The twin with the knife slides it up the front of Richard’s coat and gently taps the blade against Richard’s bare throat, right above his collar.
A line of red appears on his skin as Richard jumps, a soft squeal escaping his lips.
“Nope.” The other twin raises one of his butterfly knives and rests it against the underside of Richard’s jaw. “We didn’t say you could move,” he adds, using the flat part of the blade to tip Richard’s head back and to the side.
“Now,” his brother says as he quickly drags the edge of his knife over the line of red on Richard’s neck like he’s giving him a shave. The blood disappears, but more wells up in its wake as he wipes the blade on the front of Richard’s coat in a careless swipe. “Why did you try to kill our friend? And trust me when I say you don’t want me to get bored with asking questions.”
“He’s right. You don’t want to see what happens when he gets bored.” His brother tucks Richard’s phone in his pocket and pulls out his second butterfly knife, all while still using the other blade to hold Richard’s head up and to the side. “Now I’m gonna give you a chance to answer. Don’t make me regret my benevolence.”
The stark change in his voice when he says that last sentence is scary as fuck, and I squeeze Xave’s hand a little tighter.
I’m not afraid of the twins, or of Killian or Xave, but this kind of shit isn’t normal for me, and watching guys who look like supermodels casually interrogate and threaten the guy who attacked me is fucking with my head a bit.
Xave steps closer and leans in so his lips are right next to my ear.
“That’s Jace,” he whispers, his voice so quiet I have to strain to hear him.
I assume he means the twin who just spoke, the one with the butterfly knives, and I look between them again.
They’re the most identical people I’ve ever seen. Jace, or at least the one I’m calling Jace in my head, has a wild and chaotic energy to him that’s in direct contrast to the darker and more calculated energy around Jax.
But other than that and their slightly different hairstyles, they’re carbon copies of each other. Especially since they’re both wearing dark jeans and matching dark jackets.
“Wrong choice,” Jace says darkly when Richard doesn’t answer.
Jax flips his knife around and slams the handle into the wound on Richard’s shoulder.
He howls in pain but cuts himself off with a choked sound when Jace presses the tip of his blade against his crotch. “Shut. Up.”
“We don’t actually need you to tell us who hired you,” Killian says in a cheerful tone that’s so out of place it’s eerie as fuck. “We can figure it out on our own. All of this”—he motions between himself and the twins—“is just us having some fun.” His expression shifts to one so dark and sinister that the sudden change is as jarring as it is terrifying. “But this is nothingcompared to the fun we’ll have if you don’t tell us what we want to know.”
Richard’s eyes widen, and his gaze darts between Killian and the twins as more of the color drains from his face.
“Last chance,” Xave says. “Otherwise my friends are going to take you into the woods and have their fun away from the cameras and witnesses.”
Jace leans closer to Richard, like they’re sleepover buddies he’s about to share some tea with. “And just an FYI, you can scream to your heart’s content, and no one is going to come save you. In fact, the louder you scream, the more fun we have.”
Richard is panting and sweaty and looks pissed off enough to kill, but there’s real terror under his anger, and for some reason, that’s satisfying as fuck.
Watching him pay for trying to kill me is vindicating on a level I can’t explain, and seeing him suffer is way more entertaining than it should be.
But the really fucked-up part of my reaction to what’s going on is how I like that Xave and his cousins are doing this for me.
I don’t understand why they’re helping me, but I’m grateful. And nowhere near as disturbed by what I’m seeing as I should be.
“I don’t know,” Richard bites out. “I don’t know who he is.”
“Too bad for you,” Jace says cheerfully. “Come on, bro. Time to have some real fun.”
Jax’s grin is as unsettling as Jace’s as the two of them drag a struggling Richard to his feet.
“I’ve got this,” Killian says to Xave as he also stands. “What are you thinking?”
“We’re going to the cabin,” Xave says.
“We’ll take care of things here and let you know what we find,” Killian says as the twins drag Richard toward the woods.
Xave nods, and they exchange a heavy look, like they’re having a silent conversation in the five seconds that they’re looking at each other.
