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I shot him an irritated glare. “For what?” I clenched my jaw. Benji had said and done a lot of dumb shit over the years, but trying to keep Sutton away from Quinny had to be a new kind of stupid for him. Anything that would have a negative effect on my soulmate, I didn’t fuck with, and right now, Benji’s choices had me side-eyeing his ass.

“’Cause I didn’t want her to tell Sutton about Melinda before I had the chance to. Sutton would kill me if she found out about Melinda from anyone else but me. I just haven’t found the right time to tell her,” he said, sounding sad, but I didn’t give a fuck.

I loved the fuck outta Benji, but this Melinda situation was dumb as fuck and avoidable. He should have told Melinda what it was as soon as he found out who Sutton was to him. All this tryna spare Melinda’s feelings was causing more trouble than it was worth. I got he’d been with Melinda for over a hundred years, and he had some kind of feelings for her. But that didn’t trump the feelings of his soulmate. I doubted those feelings came anywhere close in comparison to what he felt for Sutton.

“Bro, you fried as fuck,” Tahji chuckled, shaking his head and sitting back against the seat.

“I’m really not, though,” Benji denied. “I told Melinda about Sutton. She knows all about her. She just asked if I could hold off until after her birthday party before we told everyone about Sutton being my soulmate,” he snapped, as if his anger scared Tahji or me. Neither of us gave a fuck, and we were going to still call him out on his bullshit.

“To pacify Melinda, you’d rather sneak around, lie to your soulmate, and keep her from her sister? Yeah, that makes a bunch of sense,” I sarcastically replied.

Benji grunted. He was mad. Benji hated being called out on his shit when he was the one in the wrong. Let it be someone else who fucked up, he’d be front and center, ready to dig into their shit. I’d always have Benji’s back, but I wouldn’t justify him when he was in the wrong. I might not call him out in front of others. However, once we got alone, I’d be on his ass every time, Tahji too. I was my brothers’ keeper, and I’d always make sure they both were good in every aspect of their lives.

“Goofy-ass mutha fucka,” Tahji chuckled in disbelief.

“Fuck you, Tahji. You judging me, but you better hope you don’t be in the same situation in a few hundred years. It ain’t like Koa your soulmate, yet you finna marry her, not knowing when your soulmate is going to come,” Benji lashed out at Tahji.

Benji and Tahji always argued about the dumbest shit. Not to get it confused, they’d fuck anybody up over each other. Them mutha fuckas even tried to gang up on my ass when I tried to defuse one of their arguments. After that, I let their whiny asses fight with each other. The only time I intervened was if it got too serious, which wasn’t often. I always said Tahji was Benji reincarnated. That’s why they fought so much.

“Nah, fuck boy. If my soulmate did show up at any point, I’d drop Koa so fucking fast she wouldn’t be able to see straight,” Tahji cockily replied.

“Whatever you say,” Benji dejectedly sighed, clearly not in the mood to keep going back and forth with Tahji because he was never the one who gave in so quickly.

“Let’s go. Y’all can argue later,” I said as we pulled into the driveway of Benji’s lake house.

Any other time, I wouldn’t have cared about them arguing, but we still had to get to Quinny. I had no idea what he could have been doing to her. It didn’t sit right with my soul that Dante’s soulmate was with them either. Soulmates were possessive, and the fact that Quinny used to be with Dante meant his soulmate would have it out for Quinny. I didn’t think Dante would do anything to hurt Quinny. His soulmate was another story, and I’d hate to have to fuck that bitch up, but I wasn’t above it.

The three of us hopped out of my car. Benji’s house looked undisturbed on the outside; only a few lights were on in the house. Thankfully, this house wasn’t as big as our mansions. It was only one level. A simple ranch-style house that Benji used as his hideaway when he wanted to take time for himself.

Benji wasted no time walking up to his front door. He twisted the knob, and the door came open. He looked back at us, then said, “I never leave my door unlocked, and Sutton hasn’t either since she’s been here.”

Cautiously, he opened the door, and we followed behind him. I closed the door behind us as we headed into his house. Benji flicked on the hallway light. Everything looked like no one had been here. Nothing like the mess at my house.

“You think Sutton could have left on her own?” I asked because something wasn’t adding up. If Sutton was anything like Quinny, she had to be a fighter, and Kenji’s house wouldn’t be as neat as it currently was.

“Nah, Sutton’s not going to just leave me on her own,” Benji confidently said.

“Don’t be too sure about that.” We heard Sutton’s voice; however, we couldn’t see her. It sounded like her voice was coming out of a speaker of some sort.

A smile covered Benji’s face. “Why are you in the safe room, Sutton?” Relief was evident in his voice.

“Because some of your vampire friends came in the front door talking out the side of their necks, so I hid from them,” Sutton replied smartly.

“Can you come out so I can see you?” Benji asked in a calm, soothing tone. “I wanna ask you a couple of questions.”

“Boy, fuck you.” Sutton scoffed. “You ain’t been to see me in two damn days. You’ll survive another day without seeing me.”

Tahji snickered at Sutton’s smart mouth. Benji shot Tahji with a threatening look that only made him laugh more.

“Sutton,” Benji said her name as he exhaled deeply, “I know you mad at me right now, but thi—”

Sutton cut Benji off, laughing. “Kiss my ass. I don’t give a fuck what you have time for. When I wanted to see yo’ tall, lanky, knock-kneed ass, you never showed up. Now I don’t have time for you.”

As much as I liked hearing Sutton give Benji shit, I had to get them back on track. Quinny was still out there somewhere, and we needed to get to her and find out as much as we could about whoever else was working with Dante’s bitch ass.

“Hey, Sutton,” I called out to her. “I know you mad at my brother, but I think the vampires who came in here took Quinny a—”

“Why didn’t y’all lead with that?” Sutton shrieked. Then, a few seconds later, a few feet in front of us, a panel on the wall slammed open, and Sutton came out.