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What have you learned, children? Whoever asks this directs the game to those younger than them.
Beckett is next in age and supposed to pick a line of poetry, the others will then add to his opening line.
He stares at the table. “I’m not playing.”
Eliot rises. “It was all decaying.”
Tom leans back. “I can feel us fraying.”
Ben opens his mouth to finish the poem. His eyes start filling with tears. And he buckles forward and cries into his palms.
My heart tears to shreds. Usually Beckett is the one to console our youngest brother. But his face contorts in pain, and he pushes out of the booth.
Leaving.
Charlie follows, their bodyguards leading the way. I worry that Beckett will go out tonight.
But quickly, I slip into the booth and hug Ben. He cries into my shoulder.
“He’ll be okay, Pippy,” I whisper, and I look up at Thatcher. He crouches so we’re more eye-level.
“I’ve asked Akara to put my brother with Beckett tonight. He agreed.”
Banks is doubling up on Beckett’s detail. I breathe easier. Banks will look after Beckett. I know Thatcher’s brother has been drinking, but definitely not enough to be more than buzzed.
“Thank you,” I say, my torn heart mending in a strong beat.
He nods and then holds out his pinky. “I promise we won’t fuck this.” He means forcing my brother on a plane. It’s going to take strength and terrible might. Together.
One hand on Ben’s head, I use my other and hook my pinky to my boyfriend’s. He kisses my knuckles, and my heart rises with a smile that shouldn’t exist.
Yet, he’s summoned one out of my soul. Reaching deeper inside me than anyone ever has or could.
And it’s terrifying.
11
THATCHER MORETTI
One month into the twisted Truth or Dare game, and some of the “tell us” questions have been like slogging through knee-deep cement.
Tell us your last sexual fantasy: Jane horizontal on a kitchen table while I pound my nine-inch dick inside her pussy.
I politely answered, sex on a table.
I got reamed for not including, with Jane.
It feels like I blow my shot to hell with every card flip. I piss off or irritate at least one Cobalt.
Jane’s response was more graphic, and I almost smiled when she described me pinning her against the wall. My hands cupping her ass, her legs hooked around my waist, my cock filling her to the brim with each thrust. Her face was bright red by the end of answering, but she did it.
Bolder and better than me.
The dares, on the other hand, are a cakewalk.
Strip to your underwear and watch Titanic four consecutive times.
Easy.
It took me back to Marine boot camp. Holding my piss while running a ridiculous amount of miles under 20 minutes. Having four Drill Instructors spit-yell insults and nonsense in my ear, their noses rubbing up against my nose while I couldn’t flinch.
Couldn’t talk.
I played this warped game of Simon Says where I’m never right, even when I am, and I still have to jump when I know the smarter route is to stand.
I’m fit for hell.
Semper Fi.
But Jane, the sweetest thing my arms have ever held—she’s fit for heaven. She was restless after the eight-hour mark but she persevered. The good: she was beside me.
The fucking weird: she had to strip in front of her brothers. But it’s not like they planned for her to be a part of the game. And she wouldn’t let them alter the tasks for her.
The cards almost made me forget about the parasite attached to my girlfriend.
Tony.
We’re 4 days out from Scotland, 4 days from executing the twin switch, and security prepping for departure shouldn’t be a war, but it feels like one.
“Back the fuck down,” I growl at a dark-haired, pale twenty-seven-year-old.
O’Malley has strawberry pink lips and snow globes for eyes: round, glassy, and full of shit. Bodyguards always talk about how he resembles that one actor in some airplane horror movie. Cillian Murphy, I think.
I’ve only really known O’Malley since he joined Epsilon four years ago—and no matter what, I would’ve protected him to the end like all the men on SFE. But right now, he respects me about as much as shit in a ditch.
He raises his hands in surrender. Like he didn’t just throw a grenade in Studio 9, the gym lit with fluorescent lights at oh-six-hundred.
“Nah, say it again,” Donnelly snaps, tossing his blue gloves on the mat.
