Page 14 of Twice as Twisted

“You’re going to see a little kid with cum all over your shirt?” he asks, cocking a brow. “That’s taking it too far, Duke. Even for you.”

“Fuck you,” I say, looking down at the shirt Olive made for me. I want to kill the asshole for defiling it that way. “I’m not a pedophile.”

He cranks the engine, which roars to life, then revs it a few times. The noise echoes across the empty lot, and I remember another morning we were here, a few hours later and six months ago. Every fucking thing was different then.

“I don’t know,” he says. “Your dad was a creep, and you know what they say. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

“Yeah, well, your grampa’s a fucking child molester,” I snap. “Does that make you one?”

He scowls at me and guns the engine, turning out of the lot and onto the road. “What are you doing, man?” he asks, suddenly serious. “It’s one thing to fuck up my entire family, but she’s a kid.”

“So you’re admitting you deserved it?”

“It may have been excessive, but you don’t get to pick your own karma.”

“And what about your sister?” I ask, watching him from the corner of my eye.

He hates it when I talk about her. I like seeing his reaction.

“No one deserves that,” he says quietly, staring out the big windshield. Then he glances at me and away, reaching for his cigarettes. “But she wasn’t a saint, either.”

“Never thought I’d hear you admit that.”

“I mean it,” he says. “That kid… You know her family or something? Is she some kind of debt they owed your dad?”

“No,” I say, scowling at him and swiping his pack off his lap. “You think smoking fancy organic cigarettes is going to save you? We’re all fucked, Colt.”

“Smoke your own if you don’t like them.”

I take one of his because I’m not about to pull out mine and make him think I smoke the same kind because of him. He saw them once before, but he was fucked up, and hopefully he forgot it by now.

“Olive doesn’t have a family,” I say, rolling the cigarette between my fingers. It holds a hint of warmth from his body, and it makes my cock twitch again. “Harper took her in. She’s her problem, not mine.”

He gives me a skeptical look and rolls down his window before lighting up. “If you say so,” he says, not sounding at all convinced. “Y’all look pretty chummy every time I see you together.”

“What can I say, chicks dig me,” I say, shooting him a grin.

I may be clowning, but it pisses me off that people think I’m that despicable. Everyone thinks I’m dumb, that Baron’s the only one who notices shit, but I see the way Harper watches us, the excuses she finds to stick her head into my room whenOlive’s in there, the reasons she comes up with to take Olive with her when she goes somewhere and I’m the only one at home.

Maybe she has a reason not to trust me, after what I did to her.

It’s worse when Royal does it. Am I really so depraved that my own brother finds it baffling that I could take an interest in something I don’t want to stick my dick in?

“She’s a kid,” Colt says after a minute. “Shouldn’t she at least have a chance in life? I mean, what could she possibly have done to deserve you fucking her up the way you will?”

*

“They’re saying we need to pick her up now,” Harper says, setting her phone down on the counter the next day. “She doesn’t have health insurance, and the bill is already insane. Can you believe this? For one night of observation? It’s not like she was in surgery for eight hours!”

“Stop worrying about it,” Royal grumbles. “I told you, I’ll cover it.”

“Yeah, but—”

He grabs her by the back of her neck and draws her up, so she’s barely touching the floor with her tiptoes. “How many times do I have to tell you, you never have to worry about money again?”

“Maybe just one more,” she says with a sassy little smile.

He slams his mouth down on hers, bending to grab her under the ass and lift her off her feet. She clamps her legs around his hips, and he backs her onto the counter, his hand wrapping around her throat.

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