Page 13 of Two Chambered Heart

They hadn’t actually hurt her—embarrassed and degraded her, sure, and she didn’t know what these guys were into, or if this treatment would last. They may very well just kick her back to the streets when they realized that no one was coming for her, since she was quite literally a nobody.

Or as Jason had threatened, they may just kill her.

Corey used her fingers to comb the long waves of her hair and looked at herself in the mirror again. She worked to rearrange her face to a bored expression, and then she headed out to scavenge for food.

The kitchen opened to the large living room, and Corey could see the twins sitting on the couch, the thick muscles of their shoulders visible above the back of the sectional. Jason’s scar marked which twin he was.Dammit, why did they need to be shirtless all the time?

They had the television on, some show or movie she didn’t recognize playing at a medium volume on the massive TV. The lights were dimmed low. She made her way over to the fridge, figuring it was better to take what she wanted than to ask for permission, an attempt at a show of dominance rather than looking like a weak, submissive thing. Corey pulled the fridge open and took in how full it was—there was a myriad of different produce, along with multiple containers of prepared meals. It was the first sign she’d seen in this penthouse that people lived here. At her ex’s, there’d barely been room for fresh groceries amongst the leftover pizza boxes and beer cans.

“What are you doing?” one twin asked her.

She looked back to see them both turned to her on the couch. Matching dog tag necklaces glinted in the low lighting.

“Making something to eat,” she said nonchalantly, shrugging her shoulders at them and pulling out an apple like she didn’t have a care in the world. While looking over what else there was to eat, she crunched into the fruit. Opening the dairy drawer, she considered the fancy cheeses. There was a bag of bread in the fridge as well, and she pulled it out with the butter, deciding a gourmet grilled cheese was a good option—her comfort food. Corey brought everything over to the stove, pulling open the drawers underneath and finding the pans. She sparked the stove, buttered the pan, and threw two slices of bread on, all the while avoiding looking up at the twins. Corey rummaged through the other drawers, finding the cutlery.

Finding one of the sharp knives to slice the cheese, she looked up. The guys were still watching her. Kayden looked amused. Jason looked furious. While she pulled out the knife with one hand and put it on the counter, she used her other hand to take another knife from the drawer and slide it into the front pocket of the sweatshirt. Corey slammed the drawer shut dramatically and went back to the stove with self-satisfaction. She sliced the fresh cheeses and put them on the toast, covering it up with the other slice.

While her grilled cheese sizzled, Corey turned her attention to the two guys, who seemed to have abandoned their movie in favour of her.

She studied their faces more intently, looking for differences. Jason’s face had an almost permanent scowl. So far, she’d only seen it interrupted by a sneer. Though his features were identical to Jason’s, there was more levity to Kayden’s expression, just enough that Corey thought she might be able to distinguish them from each other.

“Thanks for the clothes, by the way,” she said to Kayden, in between bites of her apple.

“Why do you think it was me?”

“Well, it wouldn’t have been him.” She gestured to Jason with her chin and caught Jason’s nostrils flaring slightly as he looked away from her and back at the television. He reached for the glass of amber liquid on the table in front of him and took a swig, the crystal reflecting the light with a flash.

Corey pulled the pan off the burner and turned off the stove. She found a plate and a glass in another cupboard, and filled the cup with water. Sliding her food onto the plate, she rested the pan in the sink and put the ingredients back in the fridge. She looked up to find Kayden still watching her and Jason fixated on the television.

“Well, enjoy your movie!” Corey called with forceful cheeriness and made to leave with her dinner.

“That knife you took. Leave it in the kitchen,” Jason said before she could walk out of the living space, turning to her.

Busted.

“No thanks. I think I’ll take it back to my room with me.”

“Your room?” Jason cocked a dark eyebrow at her, a dangerous smile spreading across his face. Corey fought to keep her fear from showing and willed her façade to hold. He propped himself up on the back of the couch, leaning towards her. “I think you have the situation misconstrued. Though you may be a guest in our home, that room is ours, the kitchen is ours, and the food you’re about to eat is ours. We own you, Corey Smith, from now until we say otherwise. Your life depends on us. Tread carefully.”

Corey shuddered under the oversized sweater at his threat, at his white teeth bared at her, at the hard planes of his chest and the muscles that rippled under his skin. He was a beast waiting to be unleashed.

But she was a beast too.

She gave him her best Cheshire cat smile. “If you could have some Advil delivered tomyroom, that would be wonderful.” And with that, she stalked off, grateful that the bedroom had a lock.

Chapter nine

- Corey -

For a week, Corey had been mostly left to her own devices in the condo. After waking up that first morning to a pharmacy bag on the kitchen counter with Advil, a toothbrush and toothpaste in it, she had seen little of the twins. Other than a few encounters in the kitchen, where Jason stalked around in varying degrees of dress—from glistening with sweat in his workout shorts to glistening in a low-hung towel from the shower, his defined abs on display—it seemed that he was mostly out of the house.

While Kayden was giving Corey a wide berth, he was still mostly around, no doubt tasked with monitoring her. Neither of the twins said anything to her as they moved about their day, and she moved about hers. She wandered around the penthouse undisturbed, pretending she hadn’t heard Jason’s comment about them killing her. But it had burrowed in her subconscious like a sleeper bomb.

The first thing she’d done after brushing her teeth that morning was to check the elevator. To her demise, a fob was necessary to call it, and unsurprisingly, there wasn’t one lying around waiting for her to pick up.

Every day, the fridge had been full of food, and she was enjoying experimenting with cooking herself meals. She’d never had an outfitted kitchenbefore to try anything other than quick meals. The twins even had cookbooks, which she was considering dabbling in. Protein powders, protein cereal and protein bars took up most of the pantry. She had tried the protein cereal, which tasted like chalk, and kind of wished these health freaks had some regular cereal, for old time’s sake.

Other than cooking and eating, there wasn’t much for her to do through the days, but she refused to be confined to the bedroom, so she basked in the early autumn sun on the beautiful terrace, sprawled on her towel naked, having abandoned any sense of modesty in the face of her impending doom. Day after day, Corey let the sun soak into her skin, and it bronzed under its constant attention.

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