Page 31

“That means the stalker doesn’t know Sari is staying with you,” I hear Rague add. He’s right, otherwise they’d have sent the package to the lake house.

“Did you open it?” I walk to my car and get in. I glare at Ezra as he suddenly takes the passenger seat.

“Yes, he brought it to the base. And I’m ready to disembowel the demented lunatic.” Ollie’s voice is shaken.

“What was inside?” Ezra suddenly interjects into the conversation, leaning closer to the phone I’m holding near my ear. Does he have enhanced hearing?

“Who the fuck is that?” Raph asks.

“Ezra,” he replies. “Who the fuck are you?”

“His other psychopathic brother,” Raph counters. “We have some questions for you…Ezra.” The warning is clear in my brother’s voice.

“And I will answer them…in time.”

I push Ezra away from me, turn on the car, and activate the Bluetooth speaker.

“Are you okay, Uri?” Ollie asks.

“He’s okay…for now,” Ezra taunts them, triggering Rague’s enraged growl.

“Hey, listen up, elusive fucker, you’ll be the one bleeding if you touch so much as a dread on his?—”

He doesn’t let Rami finish. “Jeez. They have no faith in your abilities whatsoever,Uriel.” Ezra snorts.

“I meant to say, before you rudely interrupted me, that he’d be the one making you bleed,” Rami clarifies.

“He already did.” He rubs the blood away from his neck. Oh please, I simply nicked him.

“Good,” Rague grunts out.

“Where’s all this brotherly coziness coming from?” Raph asks, because making Ezra bleed equals coziness for him.

“Jealous?” I hear Rami.

“Package,” I remind them.

Ollie is the one to finally tell me. “Another message, same typewriter. ‘ We belong together , you’ll see it soon enough .’”

“There was also a black ball gag and pink lipstick inside the box,” Michael adds.

“ Pink lipstick ?” Ezra mouths. Like that’s the only weird thing.

“What else? Talk,” I demand, getting more worked up by the minute. I grab my phone and check that Sari’s location is unchanged.

“A bunch of razor blades.” Raph sounds grim.

Fuck!

“No fingerprints. But we found a brown hair on the elastic of the ball gag,” Rami says.

“I checked some databases, and the DNA belongs to Francis Moreland, a scientist working for Abbot Laboratories. He disappeared for two days, then was found naked and unconscious in a park in Norridge. He had bruises on his cheeks, around his neck, wrists, and ankles, like he had been restrained.”

“What the fuck!” I exclaim. I need to protect Sari, to keep him close, so close I tuck him under my skin. Flay myself and wrap him in it.

“I thought that guy was found dead, raped, and beaten to death,” Ollie interjects.

“No, that was another body, a university student. It was found on the outskirts of Chicago in some woods. Hunter is helping the police with the case. It’s a very disturbing one,” Rami states.

“Francis Moreland is still alive, and he was drugged. They found a needle puncture behind his ear, just like the guard from Bear-Stone Labs. But in Mr. Moreland’s blood, there were only traces of a tranquilizer.

” The more my brother talks, the hotter my blood turns.

It’s pulsing in my veins, whispering, “ Kill! Protect! Kill! ”

“They also found vaginal discharge on his body,” Michael adds. “The DNA is in the database, but it doesn’t match anyone.”

“So it was a woman who kidnapped and had their way with him.” I shuffle among my memories, looking for all the women who’ve approached Sari in the past months.

“Maybe. Hunter went to talk to the victim. He doesn’t remember anything from the kidnapped time, but he said he received disturbing packages months prior. Stalkerish packages,” Raph lets me know.

“Fuck!” I cuss, this time out loud.

“We should tell Sari.” Michael’s tone is serious.

“He’s still pretty shaken up,” I say. I don’t want him to have another panic attack.

“Let him enjoy tonight,” Rami suggests. “We’ll tell him tomorrow.”

“I will,” I declare. “Are you working on finding any more links between Francis Moreland and Sari?”

“Serena, Opal, and Dare are all on it.”

“I’ll put more bodyguards on Sari. He won’t go anywhere alone.” It’s more a promise to myself. I should go too, but first I need to vent.

“Gabe and Lori are on their way there now,” Ollie lets me know.

“I see why you haven’t killed any of them, they are useful,” Ezra declares.

“He almost got me twice,” Rami says.

“We were young,” Rague feels the need to clarify.

“I lost count,” Raph scoffs.

“Want to get a head start on our wagers on you, Ezra?” Ollie asks him.

“Wager?” I see his eyes glimmer with interest.

“Thirteen to one odds that Uri will kill you.”

I already know who was the one against. My sweet Sari.

“And what if I get all of you to trust me by the end of this month? What will I win?”

“Other than a unicorn farting cupcakes? That will never happen,” Raph states.

“Challenge accepted,” Ezra replies with a smirk.

I choose that moment to let them know about the chemist who made Meg’s poison.

The conversation grows heated, more questions, threats and insults are directed at Ezra, until I hear some fumbling, and then Raph’s voice is clear, like everybody else is in the background. He must have turned off the speaker.

“You going to Sari?”

“No.”

