Page 5 of Chasing After You (Twisted Desires #3)

Dorian

I couldn’t shake the bitter feeling in my chest as I watched and listened to the small group that had entered my brother’s apartment with him.

My nails dug into my palms. I knew everyone in Josh’s world.

The two tall blondes were the small, shy-looking one’s boyfriends.

I knew more about the little guy, Oliver, than his partners.

Mainly because I’d also spent the last two years growing increasingly jealous of him coveting my brother’s attention and affection.

As far as I knew, Josh hadn’t come out yet.

But it wasn’t hard to guess that he at least had some interests outside of heterosexuality since he was always so buddy-buddy with his friend.

Always bringing him free coffee, blushing that pretty pink color when Oliver got too close, even legitimately asking point-blank if Oliver was in an open relationship a few months back.

It shouldn’t bother me that he’s finally gotten close to someone after all this time.

But it does—a lot.

It’d been much harder finding any credible information about the Cohen twins.

That hadn’t bothered me too much in the past since all they’d shown was disdain for Josh, but now they were in his apartment—the one no one but him ever goes into—and talking about me and the possibility of bugs in his place.

I ground my teeth, trying to keep my breathing steady as I leaned back into the shadows of the stairwell across from Josh’s apartment.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I’d worked too hard, searched too long, followed every breadcrumb to get this close—and now they were inside the place where he was supposed to feel safe.

They were poisoning it with their presence, turning my brother’s quiet little life into a hornet’s nest of suspicion and paranoia.

And yeah, his place was bugged, but it needed to be.

My hands clenched around the phone I held, the mic long muted, the feed still open.

I could hear the edge of panic in Josh’s voice as he tried to downplay me as if I were something shameful, something he had to explain away.

I’d forgiven him for leaving. I understood why he did it.

But what I couldn’t stomach—what twisted deep and raw in my gut—was the way he looked at them like they could protect him from me .

Fuck them.

They hadn’t pretended to be scared of the dark just because they knew he was lonely and needed comfort at night.

They hadn’t watched the way he’d always tried to roll his shoulders in to look smaller.

They hadn’t heard him break down when he thought he was alone.

They hadn’t seen the way his eyes lit up when he was needed.

They hadn’t made him feel wanted. That was me.

I was the one who kept him whole for as long as I could.

And if they thought they could take him from me now, they were sorely mistaken.

He was mine.

Mine.

Victoria and Daniel gave him to me.

But then that bitch had to get involved. Fucking lied to me. Told me that Josh had abandoned me, wanted nothing to do with me, when she was the one who took him from me.

I still didn’t have all of the details on what happened back then, but I knew the gist of it. Josh would fill me in on the rest once we were back together. I sighed longingly and continued watching the video feed, sneering at the screen as they talked about Josh moving in with them for “safety.”

I’d watched the twins for long enough that I knew they couldn’t care less about my brother’s well-being. This was definitely Oliver’s idea, and they were going along with it to please him.

I would need to stake out their house and hopefully plant some bugs inside.

He’d never gone over there before today, so there hadn’t been a need until now.

However, I was starting to worry about their home security since they’d been the ones to bring up bugs in the first place.

I was crossing my fingers that they were just role-playing detectives or something and didn’t actually have much knowledge on the subject.

If they were smart, they’d be afraid of me.

But they weren’t. They were cocky, comfortable in their slick black clothes and expensive boots, leaning into each other like they owned the world.

I’d seen their type before—they thought their polished threats and idle violence made them invincible.

But they didn’t know me. They didn’t know how patient I could be, how long I could wait in silence with a smile on my face, letting rot fester under my skin.

They’d regret getting involved soon enough.

I scrolled back through old footage—Josh alone in his apartment, curled up with a book or talking on the phone, humming to himself and shaking his hips to songs he probably would never admit listening to. It felt so special to see into the Josh he tried to hide from the world.

Those moments were just for me and him.

I didn’t like what those men might do to him, how they’d twist his mind, fill it with lies, teach him to see me as something monstrous. I’d come too far to let that happen. He needed to see me as his precious little brother.

Josh was… honestly, sort of a pushover. As long as he still had love for me, which I knew he did, he’d forgive some little breaches in privacy.

* * *

I waited until nightfall to check out the house. I parked about a quarter of a mile away and walked the rest of the way, taking a route primarily through the trees surrounding their yard. I’d expected cameras—maybe motion lights.

I hadn’t expected a goddamn fucking fortress .

There were pressure sensors buried along the perimeter, infrared trip beams on the upper windows, and cameras positioned with surgical precision. The place didn’t just have security—it had layers of it . This wasn’t normal. This was ex-military grade, possibly from the black market.

My gut twisted.

Who the hell were these people?

They weren’t just rich, or paranoid, or playing house. No normal couple living with their pretty little boyfriend installed private surveillance nets and biometric deadbolts unless they were hiding something.

There were no obvious blind spots. Not even the garbage bins were outside the fence. I could maybe get a drone close enough to look in a window, but anything more would be pushing it—and I wasn’t ready to tip my hand just yet.

Fucking fuck.

I exhaled shakily, pressing my back to a tree, out of range of the cameras. My skin crawled. Why did they have this kind of protection? Did Josh know? Why was he always so oblivious?

The thought made my jaw clench.

No. He wasn’t stupid. Just scared. He always had been. He trusted too easily—latched onto anyone who showed him the tiniest kindness. He couldn’t see the danger when it smiled.

But I could.

I didn’t know who those twins really were yet, but I would. I’d dig until I found the cracks, and when I did, I’d pry them open and watch them shatter. I’d peel them out of Josh’s life, piece by piece, until there was nothing left but me.

Then he’d remember.

Then he’d come back to me.

We’d be a family again.

* * *

Over the next two weeks, I didn’t sleep much.

I set up a rotating surveillance loop from a safe distance and stationed small, inconspicuous cameras in the trees along the perimeter of their property.

They never turned off any lights completely. Even the back porch stayed dimly lit through the night. I clocked three different entrances, all of which were coded—one with fingerprint access.

These weren’t just two dumb rich guys.

And the more I watched, the more I began to feel that they were watching back. Sometimes I’d glance at the feed and get the uncanny sense that someone on the other side of the glass knew I was looking. That’s when I started triple-checking the signal encryption and swapping burner phones hourly.

They were too calm. Too unbothered. As if they’d already anticipated my presence and decided I wasn’t a threat.

That made me furious.

Josh still went to work every day at his cafe; otherwise, I would have gone insane from not being able to see him.

I just had to pull him away long enough to make him remember why he left with my name in his mouth; why he used to come to me when the world got too heavy.

Soon.

Soon, I’d set the bait.

The twins couldn’t watch him every second. All it would take was one. One slip. One crack in their armor. They might be wolves, but wolves were often overconfident. They underestimated what a cornered creature could do. And I’d carved my way through worse before.

Josh was waiting for me. He just didn’t know it yet.

And once I had him again, I wasn’t letting go.

But it wasn’t quite time yet to make my move. I needed to stay patient.

Stay watching.