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Lev
“Fucking wonderful.” I stare at Dad’s car in the drive and shut off the engine. I remove my helmet, but I don’t bother wheeling the bike in the garage because with my old man here, I don’t know how long I’ll be staying.
I wish the world knew Scout was mine. I wish I wasn’t her dirty little secret. Then I could put her on the back of my bike and just ride, to the city, to Coney Island, to fucking anywhere but here.
I flip the kickstand down and climb off. Then I place my helmet on top of the seat and head inside.
It’s unusually quiet—the calm before the storm. I always knew there was something wrong with our dad. He wasn’t nice to my friends like River’s dad, or a rock star who bent the rules like Saint’s. He encompassed everything powerful men in politics did. If you looked up the word asshole in a dictionary, Senator Fox’s face would be front and center.
Jessica races down the stairs, an ice pack clutched in her fingers and an overnight bag slung over her shoulder.
“Jesus Christ.”
Senator Fox is going to be paying a shitload in alimony and hush money over this one.
I step in front of her and she glares at me. “He did this?”
“Well, it sure as hell wasn’t Navrin.”
“You need a doctor. You can’t go to the hospital though.”
“Oh, I plan to do a lot more than that. I plan to go public.”
“Then you’ll die.”
She just blinks, and after a minute her features crumple and tears fill her eyes. “What?”
“Let’s just say Senator Fox’s dirty laundry never gets aired, because everyone who dares to speak out against him winds up six feet under.”
“What are you saying?”
I grab her shoulders out of frustration and grit my teeth. “You talk, and you die, Jessica. I can’t put it more plainly. What the hell do you think happened to my mother?”
“She left you.”
“She had an affair; she was leaving Dad and she planned to take us with her. The senator came home from his campaign tour early. They fought well into the night, and the following morning Mom was gone, but not by choice.”
She shakes her perfectly styled red locks. “How ... how do you know this?”
“Because I saw the blood on the rug in his office. I saw the men he paid to get rid of her body.”
“He wouldn’t ... he ... I ...”
“Get the fuck out of town, change your name, fly to the fucking Caribbean if you have to—just get the hell out of dodge before he finds you and disposes of you the way he did his first wife.”
Thud. Thud. Crash.
Jess and I both glance at the stairs.
“What the fuck is going on here?” Dad yells.
“Dad!” Navrin shouts, and a second later a scream fills my ears. A voice I’d know anywhere, belonging to a girl I’d give my life to protect. I dart around Jessica and take the stairs two at a time.
The screaming continues, and then my brave, stupid girl says, “Get off him.”
I round the corner and run toward Nav’s room just in time to see Scout launch herself at my dad’s back. He’s bent over Nav, who’s slumped on the floor and can’t get up. Dad hurls her off and onto the bed, but she gets to her feet before he has time to turn around and I lunge, yanking him by the collar of his starched white shirt.
I can smell the bourbon on his breath and the sharp tang of blood on the air. My twin’s blood. Blood only I’m allowed to spill. I slam Dad into the wall, pressing my elbow against his throat. The fucker laughs. There’s nothing but hate and rage in his eyes.
Well, they always said I was the spitting image of my father.
“Lay a fucking finger on her again and I’ll slit your goddamn throat, old man.” Rage twists my words until they’re barely more than a growl. Behind me, Scout’s footfalls are hushed by the carpet. Her voice is panicked but quiet as she tries to rouse my brother. “Don’t think I won’t do it.”
“You’re not man enough.”
“Just fucking try me,” I hiss, shoving my forearm harder against his windpipe. “You taught me everything I know about pain, about how to make someone bleed, and how to hit just right to make it hurt for hours. So unless you want your squeaky clean image tarnished or your fucking face rearranged for your rally tomorrow, I suggest you fuck right off and go back to the cave you crawled out of.”
I let him go and he slumps against the wall. “You ungrateful little fucks. You know you were an accident. I didn’t want kids; your mother tricked me into getting her pregnant.”
“Yeah, Dad, we know. Now fuck off back to the city. It’s not like you had a hand in raising us anyway. We’ve got it from here.”
“Watch your back, you little punk,” he spits the words like venom from a King Cobra as he slowly gets to his feet and walks to the door.
“As long as you watch yours, Senator.” I growl.
He leaves, and I walk over to my inert brother and crouch down beside him. I check his pulse. Steady. He’ll wake up soon. I think. Like either of us need another fucking concussion.
Tears fall from Scout’s long lashes as she glances up at me, her bottom lip trembling, her eyes wide and fearful. I reach out and cup her cheek in one hand. “You okay?”
She nods and leans into my touch. “I was so scared. I’ve never seen him like that. I knew he was an asshole, but I didn’t know—”
“I would never let him hurt you.”
Scout’s features twist in a pained smile. Nav groans and comes to, and I remove my hand from his girlfriend’s face because the last thing I need right now is a fight with my twin.
“What happened?” Nav murmurs as I slide my shoulders under his and help him to his feet. We walk slowly to the bed, where I make him lie down.
“Dad happened.”
“Oh fuck. Scout?” he says her name like a prayer and guilt and jealousy war within me. She didn’t know, because he never told her. Like me, he’d kept that side of our life hidden, out of embarrassment, out of fear—who knows? I’ve only ever told Saint, but River clued on pretty fast when his mom has been called to our house in the past to help patch me up. Nav rarely gets hit, because I’ve always been there to step in for him. I hate that I was too late today.
