Page 20 of Vicious Addictions

She must realize it, too, since her eyes fall away from my face and onto my abs.

“Turn around,” I bark before her gaze lowers any further than that. In seconds, I find a white T-shirt and gray sweatpants and put them on. “You can turn around now,” I say after I ensure there is nothing for her to ogle. “Now… mind explaining why you were hiding under my bed?”

“I wasn’t hiding,” she tries to deny, but when I arch an I-caught-you-in-the-act brow, she lets out a defeated huff. “Fine. I was hiding. But I can explain.”

“Can you now?” I start to call her out on her bullshit, but then it clicks. “Wait. So that’s why the twins were standing outside my room? They were your lookouts?”

“Kind of, yeah,” she admits, her porcelain skin turning every shade of red.

“And?” I prompt. “Are you going to tell me what you were doing in my room?”

“I was just… curious.” She kicks the air at her feet, unable to meet my eyes.

“Curious?” I echo, unimpressed with her justification. “Most people ask questions to quench their curiosity. They don’t go rummaging through other people’s stuff.”

“I know that. I know what I did was wrong. I guess I just got carried away.”

But when her gaze flickers toward my journal on the bedside table, I fucking lose it.

“You read my journal?!”

“Just a page. I swear,” she pleads, looking genuinely guilt-ridden, but I don’t want to hear anything she has to say right now.

“Get out. Get the fuck out of my room.”

Her eyes widen, startled by the venom in my voice.

Before she has time to devise some lame-ass excuse, I swing the door open, making it clear that I’m done.

In fact, I’m done with this shit of a day altogether.

That night, during dinner, both the twins and Mina are uncharacteristically quiet. So much so that Victor notices it.

“I can’t remember the last time we all had a silent meal together,” he says, trying to gauge why his daughter and nephews are so quiet during our meal.

“Agreed. Isn’t it marvelous,” Pippa chimes in before eating a forkful of Beef Wellington.

Victor stares at his daughter, whose head is basically on her lap and then turns his attention over to Remus and Rolo.

“What did you three do?” Victor asks, his stare fixed on the twins.

“Absolutely nothing,” Rolo says with a shark-like grin. “We’ve been acting like choirboys all day.”

“Choirboys. That will be the day,” Victor retorts sarcastically.

“Oh, Victor, stop harassing the boys. Let’s be grateful that the house is still intact. How bad could it have possibly been?”

“That’s what I intend to find out,” Victor says, ignoring his sister. “Remus? The truth, now. What did you and your brother do? And how did you get Mina involved?”

“We didn’t do anything, uncle,” Remus says with a straight face. “And if we did, we wouldn’t be stupid enough to bring Mina into our shenanigans.”

“Right.” Victor scoffs. “Because you three have never gotten in trouble before.”

“Not today, at least.” Remus smiles at his uncle, but the goading grin Rolo throws my way catches Victor’s attention, making it evident that the twins were absolutely up to no good and that I was their main target.

“Ah, I see. Jude, you wouldn’t by any chance know the reason why my nephews and my daughter aren’t their usual rambunctious selves this evening?”

Rolo gives me a scowl while Remus pretends to ignore me. However, by the way he’s holding his knife in a death grip suggests otherwise.

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