Everyone is dripping sweat in workout gear. But this call time isn’t social hour. We’re here to discuss security protocols for Scotland. Which won’t happen until the Tri-Force arrive.
O’Malley stews, a twenty-pound dumbbell in his fist.
I narrow my gaze on him with intense warning. If he repeats what he just said, we’re going to have a fistfight before this meeting even begins.
Tension splits the air. Silence taut and uneasy.
Banks glances at me, cautious. We stand between the physical divide inside the team. On my nine, two Epsilon bodyguards hover near the boxing ring and free weights.
Tony and O’Malley.
The only ones who aren’t in on the twin switch.
On my three, red boxing bags hang from the rafters, and Oscar, Farrow, Donnelly, and Quinn just finished sparring.
Epsilon vs. Omega.
I feel the fracture between the two Forces more heavily because I’m the one who cracked a cavern between them.
Hurt flares in O’Malley’s eyes as he reroutes his lasered anger onto me. “Back the fuck down?” He repeats my earlier words and throws his dumbbell on the mat. “You’re telling me what to do.” He jabs a finger at his own chest.
I deserve his rage. I deserve a lot of bad shit coming at me, but my insides broil. Without breaking his gaze, I tighten my loose black handwraps. Biting my tongue.
“You’re not my lead anymore, Thatcher. You have about as much room to bark orders as a Doberman Pinscher.”
My face hardens. Guilt hammering down on me.
“Relax, O’Malley,” Banks says. “Thatcher’s just trying to avoid a blood bath.”
O’Malley clenches his jaw and mutters under his breath, but loud enough for me to hear. “And if he were better at his job, he would’ve thought about that before sleeping with his client.”
All month.
These comments have been chucked at me all fucking month. November into December, Epsilon bodyguards are now just the “shit on Thatcher” brigade.
I don’t care.
They can call me names.
They can curse me out.
I don’t fucking care. I did break a rule, and if this is one of the many consequences, I plan to bear the onslaught for as long I need to. But if someone wrenches Jane into this, I will end them.
That?
?s my line.
Clear in the motherfucking sand.
It hurts even knowing that months ago Farrow was in this exact position. And I was the asshole on the other side, berating him. Karma—it’s got its hands wrapped around my windpipe.
I want it to choke me.
Tony squints at O’Malley. “It’s not that big of a deal. Thatcher slept with a client. Who cares? Get over it.”
Bile rises to my throat. Tony defending me right now feels about as good as being run over by a cement truck. On any other topic, maybe it would be a bridge to rebuild our relationship, but him being calm and nonchalant about bodyguards sleeping with clients—it tweaks my nerves.
And I can’t even call him out on it without sounding like a raging hypocrite.
O’Malley frowns. “You’re new, Tony. You don’t understand how things work around here.”
Tony shrugs. “It has nothing to do with me being new. In my opinion, sleeping with a client shouldn’t even be a rule.”
My blood temp skyrockets, and I can’t shut my mouth. “I don’t need you defending me.”
Tony sets a glare on me. “The fact that my opinion leans in your favor does not mean I’m defending you, and what the fuck are you even doing here?” He motions to me with an angered hand. “This is a meeting for Scotland, and you’re not going on the trip.”
That’s what you think.
“Akara asked me to be here.” My voice is like hard cement. “You’re still on your probationary period with Jane, and I want to make sure you’re squared away before you leave.”
Fuck you.
Fuck off.
I force these back. Professional, stay fucking professional.
Tony crosses his arms, sweat staining his blue tee. “You’ve been breathing down my neck all month, Moretti. At this point, you either trust me to do my job or you don’t.”
A part of me does trust him—I hate that I trust him.
It’s why I can’t rip him away from Jane’s detail, but I’m not even here to triple-check Tony (though it’s a perk). I’m here because I’m the one traveling to Scotland, not Banks, and I’d rather be in this meeting than have Banks regurgitate everything back to me.
