Page 68 of Wicked Ends (Hellions of Hade Harbor #4)

Brody

Life was simplest when it ran like clockwork. School, studying, hockey, living up to the family legacy. Everything had its order and routine. A system put into place for each part to make sure it moved like clockwork.

Except for… her.

Every day I woke up at five a.m. and went for a run. Then it was time for supplements, a protein shake, coffee, sauna, and then a cold plunge.

When I started hockey practice again, the routine would have to change, but since my brother and I were only a few weeks into a huge move and attending a new school, I was in control of my schedule so far.

Hade Harbor was a quaint little town. Boring as fuck, if I was honest, but it didn’t matter to me. I had too much to focus on to care about how exciting a place was. I didn’t have time for distractions.

I especially didn’t have time for her—the biggest distraction I’d ever met.

This morning, I’d just left the sauna when she walked in the door.

I wrapped a towel around my hips, ignoring the sweat running down my chest, and watched the bane of my existence stagger around beside the patio doors, attempting to wriggle off her Doc Martens.

Her ripped fishnet tights and tiny black denim shorts weren’t weather appropriate, but nothing Selena ever wore suited the weather.

Except for the thin cardigan she had on, pulled over her fingers like she was a teenager.

She finally managed to kick her boots gracelessly across the hand-cut, imported Italian marble palazzo floor of the sitting room.

Heathen.

She had wired headphones on. The girl seemed allergic to technology. Everything she owned was old or secondhand. If it was her way of being in denial about how rich she was, it was a stubborn one. Who made their life more difficult to prove a point that no one cared about?

She moved toward me, heading for the counter, without looking up once from her phone. Her long blonde hair was ratty, tousled to shit. She had dark rings around her eyes, mascara or exhaustion, I had no fucking clue. She certainly wasn’t prioritizing her eight hours a night like I was.

To be in superior form to perform on the ice, in school and for Daddy dearest, I couldn’t afford to party, or stay up late, or even eat badly.

Selena clearly had no such problems. Everything she did was the opposite of the way I liked to do things.

She tugged her headphones off her ears and let them hang to the floor as she reached for the door of the fridge. But I was standing right in front of it.

Her hand met my lower abdomen. I expected her to jerk it away as soon as she realized, but she didn’t seem to be paying attention. Her hand moved lower, and an irritating heat roared to life in my tired muscles.

She brushed the head of my hard-on, and I gripped her wrist. It was just morning wood. It had nothing to do with the disheveled girl standing in front of me. Nothing.

“Watch where you’re fucking going,” I growled at her.

She finally looked up from her phone, her violet-blue eyes focusing on me.

“Watch where you’re standing, Sinclair,” she muttered. Her voice was low and throaty. It was a fucking hot voice, and she knew it.

God, I hated her.

“Watch where I’m standing in my own goddamn house?” I challenged.

She should smell like shit. She’d been out all night. She should smell like booze and cigarettes and busy, sweaty places.

But she didn’t. She still smelled like her. I liked that scent far more than I should have.

Just when I thought I couldn’t hate her more, her lip pulled up in one corner.

“Well, technically, isn’t it my goddamn house, too? So, I guess I can touch what I want.”

She turned on her heel, grabbed the water bottle I’d left on the counter, freshly filled with the purest filtered water from my own filtration system in the garage, and took a long swig.

Then she turned on her heel and walked off, swinging her ass in those fucking black hotpants.

God, I loathed that woman. Selena Carmichael, now Sinclair.

My new stepsister.

Selena

My watch vibrated on my wrist, telling me that morning was finally here.

Last night, I’d broken my cardinal rule: Never leave the party too late.

When midnight came, I turned into a pumpkin.

Last night, I’d been too messed up to leave on time, and slowly, I’d realized I was one of the last girls standing.

One of the only girls left at the frat party once all the others had gone home with friends or hookups.

Just the realization triggered the attack. Of course, I could stay home and avoid these situations altogether, but that hadn’t worked either. Sitting alone with my thoughts wasn’t something I could handle for long. There was no one I’d rather spend time with less than myself.

It always started that way. My throat got tight and my skin hot. Then, it was hard to breathe. I’d staggered upstairs in the frat house, searching for the only thing that would save me from another trip to the ER.

I had spied the closet as soon as I’d gotten to the party. I always needed to find one, just in case. I never knew when the attacks would come. I’d made for it at a near run.

When dawn light was creeping under the door and the house was quiet, I’d felt safe enough to leave.

I hadn’t slept. I’d spent the last few hours trying the damn breathing exercises the shrink I’d been seeing in California had given me. It hadn’t helped. If I’d been at home, I’d have had a better time of it. I had my own ways of coping.

But here, on the floor of the linen closet in a frat house, all I could do was breathe and hold on for dear life.

Was this life even worth that effort? I had no idea anymore, but surviving was a habit at this point.

I was like a cockroach. It didn’t matter how many times I closed my eyes and tried to let the boot come down on me… I still opened my eyes the next morning and had to continue on.

If only I weren’t such a fucking coward.

I left the frat house, pulling my cardigan on to cover my scarred-up arms.

Once I drank enough, I usually got too hot and forgot to keep them covered. In the harsh light of day, I’d do anything to hide the evidence of what my life had become.

The evidence of what happened, and what continued to happen. My weakness. My just desserts, some might say. Most days, I agreed with them.

I was a cockroach, after all. Mental note, work on self-loathing again. For the hundredth time. Maybe one day, I could look in the mirror and not hate the person looking back.

Maybe one day, but until then, it hurt to be alive.

I walked back to the house near campus in the early morning light. It was the most peaceful time of day. My favorite time.

Unfortunately, since I’d moved back to Hade Harbor a few weeks ago, that peace had been shattered.

Thanks to my mom and her never-ending mission to find another husband to keep her in the luxury she’d grown accustomed to, even my house wasn’t a safe place anymore.

My mom didn’t care that she was making me live with strangers. She only cared about her new black Amex and that my little sister’s special school was paid for.

The latter was the only thing I cared about, too, so I got it.

The reason my mornings were never peaceful anymore was in the kitchen when I got in.

Angry, uptight, and hot as sin, Brody Sinclair, with his fucking British accent and muscles for days, watched me cross the room with such contempt on his face, he could win an award for it.

He glared at me like he wished I’d disappear, and honestly, I could relate to that. I wished I could disappear, too.

Unfortunately, we were stuck here together, across the hall from each other.

I’d watched my new stepbrother for the last two weeks.

The guy was a machine. His brother was different, secretive and brooding, hot, but reclusive.

Brody was the opposite. As an aspiring CEO, he had to be in control of every single thing that happened in the Sinclair house, and it was exhausting.

He was always everywhere, disapproving, reprimanding, fucking watching me with those beautiful, judgmental eyes.

It had to piss him off more than anything that the only thing he couldn’t control was me.

It gave me a sick kind of satisfaction to press his buttons.

Men like Brody Sinclair, born with a silver spoon shoved up his peachy British ass, had never known real struggle or a day of suffering in their lives.

He was spoiled, privileged as fuck, and irritatingly confident, arrogant, and hot.

Okay, sure, he was hot as the day was long. Too bad about his personality.

As it stood, we might kill each other before the end of the semester.

I couldn’t say I blamed him… In fact, I was rooting for him.

Maybe, if I played my cards right, I didn’t have to destroy myself.

I could get Brody to do it.

And just like that, I had a plan.

Grab Vicious Obsession here!