Page 14 of Twins for the Enemy

Chapter ten

~KIERAN~

I pull on my running shoes, tightening the laces. They were created by a NASA engineer to be water-resistant, but water has a way of dripping in, then flooding into the places it's wanted least.

Women can be that way as well. At least one of them can.

The shoes are necessary. Many of the streets I run on aren’t maintained, and it snowed about ten inches last night.

When I couldn’t sleep, I’d watched it come down and rationalized wanting to keep Farah safe.

She is carrying my children; she’s the only thing keeping them alive.

But it was much more difficult to rationalize the way my brain burns like a harsh chemical is corroding it—except when I’m near her.

The run, combined with the cold temperatures, will flush out whatever toxin infiltrated my body. I’ll expel it—and her—and return to a version of myself that can breathe just fine alone.

As I pass by the library, I catch a glimpse out the bay window. The snow is still piling up, making my backyard look like untouched land in Antarctica.

Farah doesn’t know that I’ve seen her huddle near the cherry blossom, waiting for the deer to make its trek to the creek that runs through the yard.

Even if she manages to find a coat instead of the blankets she drags out, walking through it will be a test of endurance, and she won’t be able to hide as easily when the snow will make her several inches taller.

Oh well. She can stay inside. It’s better for the twins.

I pull on my coat and leather gloves, grabbing my phone and wallet before heading out. I lock the door and step into the deep snow on the stairs .

The snowflakes on the surface of the snow glisten. It makes me think of the car crash—seeing Farah for the first time, the shattered glass covering her like a shimmering dress.

The mix of beauty and threat. Maybe it’s what is still drawing me in.

I keep reaching my hand into a car wreckage to grasp onto a venomous flower, just because the flower has amazing tits and an ass that defies gravity.

A snow shovel is set out against the porch. I’d left it there for Nate, the eighteen-year-old son of my housekeeper, who’d needed work, so I hired him for yard work. He’ll be here in a couple of hours. He won’t do the backyard since it isn’t part of his contract.

I recall Farah walking through the heavy snow. I imagine it rising higher, almost to her knees, and turning cold. I imagine it melting, the cold sinking into her socks.

Her stubbornness would make her wait too long until she’d return to the house. Frostbite, hypothermia, and trench foot. It could lead to worse diseases from a weakened immune system.

But it’s the thought of her struggling to walk through the snow to get a glimpse of the deer that makes me grab the shovel and turn around. Not illness or pain, but the persistent discomfort at the thought of her discomfort.

I walk through the mansion. The back door is in a room that branches out from the walk-in pantry. By the time I step out through it, I’ve warmed up again, and the cold air slices against my face.

I should have gone running. I told myself I wasn’t going to care about her—I wasn’t going to care if she could see her deer. But here I am, a fucking moron with no spine and a shovel.

The snow is the heavy kind, but the weight doesn’t hit me until the sun is rising and I’m nearly out of steam. I let out a huff of breath, watching the condensation form a small cloud before dissipating.

I’ve thought often about reversing time. To save Olivia. To save Ellie. To be face-to-face with Olivia one more time and apologize for not loving her enough.

But lately, all I think about is preventing Farah from setting that fire.

We’d still have our night together, but she’d never have gone to the Bettiol store.

Everything would be different. I could forgive her for the arson, but I can’t forgive that my sister was collateral damage.

I’m obligated to hate her, and I’m not going to renege on my responsibilities. I owe this to Ellie.

I carve out a small, igloo-like area near the cherry blossom tree. It’ll create decent camouflage and keep her warm while she watches the deer.

My hands are soaked to the bone, so cold that it takes some effort to take my hand off the shovel handle. I look back over the path I created. I should regret it, but I can’t.

It’s always that way with her.

I step back into my house. I pull my gloves off and rub my hands against my pants, but there’s still a tingling numbness.

Farah should be eating breakfast now, sticking to her schedule to get a peek of the deer.

I don’t need her to turn shoveling snow into something sentimental, so I move quickly through the kitchen and start my work calls.

I won’t give her a chance to give me those injured fawn eyes that turn liquid-soft at the smallest act of consideration.

It’s probably for the best she’s going to prison after this. Out in the world, men would take one look at her and try to twist her into whatever they wanted.

I blow out a breath, jaw tight. I don’t want her to suffer for the sake of it. I’m not a monster.

But she tipped the scales too far. Too deep into a world where good people get hurt and the guilty walk free.

Nothing Ellie said or did would’ve changed what happened. She was always going to get burned .

But I can control what happens now. I can turn the wreckage into something useful—take down the one who did this to her. I owe her that much.

I kick the snow off my shoes and walk through the pantry into the kitchen. I’m prepared to see her—legs twisted around the stool in a way that accentuates her thigh muscles and a spoon gliding out of her mouth, followed by the tip of her tongue, tasting some morsel on the corner of her mouth.

I stop in the kitchen.

She’s not here.

She’d usually be eating by now. The deer should be coming around in the next thirty or forty minutes, so she’s either going to miss breakfast or miss seeing the deer, and both are important for her.

