Chapter 7
The security room downstairs was bathed in the cool, blue glow of a dozen monitors, but the atmosphere was anything but calm. The scent of expensive scotch and frustration hung heavily in the air.
Nico’s fingers moved like a blur across his keyboard, his brow furrowed behind his glasses. On the main screen, the search parameters were set to “Winchester,” filtered by “Male,”
“Military Experience,” and “Tactical Training.”
“Nothing,” Nico hissed, slamming his hand onto the desk. “I’ve hacked the DMV, the social security database, and three private military contractors. There isn’t a single set of brothers named Sam and Dean Winchester who aren’t currently eight years old or dead.”
“What about the one she referred to as an angel?” Killian growled, pacing the small space like a caged tiger. He had discarded his suspenders, his dress shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest to reveal the ink and scars that mapped his skin. “She said his name was Castiel.”
“I’m not searching for ‘Angels,’ Killian, I’m not a priest, or whatever the hell you want to call it. ” Nico snapped.
Dimitri sat in the corner, slumped in a leather armchair, a glass of Macallan dangling from his gold-ringed fingers. He looked at the empty screens and let out a dark, ragged laugh.
“She’s playing us. She has to be.”
“I hate her,” Killian rumbled, stopping in front of a monitor. “I hate everything about her now, like how she walks into this house like she owns the place. That smirk she gives right before she says something that makes me question my manhood.”
“I hate the way she smells,” Nico added, his voice dropping an octave as he stared at a line of code.
“Like vanilla and some kind of high-end fruit. It’s distracting, and the way she talked to the staff today…
being all ‘sweet’ and ‘polite.’ It’s a tactical move.
She’s trying to turn the household against us. ”
“She’s getting under our skin,” Dimitri admitted, his voice a low, dangerous tone. “She knows exactly where the cracks are.”
They fell into a brooding silence, the only sound the hum of the servers and the clink of ice against glass. They were the Three Kings, men who moved mountains and erased lives, and they were currently being dismantled by a woman in an oversized hoodie upstairs.
Killian broke the silence first, his eyes glazing over lost in thought. “I bet she’s a wild one in bed,” he muttered, his voice thick. “I bet she’d fight for dominance every step of the way until you pinned her down.”
Nico let out a breathy, frustrated laugh. “She’d be bossy. She’d want to be in control of every move, every sensation. She’d probably have a list of demands before you even touched her.”
Dimitri stayed quiet for a long moment, watching the amber liquid in his glass. He thought about the way her posture had stiffened when his mother asked about her childhood. He thought about the vulnerability she hid behind that razor-sharp tongue.
“No,” Dimitri said softly, taking a slow, measured sip of his scotch. “You’re both wrong. She spends every waking second fighting the world. She carries enough weight to crush a lesser person.”
He looked toward the ceiling, as if he could see through the floorboards to where Bea was currently curled up. “If she found someone she actually trusted…someone who could handle her… she would definitely submit, and it would be beautiful.”
Killian and Nico both went still, the weight of Dimitri’s words settling over them. The thought of a surrendered Beatrice, soft, trusting, and theirs, was more intoxicating than any drink in the room.
Upstairs, Bea was tucked under the silk duvet of her massive bed, the glow of her laptop the only light in the room.
On the screen, a rugged man in a tan trench coat was staring intensely at a man in a flannel shirt. “I’m the one who gripped you tight and raised you from Perdition,” the character on the screen rumbled.
Bea let out a shaky sigh, hugging a pillow to her chest. She had the volume turned down low, but the familiar voices were the only thing grounding her.
The conversation at dinner had dug up things she’d spent years burying, the smell of stale beer, the sound of her stepfather’s heavy footsteps, the cold fear of being trapped.
She grabbed her phone and sent a quick text to Barb.
BEA: Day 1: The Kings are obsessed. I currently have them convinced that I am, in fact, seeing three men. Killian is going to try to fight a fictional character by morning. Send more snacks for this show!
She closed her eyes for a second, listening to the silence of the mansion. She knew the guys were downstairs, trying to hack her life apart. Let them. If they were looking for Sam and Dean, they weren’t looking at the girl who was still afraid of her own monsters.