Page 10 of Her Devil

“They both had dark hair, Jake.” I sigh. “Short or tall?”

“Oh, did they?” he asks knowingly as I nod. “Shorter one.” He shrugs, dropping his bag into the boot before we climb in, chasing the autumn chill away with the climate control on full.

“I wasn’t expecting to be this far from the campus,” he comments. “Might have to consider getting my car at some point.”

“Let’s see how we get on for a bit first. It might work out okay between us all,” I reply, heading past the administration buildings.

“Maybe. But I’m still going to need to get around on my own at some point. And we have no idea how quickly they’re planning on going from nine to three. What if one of us doesn’t make it, or all the guys with my classes don’t?”

How he manages to voice my concerns so succinctly and without any of the inflexion I might have had, I don’t know. He’s usually the more emotionally driven of the two of us, and yet, here he is, coming straight out with it.

“We can still split-use this one,” I answer, knowing there’s no way in hell I’m going to leave him behind, here or anywhere else.

“Yeah,” he concedes. “It’s just something to keep in mind.”

“If you think you’re bringing the Porsche and leaving me with this, you’re sadly fucking mistaken. My fingers glide over the soft wrapped leather of the steering wheel. As much as I love German engineering, no matter the brand, nothing beats the engine in that Porsche.

“As if.” He laughs, the tension that was creeping into the car the closer we get to the house dissipating.

“So, they were interested, huh?” I ask, raising my eyebrows and changing the direction of the conversation to safer ground. He’s not stupid, he knows exactly what I like, but he’s been surprisingly quiet about the whole thing.

“Yeah, seemed to be.” He shrugs non-commitally. “Ivy’s nice.”

I nod, leaving the floor open for him to continue.

“Quieter than her friend, and she paid proper attention through the lecture too, but those legs…”

My weakness.

“Didn’t notice,” I reply, waiting for the garage to open. It’s automatic, linked to the registration or something, I stopped listening after he said it would work by itself.

“Of course you fucking did,” Jacob says, calling me out on the blatant lie. “Even I did.”

I shrug my shoulders, conceding his point as I pull into the garage, shutting the engine off. We make quick work of going through the house, people cooking in the kitchen and some of the guys loitering in the den. We offer them a wave before heading upstairs, giving up on the idea of lunch when we see how many people are already there.

“So, what do you make of all this then?” Jacob asks, kicking his shoes off and dropping onto my bed.

“Hard to know,” I reply, taking the books out of my bag and lining them up on the shelf. “We got settled and now we’ve moved, separate rooms, separate classes. Feels a little personal. A little intentional.”

Silence fills the room, an observation I’m sure he’s made himself too.

“Glad we came?” he asks.

“I will be once it’s over.”

Neither of us were given any indication about what would happen here, about what we’d have to do, and I’m not sure we have any better idea yet. But the people I recognised in that room the other night were important, powerful.

Whatever they’re going to want us to do is going to cost us a lot. Maybe not financially, but in other ways. There’s an innocence to my brother that not many others see, mostly because I’m always there to deflect it, but to get through this, he’s going to lose it. We’re alike in many ways, but not all.

“Do you think I’ll make it?” he asks, twisting his fingers together.

“Do you think there’s any choice?” I clip out, turning to face him and leaning against the desk. “Do you really think I’ll let anyone get ahead of you?”

“It’s not down to you.” He shrugs, grabbing one of the stress balls from my bedside table. “And you saw the shit show the other night, he knocked me the fuck out, Nick.”

“It’s not all going to be physical. You saw the same people I did; those guys have bodyguards for a reason.”

He nods, scratching an itch on his arm, not at all convincingly.

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