”
“Yeah.” I nod. “But it was before I grabbed her. And then after… Well, I needed more. I told myself I could get her out of my system.”
“How many times?” Silver shouts.
My lungs fill with oxygen and then I release the breath. “I don’t know, Silver. But I’m in contact with her every hour of every day now.”
His nostrils flare. “And she’s never seen you?”
“Right. I go to her at night. She wears a blindfold.”
“Willingly?” Lucien asks.
“Yes.” I look toward the entrance to the dining room. I hate that she left. She was so upset, and now she’s out in the world alone, probably distraught. I hope she went home, but she might not have. I can’t look at my phone right now to track her. That would infuriate Silver further.
Silver is still breathing heavily, his hands fisted at his sides, but his shoulders relax.
When Dante and Talon release him, he lifts a hand to run it through his hair. “Make me fucking understand. Tell me why you would fucking keep this from me after you saw her here, in our house.”
“I swear I didn’t know she was your sister before that moment. We were already deeply involved. She had no idea it was me, so I left her in the dark.”
“And me,” Silver points out, holding a finger up. “You left me in the fucking dark, too.”
“Yes. I assumed I would work her out of my system and grow bored of her. I’ve never had any other sort of experience with a woman.
I figured eventually we would both go our separate ways, and she would never know it had been me.
” I rub my jaw again. It’s going to smart tomorrow.
I hold his gaze. I need him to understand.
This is not how I imagined him finding out.
I’m a coward. I should have told him by now.
I’m not sure when or how I eventually would have done so, but here we are.
He needs to know the truth. “She’s mine. ”
Silver shakes his head. “What the fuck does that mean? We don’t keep the girls we prank.”
“Well, I am.”
“She’s not a fucking possession, you son of a bitch.” Silver stiffens as though he might take another swing. He can beat me into the ground for all I care. It changes nothing.
“She’s mine,” I reiterate.
His chest rises and falls dramatically. “No.” He shakes his head. “You can’t have her, not like that. You’re fucked in the head, the same as me. Same as all of us. We weren’t meant to be in relationships. We’d destroy anyone who got in our path.”
I nod. “That may be true. I won’t deny I’m fucked up. You know I am. You are, too. We all are. We have a shared experience that made us this way. I know we agreed to specific terms, but I’m breaking the rules now. Blowing them out of the water. Briana is my girl. She will be until my dying breath.”
All of them gasp collectively.
“What are you saying?” Dante asks.
“I’m saying I’m going to go find her and bring her back here. She’s going to sleep in my bed tonight and every night for the rest of eternity. I’m done hiding from you and from her. Tomorrow, I’ll pack up her things and move her into my room for good.”
Silver’s eyes bug out. “You can’t be fucking serious.”
“Dead serious. I’m an asshole for dragging my feet.
It wasn’t fair to you. But mostly it wasn’t fair to Briana.
I put off revealing myself to her because I couldn’t fathom how to tell you she was my girl.
Things got fucking complicated when I found out she was your sister, but that doesn’t change how I feel about her.
Nor does it change how she feels about me. ”
He smirks. “I doubt she’ll ever speak to you again. You fucking lied to her.”
“She will. She always knew I was lying to her. I’ve never let her see my face or hear my normal voice. She’s addicted to me, and she had no idea who I was.”
“Addicted?” he yells. “What the fuck have you done to her?”
I shake my head. “You don’t want to know, brother. And besides, my relationship with Briana is personal. It’s between me and her.”
“It’s between her and a fucking stranger,” he retorts.
“True. But she knows enough. She knows I’m devoted to her. She knows she’s the center of my universe. She knows she can’t live without me, and she never will.”
“No.” Silver shakes his head again. “You’ll fuck her up. Destroy her.”
“I already have.”
Silver lunges forward and takes another swing, this time, catching my nose. I hear it crunch right before blood spurts out.
Talon hands me a napkin.
I dab at the blood before grabbing the bridge of my nose and giving a quick yank to make sure it’s lined up. It hurts like a motherfucker, but it’s not the first time I’ve had to reset my nose. It happened several times in elementary school. I was the nerdiest, weirdest kid in every class.
Silver shakes out his hand. He hurt his knuckles with that punch. “You fucking asshole.”
“I am. I wish I could say I’m sorry, but I’m not. She fills a hole in me that I never expected to fill in my lifetime. She’s my everything. I will never let her go.”
Silver scowls. “What if she doesn’t want you?”
“She does. She can’t live without me either. We’re a perfect match.”
“She’s pure and innocent!” Silver bellows. “Or she was until you got your filthy paws on her.”
I nod. “It’s true. She was. In many ways, she still is.
She’s a ray of sunshine. So sweet and perfect.
But she also grew up in the system, Silver.
She wasn’t raised in a perfect home with parents who loved her.
She was raised in multiple houses where several foster kids also lived.
She craves the kind of attention I give her. We fulfill a deep need in each other.”
Silver covers his ears. “Shut the fuck up. Stop it. I don’t want to hear this shit.”
I purse my lips and let him stew. After long seconds, I say, “I need to go find her.”
“No, you fucking do not get to go find her. I’ll go. She’s my blood relative. All you are is a fucking insane stalker who traumatized her for weeks.”
I shake my head. “I’m her everything. Her world.
Even if you forced her to, she would never recover from me.
I made sure of it. I know you don’t want to hear that, but it’s the truth.
You don’t have to like it, but you have to live with it.
I will be the one to find her. I will bring her back here.
I will comfort her and give her what she needs.
Me. Alone. You’re just her brother. I’m her life. ”
His breath hitches. He staggers backward. “You’re fucking serious.”
“I told you I am.” And I need to go. I need to find my girl before something bad happens to her because, Lord knows, there are worse people in the world who could do something to her while I’m not protecting her.
Silver runs his hand down his face.
“I know there are a million things that you still need to say to me, and I’ll let you get it all out of your system later. For now, you need to let me go find my girl.”
“Are you tracking her?” Silver asks.
“Yes.”
“Does she know that?”
“Fuck no.”
Silver groans again. “This is so fucked up.”
“It is,” I agree.
He shakes a finger in my face. “We’re not done talking.”
“I know.”
“And I want to speak to my sister. Alone.”
“Not going to happen. I’ll let you talk to her tomorrow, but I’ll be present. And you may only do so if you can keep your fucking cool. You will not yell at her. You will not try to confuse her with ultimatums or try to fill her head with shit. I will fix this. No one else. She. Is. Mine.”
“Fuck!” Silver shouts before he turns toward the kitchen. “Someone fucking let me know when they’re back, so I’ll at least know my sister is physically safe. Lord knows she’ll never be emotionally safe with this asshole in her life.”
He’s not wrong.
As I pull out my phone, I’m already jogging toward the front of the house.