My eyes ventured from him to my hands. Blood. So much blood. It coated my skin, dripping down my wrists and onto the floor. Flesh was buried deep under my fingernails, and a solitary pubic hair protruded from the edge of my thumbnail.
The bile that had been stuck in my throat spewed with the contents of my stomach and my knees buckled with the force of it, forcing me to crumble in on myself. My hands slapped onto the floor as another wave of vomit burst from me. My stomach churned and water dripped from my eyes as my sanity broke and I screamed with every single heave of devastation.
Shoes came into my line of sight and I scuttled back, huddling myself into the wall as I tried to back away from him. I was trapped between his menacing form and the wall that felt like cotton against his frightening glare. I knew he wouldn’t hurt me, he would have done it already, right? But it didn’t stop the panic now I’d seen what he could do…and it didn’t stop me glancing behind him, around him, above him. Anything to make sense of what was happening.
“You’re hurt,” he said gently, lifting his own hands quickly to placate me as he dropped to crouch before me. “Let me help you.”
Me.
But which one? Who was going to help me? Who was going to come to my rescue and, could I let them?
A wave of pain made my breath catch and my hands instinctively made to grab my belly. It was then I realised the blood that covered my hands was mine. Trickling. Pumping out with every beat of my heart. Soaking into my clothes as the adrenaline kicked in and told me to run. Where have you been, adrenaline? I could have used this warning months ago. The gash continued to seep and I became consciously aware of the pang of copper, the metallic smell so potent I could taste it. The pain. God, the pain. What had happened to me? How had I got here?
Out of it all…the dead man hideously still staring at me. The cruel break in my sanity. The vicious tremor racking my bones. The deafening rush of blood in my ears. The rapidly dimming double vision. The music that continued to pound, over and over, like a ticking time bomb. It had been counting down for some time - I realised that now. The few remaining grains of sand tumbled into the funnel to settle on a discarded pile of morality and with them, my mind began to slip. It was the sight of my own blood that forced my brain to offer me a reprieve and swallow me in the depths of unconsciousness.
Blackness consumed me as strong arms pulled me in.
Twenty-Six
I woke up to the scent of betrayal. I wasn’t in my home, in my bed. I was in his—their—home, in their bed. My eyes were heavy and the constant beeping of machines made me growl. I didn’t open my eyes, but I could flex my fingers, and I did, over and over again.
“Harley…”
Whose voice was it? Carter 1 or Carter 2? I couldn’t tell. Why the fuck couldn’t I tell? How had I fallen for a man who was two men? They’d been playing me all along and I’d been the perfect fucking mouse to two savage, unfeeling cats.
“Harley,” he said again.
“What?” I snapped. “What do you want?”
“How are you feeling?”
“Like you give a shit.”
“At least she still has fire,” the other Carter said.
The only way I could tell who was talking was to listen…go figure. I should have done that before. The first Carter was close to me, the other a few feet behind him. They were here, together, and I was stuck blind and immobile.
“Why am I here?” I asked, turning my head to gage my surroundings.
“Something happened,” Carter 2 said.
“No shit, Sherlock.”
“You were stabbed. I didn’t see the knife when we came in. Jamie had it between you while he…” He paused and cleared his throat. “The knife went in as I killed him.”
I didn’t say anything. I remembered the blood. I remembered the pain. I felt the pain now, like it was happening all over again.
“You’re here so I can look after you,” he said.
I heard his smile, his beautiful fucking smile. I imagined his eyes sparkling as he looked at me, trying to hide that we were doing more than just fucking, because he cared. He really cared. Did he?
“What happened?”
My voice was croaky, my throat dry. I felt like I was trembling from the inside out, beginning in my spine and rippling out to make my fingers numb.
“Mole.”
I screamed, my back arching off the bed as I gripped the sheets and cried out for the man who had ruined me—again.
“Don’t say his name!”
“Open your eyes, babe.”
