AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I press a hand to my side, over the bandage I slapped there, over the shallow knife cut.
Last thing I wanna deal with right now, this damn event. Yesterday I spent hours staring at my To Do list—the catering, the graphics I need to go get and have approved by Rafe Vestri. Then the requested journalist interviews, the table and chair rentals—and managed nothing. I wonder how long it will be before I’m kicked out and fired for missing deadlines and botching things up.
Goddammit, I never thought I’d amount to much, and these past weeks it looks like I’m living up to that promise. Motherfucking loser, my dad used to yell at me. Useless little punk. Worthless piece of shit. Then my aunt finished the job, never missing a chance to tell me what a freak I am.
Yeah. Try finding any faith in yourself after nearly twenty years of being told you’re good for nothing.
If I didn’t have my brother, I don’t know where I’d be. He counteracted the poison, always telling me I could do this. That he believed in me.
“Raine, you there?” he barks in my ear, and I blink. “Raine.”
I wonder how long he’s been talking to me with no reply that he had to resort to my full name. He rarely uses it. Hates it, like he hates his own. It was a cruel joke our mom played on us. She thought it funny to call us, Storms, by these names. Ocean Storm—and Raine Storm.
Fuck her. Any goodwill I might have harbored toward her, even after everything, vanished the moment she swindled Ocean out of his money and his last shreds of belief in humankind’s kindness.
He deserves better. So how much can I tell him?
“Raine! Come on, man, you’re giving me the creeps. What did our old man say? What did he do? I swear, if he as much as touched you…”
“I’m okay. I’ll meet you—”
“Stay put, I’m on my way. Be there in ten.”
And he hangs up.
Older brothers. I sigh and toss my phone on the bed beside me, brace my hands on the edge of the mattress and stare down at my bare feet.
I wanted to keep Ocean out of this. Looks like it’s out of my hands now.
It fucking sucks.
When the doorbell rings, I realize I’m still in the kitchen in my underwear, so I go pull on a pair of sweats. By the time I reach the door, my ears are ringing from the incessant noise.
“Stop leaning on the goddamn doorbell,” I mutter, open the door and step aside to let my brother in.
He enters like a man-shaped storm, blue hair standing up, eyes narrow, pointing a finger at me. “You’re freaking me out.”
My muscles are locking up with tension just looking at him. “I said I’m fine. Cool down. I just made coffee. Want some?”
“I don’t want any fucking coffee.” He’s giving me a once-over, and I know the moment he zeroes in on the bruises. “What the fuck?”
Hey, they’re hard to miss. My arms, my ribcage, my neck, and then there’s the white bandage over my ribs. I’m so colorful this morning.
I back away from him. “Easy, Shun.”
“He did this to you?”
I bristle at the implication our old man could do this to me. “I’m a grown man, Shun. Takes more than one old guy to beat me up.”
“So someone did beat you up and slice you open.”
Of course he’d pick up on that immediately. “Just… sit, okay?” He may or may not want coffee, but I need my caffeine. “Be right back.”
“Not going anywhere,” he mutters darkly.
Right.
I return with two steaming mugs and pass him one as I settle on the sofa. He’s taken the armchair, shoulders tense, jaw set, brows knit, looking ominous, like Iron Man or something.
