“Bren…Cam.” The delicate voice drifts through the dark foyer from the stairs on the left wall that go up to the second, third, and fourth floors.
I jolt in surprise, nearly dropping Taryn. “Fuck!” I attempt to resituate my arms to get a better grip on her.
“Language, Cam,” Brennan scolds from beside me.
We both glance up at the staircase as our baby sister stares at us with sleepy eyes and pouty little lips.
So much for everyone being asleep.
She grips her light pink nightgown in her fist, looking between us. “Is that the girl? Why is she asleep?”
Bren and I gape at each other, struggling to find an answer. How do you explain to your sibling, who can’t tie their own shoes and is just learning to spell, that we kidnapped her new nanny?
Her light brown hair, so similar to our mother’s, falls in natural waves over her shoulders. She peers at us with those vibrant blue eyes.
“You should be in bed, Elena,” Bren whispers, keeping his voice low so we don’t wake Tristan and Jessica, our other siblings.
My cursing probably already did that.
“Did Colt not say good night?” he asks.
She rubs her tired eyes and nods.
“You just couldn’t sleep?” I ask.
Her head bobs again, and my heart stutters.
I glance at Taryn, unresponsive in my arms. The heat from our bodies pressed together creates a layer of sweat that encases my skin.
Damn, I need a shower. Mostly so I can release some tension in my dick before I’m tempted to lay a finger on her.
Or in her.
I look back at Bren. “Can you take Taryn upstairs?” I gesture to Elena with my head. “I’ll get her to bed.”
He narrows his eyes. “I’m surprised you trust me to take her to bed.”
“If I find you in it with her,” I threaten, “that’s when we’ll have an issue.”
Our eyes hold steady while he approaches me and holds his arms out. I transfer her weight to Brennan, and he walks up the stairs, passing Elena. He smiles at her, but her wide eyes stay locked on an unconscious Taryn like she’s the most interesting thing she’s ever seen.
He says the words we say to her and Tristan every single night without fail. “I love you, Elena.”
Someday, I’ll have to explain to her why we did what we did to Taryn—why we abducted her. We will have to justify it. But at this age, she’ll never understand why we went through these immense lengths for her. She may be five, but she’s smart like Jess and as vigilant as our mother used to be.
I’ll have to defend why we bent our morals. That we did it for her and Tristan since Jessica is leaving and won’t be around to help.
But a part of me knows that we brought her here for us, too—Bren, Colt, and I. But since my twenty-seven-year-old brother is hard-headed, Colt won’t admit it. He wants her, too, in more ways than one. But he’s also too tenacious to acknowledge he’stired of those whores he has on speed dial coming in and out of his cabin nearly every night.
“Love you too, Bren,” Elena responds quietly when they disappear into the darkness.
I can tell she’s exhausted by how her attention slowly finds me again. I walk up the first few steps to her and bend down. She jumps into me, and I cradle her in my arms, her tiny limbs wrapping around my abdomen and neck.
It’s sad to think that one day, it will be the last time I’ll hold her like this, and I won’t even recognize it as the last time.
I start walking her back up the stairs and into the hallway toward her room when her nervous voice stutters, “Is—is she going to be like a mom?”
My heart skulks into my throat, and I swallow.