“No. Don’t say his fucking name again.”
Visions of him lying on the floor in my basement, his gut exposed by his lack of pants and the shirt that had slipped up his body with the force of him being dragged away from me. I remembered the way he looked at me, like a filthy cannibal ready to eat me alive just because I was Frank Davids’ daughter. Why? What did my dad have to do with the mess that had become my life since the day he’d been killed?
“You ruined everything,” I said, falling back into an almost sedate state.
“He was going to kill you.”
“I know.”
Silence descended over the room as the reality of what I’d said sunk in. I’d been prepared to die. I hadn’t killed Michael and I’d given up, in my basement, with Jamie on top of me promising to eat me alive, make me bleed out like Evan, my parents, and Henry, my beautiful baby brother. I’d given up, resigned to dying because I didn’t believe anyone had the ability to save me. Mole wasn’t supposed to come for me, but he had…and it turned out he’d held all the answers I would now never have.
“What did we ruin, babe?” Carter 1 asked, taking hold of my hand.
I tried to pull away, but he was too strong. He linked his fingers with mine and settled them both on my stomach. I hated that I loved it. I hated that I loved it just as much when another hand took mine and held it on the bed.
“No,” I said, shaking my head and forcing my muscles to relax so I couldn’t hold either of them back. “I’m done being the toy. If you want me to let you in, you have to make the first move. I’m done being in the dark.”
“My name is Rome Carter,” Carter 1 said, stroking his thumb over the back of my hand.
I recognised him as the man who was the neat-freak. The way he stroked my hand to illicit comfort he was convinced he lacked the ability to do, made me acutely aware of all the times he’d been with me. He’d met me on my run, he’d taken me for coffee… the one who had found me with Bill in the gallery and held me with a little more force than necessary.
“And I’m Jobe Carter,” Carter 2 said, immediately drawing my attention to the spark in his voice.
He was a live-wire. He was the Carter I’d met in the club, the one who had held me against the window in the apartment…. he’d been with me when I found Evan.
I noticed it now, the subtle differences in them. Why hadn’t I noticed them before and seen beyond the lies?
“I would say it’s nice to meet you,” I seethed, taking a deep breath as my chest began to tighten. “But really, I’m just looking forward to never having to see you again.”
“Rome and Jobe operate as one person,” Rome continued. “For many reasons, pretty girl. Mainly because one man can’t be a hitman and run the city’s most successful nightclub at the same time, and an alibi is always constant, of course. There are a handful of people in the world who know there are two of us, and you’ve now made that very short list.”
“So you see,” Jobe continued, his edgy deviance creeping over me. He was—or at least appeared to be—the most unstable. “We can’t just let you leave.”
“I’m not going to tell. You know I’ve got nothing left and you ruined all hope I had of finding a future.”
“Babe,” one of them said. I couldn’t tell which. The way they said ‘babe’, radiated with the same hunger and conflicting adoration, was the same, regardless of which tongue it rolled from. “We’re helping you.
The mission isn’t over. Whatever this is between us…it’s far from over.”
“It’s a sick love triangle I have no interest in. I’ve been shared around enough.” I sat up, keeping my eyes squeezed shut despite the urge to look and see my nightmare in the flesh. “You knew that and you exploited it.”
“Dude, just leave her. She’s difficult as fuck and we’ve got to track Michael down.”
Rome had said that, but it was something that I had suddenly attributed to the Jobe Carter I’d spent time with. He spoke like his brother, but in the confusing way that snagged my attention and ensnared me like a moth to a flame. I was drawn to both of them, equally, inexplicably, and hopelessly.
I was done.
“Yeah, you should go.”
Sliding back down the bed, I winced when the sharp twinge in my stomach stole my breath and I curled up in the foetal position.
“Hey,” Jobe said, reaching out to stroke my hair away from my face. “We’ll look after you. I told you that you can trust me. You can trust us both. You’ve cracked the code, and everything will be alright.”
