Page 20 of Reckless: Corruption

“What’s wrong, brother?” Blood trickles from my split lip as I smile. “Did someone finally teach you what it feels like to bleed?”

The roar that tears from his throat sounds nothing like the controlled killer who first walked in. This is something primal, something father dearest tried to train out of him.

Good. Let him feel something real for once.

His fist connects with my ribs—still bruised from yesterday—and stars explode behind my eyes. But even as I stumble, I hearMona’s voice: He always follows a rib shot with a right cross. Always. Daddy trained that combo into him until it was reflex.

I’m already moving before his next punch launches, using his own momentum against him. The throw is pure instinct, fueled by pain and desperation and eighteen years of Mona’s carefully documented observations.

He hits the wall hard enough to crack concrete.

For a moment, neither of us moves. The sight of Alexander—perfect, precise Alexander—sprawled inelegantly on the floor seems to surprise us both.

Then he laughs, the sound raw and horrible. “You actually think you’re winning.” He pushes himself up, blood painting his teeth red. “You think knowing my weaknesses gives you power?”

“Seems to be working so far.”

His smile turns razor-sharp. “Then let me teach you something about weakness, little sister.”

He moves faster than I can track, and suddenly I’m airborne. The impact when I hit the ground drives every molecule of air from my lungs.

Before I can recover, his boot finds my stomach—right where he stabbed me yesterday.

“You want to know the real difference between you and Mona?” His voice carries something almost like regret as he drives his heel into my wound again. “She learned when to stay down.”

Through the haze of pain, I see him pull out a familiar knife. The same one he used yesterday, still stained with my blood.

“But you?” He crouches beside me, blade catching light. “You’re going to learn a much harder lesson.”

A shadow moves in the corridor behind him—too small to be a guard, too silent to be anyone but her. The faint scent of oleander drifts through the cell, sweet but with that toxic undertone that means salvation wrapped in danger.

I meet his eyes and smile through bloody teeth. “Are you sure about that?”

The confusion on his face lasts exactly half a second before Mona’s candy-colored taser connects with the back of his neck.

Alexander drops like a puppet with cut strings, limbs twitching as electricity courses through him. The knife clatters to the ground beside my head.

“Forty-three seconds,” Mona announces, studying our brother’s convulsing form with clinical interest. “Plus about two minutes for the nervous system to recover from 50,000 volts. I have spreadsheets on the exact recovery time. Very thorough data set.”

She offers me a hand up, producing a lollipop from somewhere with her free hand. “Also, your form was sloppy. But points for making him bleed. That’s always fun.”

“You tasered our brother.” I accept both her hand and the lollipop, because apparently sugar is now part of our trauma bonding experience.

“Obviously.” She nudges Alexander with her foot, head tilted like she’s studying an interesting science experiment. “The voltage might have been a little high. Oops. My math is usually better, but I got excited.”

“You’re insane.”

“Thank you.” She preens a little before her expression shifts to something more clinical. “We have approximately ninety-three seconds before he regains motor function. Eighty-eight now. Eighty-seven...”

“What happens then?”

“Nothing good.” She produces what looks like hospital gauze from her oversized sweater. “He’s going to be very angry. And while watching him malfunction is usually entertaining, his violence-to-creativity ratio tends to skew poorly when he’s emotionally compromised.”

As if to prove her point, Alexander’s fingers start to twitch. First pinky, then ring finger, a sequence of neural pathways gradually reconnecting.

“Seventy-four seconds,” Mona narrates, wrapping gauze around my bleeding knuckles with surprising gentleness. “Also, daddy’s going to be very disappointed that his perfect alpha son got taken down by his crazy omega daughter. Again.” Her smile turns sharp. “I do so love creating family drama.”

“You’re enjoying this way too much.”

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