As adrenaline lines my veins, I race upstairs to find him. When I reach the top, I come face to face with Kai looking regal in his matching tuxedo, his suit white instead of black, and the matching mask.
Instead of saying anything, he leads me into our very own secret garden.
It’s a room within a room. It’s private and secluded, and if anybody was screaming, you wouldn’t be able to hear a single thing through the soundproof glass.
I smile to myself with pride at Kai’s well-thought-out plan, but just as I’m about to open my mouth to tell him so, I still.
Where’s my dad?
4
Kai
There are two types of people in the world. The ones who are born to loving homes and the ones that aren’t. The ones who get to enjoy life and the ones who have to fight to live it.
There’s the rich and the poor.
The beautiful and the ugly.
The good and the bad.
From the moment you’re born, the trajectory of your life has been decided. You were either held, or you were given away. You were either blessed with a lifetime of protection and an unbreakable bond, or you were cursed with a life of fake loyalty and circumstantial love.
I used to think there was no way you could straddle the middle.
No way you could be one and the other. I couldn’t understand how you could be rich and poor. Beautiful and ugly, good and bad.
Until I met him.
We were enemies.
Opposites.
Mismatched.
But then his dad married my mom in a volatile pairing of convenience, and we were programmed to be brothers. Getting close to him was supposed to be for show. A means to an end.
But much to my dismay, something tethered me to him from the very first time I laid eyes on him. It wasn’t the way he proudly wore my blood on his hands as he beat me to within an inch of my life. Or the way the anger on his face matched the never-ending hate in my heart.
It wasn’t that he lived a life of spoils and bounty and I came from nothing.
No.
It was the way he was with me after.
We would fight till we were a bloody mess, but then he would spend hours cleaning me up.
He would scream at me till he had no voice, but then he would hold me when I cried.
I felt it then. The little flickers of light inside me that would beam whenever he was around. The way every part of me yearned for his acceptance. For his attention. For his touch.
But it was the time his father tried to sell me as a business deal that I realized all I ever wanted from him was his undying love.
He saved me that night.
He became my protector, and I became indebted to him. I wanted him to have my loyalty. My love. My life.
For years after, we were bound together for reasons I never expected and ways I don’t think I’ll ever understand. We grew together. We learned together. We’re explosive as much as we are unbreakable. A contradiction of unease and comfort, hot and cold, good and bad.
Aggression turned into affection.
Hate turned into heat.
And lust turned to love.
We blurred all the lines, but it was never enough, he was still always so out of reach.
I hear the footsteps behind me, signalling he finally started walking again, and my heart threatens to beat right out of my rib cage. He’s here, and I’m finally about to tell him the truth. Tell him that I hurt him just so I can have him.
It’s a risk I’m willing to take. His hate, his wrath––nothing scares me, because tonight, dead or alive, we will finally be together.
“Where’s Dad?” he asks, his voice filled with nothing but weariness and trepidation.
Straightening my back, I turn to face him. Stepping closer, I will myself to feel as confident as Grayson always is.
“I didn’t bring him,” I say quietly.
He lifts the mask off his face, his brows furrowed. “Why not? We had a plan.”
“It wasn’t him,” I confess.
He shakes his head in confusion. “What do you mean it wasn’t him? What wasn’t him? How do you even know that?”
The questions come out in a hurried mass of confusion and nonsense, and the urge to calm him down takes over me. Boldly, I too take my mask off and throw it on the green velvet chesterfield sofa behind me.
I place my hands on either side of his face, and as I expected, the