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RIVER

Knock. Knock. Knock.

The pounding of a fist against my bedroom door dragged me out of sleep with all the subtlety of a blast of icy water to my face.

“Fuck off,” I mumbled into my pillow.

“Nope,” my twin brother, Zane, said from the other side of the door, giving it a few more hard knocks.

“Five more minutes.”

“Come on, Riv. Get up.”

“I hate you.” Rolling over onto my back, I blinked up at the ceiling, giving my eyes a chance to adjust to the early morning light.

“No, you don’t. But you will if I have to open this door.”

“Fine.” Grumbling, I dragged my ass out of bed and padded over to the door. Still rubbing sleep from my eyes, I yanked it open. “I’m up.”

“Are you?” Zane smirked.

“Shut up.” I stifled a yawn. “How much time do we have?”

“Gotta be out the door in ten.”

“Fan-fucking-tastic.” I sighed and rubbed the sleep from my eyes. “I’ll be ready.”

Zane brushed his hair back from his forehead, his eyes on his bedroom door as his boyfriend came out of his room.

“Morning.” Noah shot me a quick wave. I waved back as he disappeared into the kitchen.

“Ten minutes.” Zane gave me a pointed look.

Waving him off, I closed my bedroom door and leaned against it.

I’d never understood how my brother could flip his sleep schedule on a dime. During the week we got up at the asscrack of dawn, but we worked vampire hours at a club on the weekends.

The Monday morning transition from nights to days sucked donkey balls.

Zane had the ability to fall asleep whenever he wanted, and he could wake himself up without an alarm.

Not me. I was a night owl. It didn’t matter what I did or how hard I tried; I couldn’t train myself to be an early riser.

Still fighting sleep, I zombie-walked through my morning routine. One nice thing about working in construction was that no one gave a shit what you looked like as long as you had your safety gear on, so the morning prep was easy.

Once we were dressed and ready, the three of us made our way down to the parking lot. Noah and Zane headed toward Noah’s truck, and I went to our assigned spot.

The hair on the back of my neck rose as I approached our car. The trunk wasn’t properly latched.

Should I get Zane?

Cutting my gaze across the lot, I caught the back of my brother’s head as he climbed into Noah’s truck.

I didn’t need to bother him with this. I should handle it on my own.

Cautiously, I did a quick lap around the car to make sure nothing was outwardly wrong. When I was sure it was just the trunk that had been messed with, I jammed my key into the lock and popped the trunk.

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