“Fucking hell, our parents are shit heads,” he said with a shake of his head, his hand landing on my thigh. “I’m sorry it took me so long to see it.”
I shook my head. “No, Theo.” I turned the wheel a little, testing it, straightened up, a bit more relaxed as I let myself settle into position. “Never on you.”
Then he told me what to do, and time sped up. Anxiety refocused on not sending us off the road.
I was shit. Stopping and stalling, swerving and shrieking any time another car drove past us the other way. He wanted me to have the skill in case I needed to escape alone; he talked me through it, telling me I was lucky it wasn’t the UK where I’d have to deal with gears and roundabouts. He looked like he was having fun while my heart pounded.
“You’re doing great,” he told me after about thirty minutes, when I’d calmed down a little, when I could keep a steady enough pace without jerking us around.
“Thank you,” I muttered, and now that my mind wasn’t so overwhelmed with everything I had to remember, my mood blackened. This was a skill I should have. A normal part of growing up was learning to drive, and it was another thing I’d been deprived of. Normality was lost on me.
It wasn’t just those men who needed to suffer, but everyone who held my hand and took me down that path. My parents. Charlie was already dead. Not my sisters.
Theo sighed, his hand resting on mine still gripping the wheel. Stuck in the past with me for a moment. He’d only been a kid too, wrapped up in what he’d been led to believe with no power to break out. He helped me now, where it counted. And I told him so. “Together, we’re going to put everything to rights. We’re going to fix all the problems thrown at us, correct the swing of us and evil.” My eyes darkened. “All of them.”
“I want to paint Rafe’s world in blood, Violet, end it as viciously as he tried to end yours. Fucking hell, baby.” His voice deepened, lowered, spilling a dark truth. “Let’s go kill this man. Kill every single one of them in a shower of red.”
I loved my brother beyond any reason, and it was hard not to touch him constantly, to have him pressed against me or inside me in some way. Tongue, fingers, hiscock,I wanted him always. Now, it ached so damn deep I wished I wasn’t driving; the focus I needed to pay attention was too much. If he was at the wheel… I could touch him, stroke his cock, maybe lean over and suck him, lick at his cock until his cum painted my tongue. I squirmed. “Shit.” The more time I spent with him, the dirtier my thoughts grew. The more he opened up my mind to the good of sex and intimacy.
“What is it, beautiful?” he asked, teasing. “Tell me what you need.”
“You need to drive.”
He nodded, and I managed to bring the car to a trundling stop. Once we were back with him at the wheel, I was on my knees on the seat, pulling his cock free to suckle on as he drove.
Another way to distract myself on the journey, make my brother wild with the need to come, but hold it off. His squirming and pleas for release passed the time nicely.
The row of houses was quiet, everything still and dark, Damon’s too. It was the middle of the night before we arrived, with hours left until the sun would rise. We should be trying to catch up on a little sleep before kicking the plan into motion, but we were both buzzing with energy. Too wired to consider switching off. Theo pulled up down the street before plunging us into silence to wait, to watch. For movement, for neighbors, for anyone else that might be in his house.
“No cars but his own,” Theo pointed out. “Hopefully it’s just him.” I didn’t want any collateral damage here, especially no women or children. That would defeat the entire damn point of all this. Only the men who made me suffer needed it returned to them tenfold. I suffered for them; no one else would.
Theo had his hand on my thigh as we watched the house, just stroking, keeping me grounded while the energy coursing through me tried to bust free. Driving the car had worked to distract me from my agitation; sucking Theo off as he tried to focus on the road had soothed me, but it was back with full force now. One of my demons was in that house, oblivious to what was coming. The property was a decent size, on a residential street, so we’d have to be quiet, sneaky. I couldn’t wait.
“Do you remember that time when we were kids, that Mum and Dad went away for an entire week and we ran riot through the house?” Theo asked, his eyes not wandering from the house even as his thumb drifted up my thigh, rubbing gentle, soothing circles into my skin.
“Yeah,” I replied, remembering that perfect week with a small laugh. I’d been about five, Theo would have been nine. Charlie, at eleven, ruled the roost, of course. And the two younger girls were babies, kept close to the nannies. I think the nannies felt bad for us, because for an entire week, we faced no punishment, no strict rules. They let us eat more food, sweet food, and just enjoy being kids.
That was a common theme in my childhood. Parents away, we were free to be children.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about that sleepover we had, the three full days and nights you, me, and Charlie spent together, all piled in his bed under the fort we made,” Theo continued, sounding wistful, sad. He hadn’t spoken much about his feelings there, killing our older brother. I hadn’t questioned the how or the why. It wasn’t time. One day we would sit and spill all our sins, but first we had to complete them all.
“What of it?” I asked, giving him a brief look. His mouth was down-turned, but his eyes were warm at the memory. Sad, too.
Theo sighed. “I just can’t place that Charlie with the one I… the adult version. It’s the same for everyone. I remember Dad not being a fucking devil, Mum being there for us. But… I think it was wrong. I think it was all wrong.” He sighed. “I remember you being kept away, you know, I didn’t get you that phone for nothing, didn’t sneak you out for picnics and shit because I thought you were happy. But I… I never realized how fucking abusive and dark it all was. They were good parents. Distant but good.”
“They were never like that with me,” I said, my voice hard. “Never, Theo. I was always raised for what I was for Rafe. I was always a tool, a device, and I’m sure that’s what Margaret and Amaryllis are feeling now. It was always there, but when I was fourteen it shifted so suddenly, so harsh. From then on, for those four years, I wasn’t even a daughter to them. Just a tool.” I sighed. “At least before you left, they pretended a little. With you gone, the only times I got decency was when you came back.”
“Yeah.” Theo’s grip on my thigh turned harder, his fingertips digging into my flesh. “I suspected as much, on reflection. Charlie and I got the best of them because we were supposed to turn into him.”
“And we got the worst because we were supposed to turn into her.”
Theo moved all of a sudden, grasping my chin and turning me with a little force, making me look him in the eye. There was a stoniness there, a hardness, but softened at the edges, just for me. I resisted the urge to sweep his hair back from his forehead to see him better. “Let me get something straight, Violet.” He paused, his jaw tensing. “I will kill you before I let you be her. Let you be his. We will go into a fiery grave together before that happens.”
The words were harsh, shocking, but comforting, too. There was safety in what he was telling me. No matter what, I wouldn’t be back in that room, back in Rafe’s hands. I trusted Theo to make sure that never happened. He was my cyanide pill.
I nodded, kissed him, and then, bolstered, said, “Come on, let’s kill this bastard.”
Breaking into Damon’s house was easy, so easy that Theo scoffed when the door swung open in seconds. Damon was cocky, with few security or safety measures despite his role in the church, or maybe because of it. I half expected a dog to come charging at us, or an alarm to blare, but there was nothing. Not even the creak of a door to alert him or a video doorbell to make his phone buzz for attention.
