Filed to story: Crushing on My Enemy Stepbrother
Abandoning his idiot proclamations, Callan shakes his head, ‘nah, just making your thick-skulled brother realise that he’s already got a ring on it and he doesn’t even know it.’
Gage’s face breaks into a smile, ‘about f*cking time’ he agrees, ‘I swear I thought she’d be married with kids to some douche before Cale here got his head out of his ass.’
I scowl at them both, ‘how long have you known?’ I demand, hell, I thought I had done an excellent job covering my ass until she came to work to bring me lunch.
Gage rolls his eyes, ‘dude, I knew when you followed us up to her room and almost ripped my head off my shoulders the day she arrived’ he retorts. ‘You literally hauled me out of the room and threw me toward the stairs! Damn, if I’d stumbled, and hit my face, I’d have had to resign my position as the most handsome twin.’
‘Plus if looks could kill, gage would have been dead just for touching her in the office’ Callan adds with a smirk.
‘F*ckers’ I growl in annoyance as they both grin at me with those arrogant smiles they have.
‘OK enough about my brother and his future wife’ Gage announces, ‘tell us what happened and why we are here, because I know damn well, you wouldn’t have called us over unless you were worried.’
Callan’s expression turns solemn as he turns to me, nodding, taking up his original place by the breakfast counter and waits expectantly for me to talk.
I suck in a breath, focusing my mind on everything I need to relay to the two closest people in my life.
‘I think Tessa’s in trouble’ I mutter, ‘tonight wasn’t an accident, someone intentionally tried to hurt her.’
Gage’s shoulders stiffen as Callan straightens up, anger simmering in his eyes as his jaw flexes, ‘how do you know?’ he demands.
‘Tessa’ I reply simply, ‘the car had no lights on, hit her from behind at the intersection and then kept shunting her forward into the path of a semi truck. If Tessa hadn’t slammed her foot on the accelerator, we’d be scraping her out of that damn car. When she got across, the car then followed her and rammed her off the road into the tree.’
Gage mutters a curse under his breath before tilting his head in my direction, ‘it could be a case of mistaken identity’ he offers. ‘Someone was looking for the same make car and Tessa was in the wrong place at the wrong time?’
I shake my head, reaching into my pocket and pulling out the small box that was on my windscreen, handing it silently to my brother, who takes it and opens it, Callan moving to see what’s inside.
Pulling out the photo, my brother’s gaze narrows as he turns it over and reads the words on the back.
‘Where did you get this?’ he asks harshly.
‘It was on my windscreen of my SUV’ I mutter, ‘someone placed it there whilst we were at work, walked right up to my car while we were inside working.’
Our best friend looks at me, ‘is this the only thing you’ve gotten?’
I shake my head slowly, grabbing my keys and heading out to my SUV, returning a few seconds later with the letter I’d thrown into my glovebox and forgotten about.
I hand that over too, and the two men lean closer to read it before Callan looks up and whistles.
‘It might not be any part of this’ I add, ‘I found it on my car outside of the gym, but just in case, I’m showing you.’
‘Why the hell didn’t you tell us before?’ he huffs, ‘we’re your brothers! We have each other’s backs.’
‘I thought that had been put on the wrong vehicle’ I retort defensively, ‘who in their right mind would write something like that to me? I don’t deserve anyone’s respect or admiration. But as it was also on my car, I thought I’d better let you see it.’
Gage nods thoughtfully, handing me back the note and box which I carefully tuck away in my pocket.
‘So what do we do now?’ he asks, ‘do we call the police?’
‘And say what?’ Callan huffs, ‘they’ll write a report if we are lucky, but most likely they’ll do nothing because other than a photo of Tessa, we have got no proof that she’s in danger.’
My brother snarls angrily, pacing the kitchen like a caged bear, ‘we can’t do nothing’ he snaps, ‘that’s our family, Tessa is our family and we protect our own.’
Callan nods immediately, ‘so we protect her’ he replies, looking at me expectantly.
I straighten up, nodding, ‘I’m not leaving her alone, not now’ I agree, ‘she goes nowhere alone, if I can’t be there, one of you needs to be with her. She’s not going to college tomorrow’ I add, ‘she’ll argue it with me, but she’s going to be in too much pain to sit in lectures all day.’
‘She’ll want to go back when her bruising goes down’ Callan points out, ‘she’s stubborn.’
I shrug, ‘that’s fine’ I reply, ‘but I’ll be sitting in there with her.’
Tessa’s POV
I lean my head against the edge of the bathtub, savouring the warmth of the water against the developing bruises on my body.