What the fuck was he on? I pulled my body away from him, forcing myself to breathe through the pain, until I’d heard them both leave and close the door behind them.
Then, and only then, did I allow a tear to fall.
After the first incident, Rome and Jobe visited me separately, bringing me food and drinks, walking me to the bathroom, and standing outside while I showered.
I morphed into a shell of my former self, and when I began to feel the effects of cocaine withdrawal, I realised why they were keeping me here. I was given an iPad and I used it to google the effects of going cold turkey on Cloud. First on the list was a crash, and I’d suffered a write-off. I realised that every ounce of confidence I’d possessed, every slice of aggression that had kept me focussed, was because of cocaine. Without it I was nothing but a vessel harbouring shame and regret. Second on the list was intense craving. I’d stooped lower than I ever would have imagined going, screaming from my bed for Carter—either one—to give me a hit. Just one hit. I needed it. I needed it. They hadn’t given in, refusing to budge. Instead of giving in to my demands and the negotiations I’d tried to make, they locked me in the bedroom, turned the music up, and had a party in the penthouse apartment of Chimera. I fucking hated them for it…until symptom number four arrived—fatigue. I was so tired. I slept most of every day away, waiting for the cravings and willingness to shamelessly offer things in exchange for the only thing I had left to fade. It took weeks. Sickness ravaged my body, making me puke throughout the day, until my cravings for Cloud morphed into hunger for endless bowls of Coco-Pops and ice cold milk. I was irritable and aggressive, striking Carter—either one—every time they came too close, or spoke in a way that made it impossible to know who I was talking to. They took it, allowing me to battle with my own mind, and I saw the hope in their bicoloured eyes that I would make it through the tunnel. Paranoia stole me from fully functioning as a human. Why were they keeping me here? What did they want? What would happen if I pushed too far? Was this the end? Were they just delaying the inevitable before they rammed a bullet in my skull?
“Harley!”
Rome shot into the room when I’d finished my bowl of Coco-Pops and tried hacking at my wrists with my spoon. He stole it from my grasp and threw it across the room as Jobe burst in, attracted by the rough growl that left his brother. I flinched, bringing my knees up to my chest as far as I could, and shuffling backwards to press my back to the leather headboard.
“For fuck’s sake, Harley.”
“Don’t.” I snapped, smacking him away and pulling the duvet up to my neck. “Don’t judge me when I’m stuck in here, reduced to a prisoner. A fucking junkie worth nothing!”
“That’s not what we think, pretty girl,” Jobe said, joining his brother on the bed on the other side of me. “We need you to break this addiction. When you have, you can come out and we’ll work through this.”
Now he was talking like Rome, the soft side they both hated to expose breaking free. I gripped two fistfuls of hair and stared between them.
“I can’t do this.”
“Babe…”
“It’s not the addiction. I’m over it,” I lied, knowing the only way to get through to them. “I can’t stand…”
“Go on,” Jobe said, excitement lighting up his eyes. The green one became a meadow warmed by the summer sun, and the blue one became the Caribbean ocean, vibrant and breath-taking.
“I…”
“Is it the frustration?” Rome asked, drawing my attention from his brother to him.
He licked his full bottom lip and snagged it between his teeth. I nodded.
“It’s common,” Jobe said, snaring my gaze again. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay,” I clipped, each word accentuated and aggressive.
“It’s just a side-effect,” Rome said, placing his hand on my knee and encouraging me to straighten my legs. He settled his hand on my thigh when I’d complied.
Shaking my head, I whispered, “It’s not.”
“So what is it?”
“Confusion.”
It wasn’t a lie. I was confused. I was conflicted. I needed to bring the two halves of my soul, half in Jobe’s grasp and the other half belonging to Rome, back together.
“Have you tried?” Jobe asked, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear before his hand mirrored Rome’s. “To make yourself come?”