From my research, the first trimester is the most dangerous. It’s not just for the babies, but the risks of changing hormones in the mother, ectopic pregnancy, and a lowered immune system .

She could have caught any kind of infection at her brother’s apartment. It’s likely, considering his lack of giving a shit about anything other than his next high.

I try to remain calm as I take the steps two at a time to get to the second floor. I take long strides to her hallway. I see the doorless entrance to the room and look into it.

She’s run away again. The most prolific and most irritating escape artist since Houdini.

Then I see her. My chest clenches.

Her foot is visible near the bed’s leg while her calves are twisted in an unnatural way.

I rush to the other side of the bed, finding her on her stomach with her legs in an awkward position. I drop onto my knees and grip her hip, ready to check for injuries.

Her head whips around, her eyes wide.

“What the hell?” she asks. “Why are your hands so cold?”

“What are you doing on the floor?” I demand. “I thought you’d fallen.”

“I’m not an eighty-year-old.” She rolls onto her back, causing my hand to graze against her stomach.

“I woke up early and couldn’t fall back asleep, so I started doing some push-ups to try to tire myself out.

It worked and I fell asleep. I’ve been building up the energy to get up for the last half hour. ”

She grabs my hand, wrapping hers around it—warm and soft.

“Again,” she says. “Your hands are freezing. Were you playing in the snow?”

“Something like that.”

Her thumbs start to rub against the back of my hand. It’s a strange sensation, being tended to. It’s a little less strange that her movements strike a different heat in me.

“It feels like you’re on the brink of frostbite. What were you doing?” she asks.

“Shoveling snow. ”

“Don’t you pay that kid to do your yard work?”

“He’s almost the same age as you,” I say. “If he’s a kid, you’re a kid.”

“Still, I know he likes doing the job. He’ll be disappointed when he shows up.”

“He can still do the front. I only did the back.”

“The back?” she asks. “You never go back there.”

“But you do.”

Her thumbs stop rubbing my hand.

“You shoveled for me?” she asks. “That’s… surprising. I mean, thank you.”

“It wasn’t just for you,” I say. “The ground will dry up faster on that path, so if the staff or I need to walk out there, we don’t need to deal with the mud. The creek will probably overflow when the snow melts; it may be necessary to have easy access to it.”

She raises an eyebrow. She starts to rub my hand again, making smaller circles with her thumbs now. It’s relaxing, which feels oddly threatening.

She’s wearing one of my button-up shirts, a dark blue one, with a pair of black sweatpants.

On anyone else, it’d look like someone who didn’t care enough to find clothes that fit them and didn’t care how they looked, but on her, it’s addictive.

It hides her figure, but it only makes me more curious about how easy they’d be to slip off of her.

She looks so small in my clothes, that it triggers a protectiveness in me that makes me want to pull her closer, but pulling her closer will lead me to much less respectable thoughts.

She takes my other hand. She brings it up to her face, blowing a warm exhale against my skin.

I could twist my hand around. I could yank her closer.

I could get the elastic of those sweatpants down, push myself between her thighs, and fuck her like the room is on fire and I need to use our remaining oxygen to burn with her.

At the very least, Ellie would get her revenge, and all the unwanted thoughts I have of her would die with us .

But I could never do that to her. Despite everything she’s fucked up, I still can’t imagine a world where she wasn’t alive. It doesn’t help that she’s carrying my twins.

This is why I’ll never be able to fuck another woman. I fucked this one and now I’m in a constant state of fucked-up conflict.

I pull my hand away from her and stand up slowly. “Go have breakfast or go back to sleep.”

She leans back on her elbows, glaring up at me. “Why do you feel the need to always boss me around? Don’t you do enough of that at your job?”

“You need an authority figure,” I say. “That should be clear from how your life turned out.”

“My father was very good at ordering me around and I don’t need another version of him.

” Her scowl slowly fades as she stares at my feet.

I’m still wearing the waterproof shoes, droplets clinging onto the material.

“I’d be able to sleep better if I had something to do during the day. I need to keep my brain busy. ”

“What did you have in mind?” I ask. “A crossword book?”

She considers me, tilting her head. Her blonde hair cascades over her shoulder, looking soft enough that it needs to be roughed up.

“Rock climbing,” she says. I stare at her.

“There is zero possible way I am going to let you rock climb,” I say. “You may have forgotten, but you’re pregnant.”

She shrugs. “That’s what I want.”

I consider her. Her bottom lip twitches, a hint of amusement hidden in her features.

She only told me that because she knew I’d say no. She wants me on the back foot, trying to scramble to give her something else that she wants.

“Fine,” I say. “We’ll do it later. Go eat breakfast.”

I pivot, leaving the room without waiting for her response .

I look down at my hands. I can almost still feel her hands on them. It’s like a phantom pain, but worse because the missing body parts were never mine.

Ellie isn’t the only person Farah burned. The only difference is that I’m always walking straight back into the fire.