“No? And how long until you do?” he insists. He’s the only one who can somewhat understand how I feel about Sari since he’s the same with Michael.

“I’m going to Madame Claudette’s tonight.”

“Piglet,” Raph calls Michael. “No club tonight. Uri is going.”

This is new. “Since when are you both frequenting the club?”

“Club?” Ezra asks. I ignore him.

I can imagine Michael’s blushing face as he says, “We discovered we could have fun in one of those rooms a few weeks ago. But the last thing I want is to accidentally bump into you”

“Oh, it’s that kind of club,” Ezra exclaims, looking at his phone.

“There’s no website for it. It’s a very exclusive establishment. The only way to get in is by knowing another member,” I tell him.

“We’ll go tomorrow then,” Michael states.

“Where?” I hear Rami.

“Madame Claudette’s,” Michael replies.

“Maybe we should go check it out, Grizzly,” I think Rami tells Hunter. His voice is too far from the phone.

“I don’t fucking share, Red,” his boyfriend answers back with a grunt. That, I heard well.

“And you think my husband does?” Michael sniffs.

“You can choose a private room. Not everybody likes an audience like Uri,” Raph taunts me. Like I fucking care.

I hear a ding. “I’m getting another call.” It’s Gabe.

“Alright, we’ll let you know if there’s any news.” Raph pauses before adding, “And Ezra, I’ll see you soon.”

I hang up as I hear Ezra’s snort and connect the other call.

“Super Model.”

It’s Lori. “Gremlin.”

“When are you going to bump him on the head with a giant bat and drag him by his hair into your luxurious cave?”

“I hope you’re not talking about me,” Ezra cuts in.

“And you are?” Gabe asks.

“It’s Robin Hood, isn’t it?” Lori doesn’t let him speak. “Can you take a selfie with your twinsy-twin and send it to me? It’s for a friend…for research purposes.”

I don’t want to know what friend and what kind of research he’s talking about.

“I don’t have your phone number,” is Ezra’s comeback. Like I’ll let him take a picture of us.

“It’s—”

“Lori!” I hear Bez growling.

“Okay, Okay,” Lori tries to assuage his fiancé. “The psycho club in this family is getting bigger by the day.”

“Are you almost at Rague’s?” I ask.

“Ten minutes away,” Gabe flatly tells me.

“How many texts have you sent Sari since you left him?” Lori’s question irks me. And I let him know with a growl.

“Translating from controlling sociopathic language, a two-second growl equals ten to fifteen texts.”

Ezra is looking at me with a puzzled look.

“I can’t kill him. Gabe won’t let me,” I explain.

“Like you could take me.” Lori sniffs. “Plus, you bloody love me.”

“I can’t love. I’m a sociopath.”

Lori ignores my words. “Robin Hood, since I don’t want you to ruin such a cute bromance, I’m going to warn you about Uri and the fact that he put Sari in a state of eternal dibs.”

“Since he was six,” Gabe adds.

They call it my obsession. But is it really an obsession when I feel like Sari is a part of me? Can I be obsessed with myself?

“Michael just texted me. You’re going to that club tonight. Sure you need it?”

I don’t answer Lori’s question. It’s none of his fucking business.

“Do you have a case of pathological denial? I don’t care if you’re the most proficient torturer who’s ever walked this earth, I’ll hit your hard head with my custom-made spiked bat until I feel the crack of sanity and see the red fountain of acceptance.

Otherwise, let Sari move on and live his life. ”

“Move on,” Ezra echoes, making my skin crawl.

“He can start dating again the cute professor,” Lori keeps going.

Trent fucking Dohner. He must be the colleague who contacted Sari the other day.

“He can’t date a corpse,” I snarl. I’m breathing hard.

I didn’t realize I’d moved so close to the car screen.

I’ll tear out his guts, crush his heart, and perforate his lungs.

I’ll make him choke on his own blood before I split him in half and pulverize his bones; there won’t be anything left. Not even a tiny speck in the air.

“Then what do you want from him, Uri? You keep meddling in his life. He can’t remain celibate forever.”

“He won’t,” I say simply. Ezra is strangely silent next to me.

“You should do him then…just saying. We are at Rague’s. Think about it.” Lori hangs up.

Ezra is staring at me. There’s a strange sparkle in his eyes; I can’t quite grasp it. “You said he was yours.”

“He is!”

“Doesn’t look like it since he still can choose someone else.” Is he talking about himself?

I need to show him the depth of my ownership and clarify without any doubt why he has to stay away from Sari.

“I’ll carve my name on the delicate skin of his chest. I’ll hear him say my name, scream it at the top of his lungs as I painfully penetrate him so damn deep I will become part of him, as he’s already part of me.

I’ll own not only his body but his whole being, feel it under my bruising fingers as I squeeze it until he pierces my skin and reaches the void where my heart should be.

He will not be able to push me away ever again. ”

“Take what’s yours then, Uriel, and do it quickly.” He gets out of the car and slams the door. And I don’t do anything to stop him, because I know he’ll be back to see me soon. Otherwise I’ll get to him. I know how he moves around the city now.

His words keep echoing in my head long after he disappears from my sight.

Take what’s yours.

Take what’s yours.

Quickly.