“I’m here.” She climbs onto the bed beside him and squeezes his hand.
He cups her face. “Did he hurt you?”
“I’m fine.”
I stare intently at her. She doesn’t mention that our dad practically threw her across the room for trying to protect him and I know why—because Nav will just beat himself up for it. He’d never forgive himself. I bite down on the inside of my cheek as I watch them.
Nav closes his eyes, breathing rapidly in and out through his nostrils. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. I’m sorry,” he whispers into her hair.
I can’t watch this. I can’t compete with the intimacy they share. For a little more than a year, she’s been his everything. They’ve been everything to one another. And I’ve never been more aware of that than I am right now. My brother breaks down as he clutches a crying Scout to his chest, and I walk away, because this moment isn’t meant for me.
“Lev?” Scout says, sucking in a breath and wiping the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand. She climbs off the bed and walks toward me.
“It’s okay. I’m just going to call River’s mom. Nav’s probably just got another concussion.”
“Mrs. Astor?”
“She used to be a doctor. She’s helped us before.”
Her brows crease and she looks up at me with those shining blue eyes. I want to hold her. I want to cling to her the way my brother just did, but it isn’t my place. It’s his. Besides, one of us has to stay strong. One of us has to make sure we’re both protected, and that someone’s always been me. “How often does this happen?”
“Often enough.”
“Why haven’t you ever—”
“Do me a favor and don’t pity us, okay? I can handle it. I’ve been handling it.”
“Lev—”
“Cub, don’t push me right now.”
“Or what? You’ll do to me what your father did?” she whispers in a snide hiss.
“Are you fucking serious? You really think I’m as big a monster as my father?”
Her shoulders fall and she buries her head in her hands for a beat before looking at me with tears tracking down her face. “I didn’t ... I didn’t mean that. I’m just ... I don’t know what I meant. I think I’m in shock.”
“You should go home, Cub. You can’t do anything here.”
“I want to stay.”
“Thought you’d say that.” I shake my head and walk downstairs as Nav calls to her.
Twenty minutes later, River and Gabriella Astor file into Nav’s room. She carries out a bunch of physical tests to determine the concussion and looks at me. “How did he do this?”
“We were dicking around. Roughhousing,” I answer coolly.
Scout’s head snaps toward mine and I’m sure she’s wearing a look of disbelief. I don’t take my eyes off Gabriella though. I know she’s aware there’s more going on in this house than we let on. “And that black eye I treated last week?”
I shrug. “Football injury.”
She sighs. “Lev, you’re insulting my intelligence.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, ma’am. Boys will be boys, right?”
“If there’s something more going on here, if your dad is hurting you both—”
“We’ve got it under control.”
“If by ‘control’ you mean you’re both getting beaten up by your father on the regular, then I can totally see you have.”
I grit my teeth and breathe slowly through my nose, praying for patience. “Our eighteenth birthday is less than a month away.”
“I’m legally obligated to report this.”
“Report what? You have no proof.”
“Lev,” River says. “She’s just trying to help.”
“Then patch my brother up and be on your way,” I say, pushing past River through the bathroom and into my bedroom where I slam the door.
Shortly after, their voices trail down the stairs and the front door closes. Nav’s TV echoes through the bathroom and I flop down on my bed and stare at my ceiling. I’m restless. Antsy. I want to crawl out of my skin and be wrapped in hers, but I need to stop thinking that way. I need to stop this. I’ve spent my whole life protecting my brother, preventing him from the bruises and the hurt, and I’ve spent every second since that first day I stood up to our father resenting Nav for it. I may have protected him from our dad, but I can’t protect him from this secret forever. No beating could ever hurt as much, or scar as deep, as finding out I’ve stolen his girl.
***
LONG AFTER THE TV IS turned off in my brother’s room, I quietly head downstairs and raid the fridge for something to eat. Dawn, our housekeeper, often leaves food for us boys in the fridge as she knows we don’t have a functional parent. Earlier today, she left a whole dish of tamales. I take it out and serve some up on a plate, then I turn and find Scout standing in the kitchen nearby and I raise my brows in question.
She nods and props herself up on the barstool across from me. “I’m starving.”
“Well, we can’t have you wasting away to nothing, now, can we?” I say and plate up another portion, this one a good deal smaller than my own. I place hers in the microwave and meet her gaze. “You need to keep your strength up. Nursing Nav back to health is going to require stamina.”
She frowns. “That’s not fair.”
“Are you still fucking him?”
“Not right at this moment. No,” she mocks. “Are you still fucking Charleigh Waters?”
“You know what I mean.”
“As do you. My question still stands.”
I shake my head. “Charleigh Waters is incidental.”
“Am I incidental too?”
“You’re fucking everything!” I close my eyes and pinch the bridge of my nose. “Charleigh is expendable. A girl willing to satisfy me because she thinks she has an in with The Royals. But we both know Nav means more to you than that.”
“What are we supposed to do, Lev?”
I listen to the house creak and settle, glance at the stairs to make sure we’re still alone, then I reach out to tug on a lock of her silky dark hair. “We aren’t supposed to do anything, Cub. We are supposed to be enemies.”
“But we’re not.”
“Aren’t we?” I walk away, because if I don’t, I’m afraid I’ll kiss her. I’ll fuck her right here on our kitchen counter. Again. And this time, I won’t let her go back to my brother’s bed.
“Lev, where are you going? You haven’t eaten.”
“I’ve lost my appetite.”