Page 5 of Yours to Break

Pulling off from the curb, he blankly asked, “Good fuck?” I snorted. When I glanced over to him, he had a small smirk pulling up the corner of his mouth.

“Yeah, it was fine. Guy didn’t let me do anything other than flog him, though. What about yours?”

Hayes nodded, eyes on the road ahead. “Mine was too loose and said no to any pain play altogether. Then he had the gall to ask me to be his sugar daddy,” he divulged.

“That’s a new one,” I snarked, a grin on my face. “I don’t know why we keep returning to that club, though. They won’t even allow us to be in the same private room. There are too many boring, vanilla-ass rules. Can’t we just pick up someone off the street to use? Give ‘em some cash and dump them back afterwards–safe and sound.” I let my mind wander and imagined really playing with someone the way we craved; the way we needed.

Hayes groaned, “You know Grey would be a bitch about it though.” He was right, unfortunately. Our older brother kept a close eye on us.

Greyson was several years older than us and very protective; he had been since childhood.

Our parents were not the best with childcare, to say the least. According to Grey, they had been attentive, loving—all the things parents should be—with him before our births. But only months before we were born, they had joined a religious sect that quickly consumed their lives. They suddenly went from being non-denominational Christians to believing that the end days were nearing and that Earth would soon become overrun by demons sent to lure the people to their deaths.

Real fun stuff.

Anyways, as twin births typically were, the experience was traumatic and nothing like our older brother’s. Strike one against us. Strike two was probably catching us purposefully harming each other several times, neither of us upset. Strike three was most likely when we poured our mother’s perfume into her exotic fish tank. We just wanted to see what would happen.

Throughout the years, we were punished for our misbehavior. The severity of the punishments escalated as we grew older. I believe we drove our mother to the point of insanity. No matter what she did or how hard she hit us, we just wouldn’t behave to her liking.

Of course, our parents regularly sought counsel with their church’s leader. The leader decreed that we were the first demons sent by Lucifer to begin the apocalypse. And of course, since we were twins, he decided that all multiples–that being twins, triplets, quadruplets–born after us were also demons.

When our mother found us sitting in front of her precious fish tank–the fish dead–she grabbed us by our necks and dragged us to the master bathroom. Sitting on the cool tile floor as Mother filled the bathtub, we sang a nursery rhyme that Grey had taught us the week before: London Bridge.

I continued to hum it even under the water.

I kept my eyes open, staring into Hayes’s as the life drained out of him. He did the same.

When I woke up, my small body was sprawled across the floor, my twin beside me. An eleven-year-old Greyson hovered above us. I didn’t know it then, but he was on the phone with emergency services. Before my eyes shuttered from exhaustion, I saw our mother’s feet—horizontal on the floor—poking out from the other side of the bathroom door.

Later on, Hayes and I would be told that Father was the one who attempted to drown us. The social worker explained that our dad had shot and killed Mother, drowned us, then turned the gun on himself. The police could never figure out why he had spared Grey. It wasn’t like preteen boys often committed parricide. Still, how had an eleven-year-old successfully framed his father for his mother’s murder and the attempted murder of his baby brothers?

Long story short, the three of us inherited a fortune that set us up for life. Our father had a brother we’d never met—Uncle Wes—with whom social services placed us.

Within just a few measly hours, the courses of our lives had been altered drastically. Considering that the course we had been on was one where my twin and I were murdered by our mother, practically anything else gave us a better chance at life.

Uncle Wes acted as our mother, father, teacher, and trainer all in one. At the time, he was the head of a small organization specializing in murder-for-hire. The group was made up of three mercenaries, each specializing in different types of killing and torturing, two tech guys, and Wesley Cohen. Over the years, several more hands joined the team, but it never got to be over twelve people in total. Our uncle didn’t want an empire. From what I gathered over time, Uncle Wes had started his group as a way to seek revenge upon someone who’d wronged him. Even now, I wasn’t aware of the details, but I knew that he only selected jobs when he believed the target deserved to die.

Our uncle wasn’t like us; Wes was a deeply emotional man. Somehow, he still managed to raise my brothers and me. He had rules; we had to wait until we were fifteen to start learning more about his business. Thanks to him, all three of us eventually became expertly trained killers.

Greyson had eventually stepped out of the killer-for-hire role to go off to university. He studied psychology during the day and learned the “administrative” side of Uncle’s business at night. Now, he acted more as our keeper. Yeah, yeah, he was still heavily involved with Wes’ operation, but Greyson begrudgingly spent most of his time keeping a tight leash on Hayes and me.

It was a little funny that when we were kids, he was watching us to ensurewedidn’t get hurt, but now he had to make sure that we didn’t hurt others, outside of our contracts, of course.

I was pulled out of my reminiscing by Hayes’s voice. “It’s still pretty early. Want to check with Uncle to see if we can snag a job for the night?”

I shrugged. “It’d be pretty late notice, but yeah, I’m down if he has anything.” Hayes gave me a short nod before pulling out one of our burner phones. The call was picked up within three rings.

“Calling on a Saturday night? That’s rare. You got a dead body for me?” Our uncle’s deep voice echoed from the phone’s speaker.

I responded, “No body as of yet. Hoping we could change that?” Throaty chuckles came through the line.

“Well, I got a quick and easy one, but the others require more surveillance before we can send anybody out for elimination. If you’re interested, I can forward you the file.” Hayes and I gave each other a quick look for confirmation.

“What’s the easy one?” Hayes asked.

“Target’s name is Albert Hughes. He’s forty-seven. Low profile. His ex-wife wants him gone as he’s threatening to take her assets. She has full custody of their three children. If Mr. Hughes wins, it’ll put her in a real tight spot. No torture requested. No interrogation. I would normally give a contract like this to Sahar or Morgan, but if you want it, it’s yours,” Wes leveled.

“That’s so boring, though,” I groaned, earning a cynical look from my brother.

---