Page 21 of Poison Aches

I shake my head.

“No,” I say in a clipped tone, wanting him to drop it.

The truth is, I envy him.

I envy Alex King, even the twins, George and Astraea Fields.

I envy their carefree, healthy lives.

Even though they’re bound by the secrets and ties of being the Blue families, they still get to be just kids.

They still get to enjoy the next few years with no burdens.

They still have their parents in the picture. Well, most of them anyway.

“Happy birthday,” I finally mutter, ready to end the call. I don’t like talking to Noah for long. He’s nosy.

“Yeah, whatever, just come back soon. This isn’t the same without you.” The line goes dead.

I want to feel something like hope when I hear those words.

Hope that maybe I am useful, and that my life is necessary.

I want to feel something like gratitude that there are people in this world that care for me, but I just don’t.

The simple truth is, the angel of death appeared—and she did what I knew she would.

Unleash a kind of chaos that I never imagined possible.

And now I’m paying for those consequences.

I really should’ve let her jump…rid myself of this…but no, I jumped with her.

A knock sounds from the door to my left, the one Mom had installed in secret, without my father knowing. She went to great lengths just to fire architects and builders so that the final blueprint of the mansion does not show the true schematic of the place.

The door opens noiselessly, and I watch as Kai and Ty walk in stealthily.

When it comes to moving without being seen, these two are not just the best, they are experts.

No one knows that they are here, just as no one knew they were at the cliff that night, in the shadows.

My mother rescued the twins when she was in Columbia, doing the Family’s business.

They’d been trafficked from their mother in Belgium by their Japanese-Colombian father.

Then they were beaten and tortured into submission before they were sold in auction rings to be anything the underbelly required.

When Mom saw them, they’d just fought an entire gang of fifteen men, suffered heavy injuries, but still managed to run away, they were starving and dying on the streets.

She took them in, and quickly flew back home to have them treated by the best doctors.

After that, Kai and Ty gave their complete devotion to my mother and committed their lives to serving and protecting her.

It became obvious to my mother that the part-Dutch, part-Japanese-Colombian twins were well versed in the ways of not just the Mafia, but also the Japanese Yakuza, so Mom kept them secret.

Once they healed, Daphne, as the heiress of the Easton Family, sent the twins for intense training and hazing as new recruits of the Outfit, but they only had one boss and it wasn’t Grandfather.

Being older than me by eleven years, they’ve been my shadows from the time I was old enough to realize two things.

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