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Raph stands up and starts putting his clothes on while holding the phone between his shoulder and ear. I go to the bathroom to wash myself. It’s true Raph likes to be in control in and out the bedroom. But in reality, most of the time, I have the power. I choose what I want, and Raph gives it to me, I don’t even have to ask anymore. We are so attuned, he knows already.
When I walk back into the room, Raph is gone. I open the first drawer of the dresser to put a pair of sweaters and a t-shirt on—no more covering my arms. Fuck that.
The clothes are all new. Raph really burned all my old ones with Rague’s help, and I shaved the hair on my pecs in retaliation. I have to admit that the angry sex that night was off-the-charts hot.
I hear voices from the living room. My eyes fall on the desk near the window. The file on Subject One is laying on the gleaming surface. It’s thick, and even though I’ve only read the first few pages, horrifying. I asked Meg to give it to me, because I need to know what happened. The memories keep coming at times, but I can’t put them together. It’s frustrating and scary.
I hear a pained cry coming from the next room, so I let go of my dark thoughts and head to the kitchen.
Rami has Uri in a headlock, his dreads falling like waterfall on his annoyed face. “Stop calling me that!” he threatens his much bigger brother.
“But you do look like a beautiful mermaid,Ariel,” Rami sneers.
“Triton. Male mermaids are called tritons,” Rague states. “But Uriel-Ariel, that's a good one.”
“I’m not a fucking fish!” Uri barks, his face turning red. “And fuck you, Raguel-Rachel!”
“A triton is technically not a fish,” Rague corrects him.
God, Meg is right. They are overgrown children.
“Knock it off or I’ll go grab my knife and do some damage before kicking you out of my apartment,” I say, earning a kiss to the temple and a squeeze on my ass from Raph. Thinking of his penthouse as mine has taken a bit of adjustment. The whole luxurious life, actually. But I have to admit, it’s not bad. What am I saying? It’s fucking amazing.
“Lower your trotter, piglet,” Rami jokes, making me want to really use my knife. Raph has been teaching me some self-defense moves and I discovered I’m quite good with blades. Guns on the other hand…
Uri shoves Rami away and goes to the fridge to grab a beer.
“I brought your favorite.” Rami hands me an extra-large bag of sour cream and onion chips.
“For me?” I ask incredulously. It’s disturbingly sweet. Disturbingly, because Rami doesn’t miss an opportunity to tease me.
“And this.” He places a bottle of Tums on the counter. “For your reflux.” And there it is.
“You’re an ass,” I accuse him. Without a hint of venom, though. Because I unfortunately do love him. I love all of them.
Raph narrows his eyes at Rami. “You brought my boyfriend his favorite chips?” he asks in a dry tone.
“Are you seriously implying that I’d try to steal Mike away with a bag of chips?” Rami raises his brow. “Are you that easy?” He then turns to me.
“You’re both morons,” I retort, waving at Rague on my way to the couch.
Uri drops next to me. “Lunch tomorrow?” He comes to the hospital from time to time to talk about our favorite crime series. Uri also enjoys hearing about weird things I encounter during my job, and I love the food he brings from one of his restaurants.
It’s incredible how things have changed in only a month. After what Rami calls my ‘initiation night,’ the whole family started treating me as one of their own.
I don’t have anactivepart in the family side business. I help Sari with the samples at times—working with him is a damn dream come true. And I like to research new methods or weapons Raph and the others can use. I also give them advice on how to make the donors suffer and bleed more. It’s weird how after only a few weeks I got used to it. Maybe it’s because Rami keeps showing me what the shitheads did to deserve their fate. And many times, I’m so disgusted, I wish I could end their life myself.
“Looking forward to it.” I smile at Uri.
He blinds me with his super model smile and steals the chips from my lap. I flick his forehead in retaliation and take the bag back.
“Hey!” he complains.
“Learn to ask,” I bark at him.
Raph comes and sits next to me and promptly pulls me on his lap. Every time his brothers are around, he gets overly possessive. What am I saying? He’s always overly possessive.
“Where’s Sari?” I start eating the chips, but I can’t resist Uri’s puppy eyes, so I tilt the bag his way.
