“Stay behind the car,” I shout, starting the engine and reversing at an angle that will allow my brother to get inside without having to face the onslaught of the firing range that is quickly closing in on us.
He leaps through the passenger door as soon as he gets a chance, and I slam my foot against the accelerator, reversing away from the attackers.
My heart is racing. Adrenaline pushes through my veins. The iron scent of blood fills the car as I spin to face the opposite direction and slam the car into gear again.
Isaak is breathing heavily, pressing his face into his hands. I reach out and touch his chest. “Are you hit?” I demand.
He lets out a long breath.
“Isaak! Are you hit?” I shout at him.
He drops his hands and pats them across his body. “Nah, I don’t think so. But I smell blood,” he says, scrunching his nose.
“It’s me. I caught a stray on my leg.”
“Fuck, dude. Pull over, and I’ll drive,” he says.
“No. It’s okay. Just watch the rear and make sure we aren’t being followed. I want to get back as soon as possible. For all we know, this was a distraction.”
“Alara’s security team is with them; you hired the best of the best.”
“I know, I know,” I sigh.
We drive in silence for a while before Isaak turns to look at me. “Does Kayla know who you are?”
I clench my jaw and shake my head. “No, she doesn’t.”
“So, when you broke it off with her, what did you tell her?”
“I didn’t give her a reason. Nothing would have made sense. I just…I just pushed her away,” I sigh heavily.
“Fuck. That’s brutal,” my brother says quietly. “I know how into her you were. I’d never seen you so happy before.”
“She really is something,” I mutter.
“And your twins.”
For the rest of the drive, we’re both quietly observant. No one follows us. The roads are quiet.
Pulling up to Alara’s estate, the guards look alert, and everything appears normal. I finally breathe a sigh of relief.
But when I climb out of the car, I realize I look like hell. My jeans are soaked in blood. Even my hands and arms have blood smeared over them from pressing my hand against the wound while I was driving.
“I need to get straight into the bathroom without anyone seeing me. Especially the twins. If they are awake, theycannotsee this,” I say. “Do you have any spare clothes here?”
“Yes, I’ve got some clothes in the back room. I’ll bring them out for you. I’ll try distracting the girls while you sneak past.”
It was a good plan.
And luckily, the twins are fast asleep, tucked into Alara’s bed. She happened to have a pink blanket over her bed, which totally sold Kira on being comfortable sleeping there. And with Kira comfortable, Kelsey was fine, too.
But as it turned out, Kayla was not as easy to avoid.
I hadn’t even managed to close the bathroom door when she pushed it open again, glaring at me with the most intensely piercing eyes I’ve ever seen.
“Kayla,” I say, warning edging my voice.
“Don’t youdarelie to me. I need to know what’s going on. You leave me here this late at night, you disappear for over an hour, and now you come back covered in blood and trying to sneak past like you want to hide it? This isn’t normal! None of this is normal! Did you get stabbed?”