I nodded. I had. I’d been alone for weeks, after months of sex with not just one virile man with stamina to match the gods, but with two of them—replicas. Twins. I’d tried every night for the past week, to part my legs and close my eyes as I imagined Carter—when he was just one man—making me come like only he could. It hadn’t worked, not once. I couldn’t find an ounce of pleasure by my own hand, and I knew it wasn’t because cocaine withdrawal led to the inability to feel pleasure.
“Have you thought about doubling the stimulant?” Rome asked, squeezing my thigh. I jumped and, for the first time in weeks, heat flared deep in my core and I closed my legs.
“W-what?”
“Well, Harley…” Jobe’s thumb dug into the soft flesh and I stilled, focussing on the tiny shred of stimulation as he circled the digit and looked at Rome. “One man might not be enough to pop the cork on your inability to come, but what about…”
“Two men,” Rome whispered, leaning over me to kiss my neck. I sighed, but shook my head.
“I’m not that girl,” I lied. A blatant fucking lie. “I’m not going to give you reason to punish me for fucking you both.”
“Clever girl,” Rome said as his teeth grazed the sensitive spot behind my ear. “But we’re not going to punish you. What happens when you fall for twins?”
“I didn’t know you were a twin!”
I tried to push him away, but he chuckled, sending goose bumps over my skin. A second pair of lips touched my neck as Jobe mirrored his brother’s actions.
“What happens when twins fall for the same girl?” Jobe asked. “Are we supposed to fight over who has you?” I shook my head. “And then we figured, why can’t we both have you?”
“I’m scared you’re playing me. This isn’t right.”
“This started as a game, babe,” Rome said, grabbing my breast and squeezing hard.
“It has become an obsession,” Jobe added, scraping his nails over my nipple, hard and erect under my t-shirt.
“I…”
“Shh…” they whispered together, each of them taking one of my legs and parting them, pinning me beneath their bodies.
“I just…”
“Want to come?”
I nodded.
“Want to figure this strange connection out?”
I nodded again.
“So do we.”
The duvet was whipped off me, and it settled somewhere on the floor across the room. Rome tore at my t-shirt, sucking a nipple into his mouth while he massaged the other b
reast in his rough hand. Jobe gripped my underwear and tore it in two, cupping my pussy and sinking a finger in deep. I threw my head back and moaned. I didn’t care how loud. I didn’t care how needy. I was safe with the Carters and they’d given me permission to let my whore free in their bed. Jobe’s fingers fucked me with abandon, his mouth closing around my other nipple as Rome reached between us and dexterous fingers found my clit. I bucked against them, wrapping my arms around their shoulders to watch them take control of my body. The groans and moans of approval that left through their parted lips made me arch my back in a silent plea for more.
Grabbing my wrist, Rome guided my hand between us and settled my palm over the hard bulge in his pants. Without instruction, my free hand moved between Jobe’s legs and I stroked them simultaneously. Our breaths became a heavy cocktail of lust and forbidden desire. Our moans became a symphony of deviance. Our hands roamed harder, hips ground with fervour and, eventually, my mouth was seized by Rome, his tongue forcing its way inside my mouth to show me just how much this was not a game. He tasted of beer and cigarettes. I was fascinated by him, meeting his tongue with my own so I could explore this and figure it out, like they’d said.
Wait…did they expect me to choose?
I broke free from Rome’s mouth and gasped, my lips swollen and tingling from his assault. Before I could cry and ask them if this was their game plan, Jobe crashed his lips to mine, filling my mouth with the flavour of the same beer as his brother, and the subtle taste of weed. I gripped the back of his neck as Rome’s lips skated down my body. His teeth grazed my stomach and over my hip bones as his brother took my bottom lip between his teeth and resumed the kiss. My back arched when Rome dived between my legs and his mouth covered my pussy as he sucked hard on my clit.
“God!” I cried, pushing Jobe away to take a breath.
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