Page 1 of Valentine Mine

CHAPTERONE

luca

Chasing a naked,squealing toddler fresh from the bath was harder than chasing down a running back on a football field.Having to do it with identical little demons of my own making?

Damn near impossible.

“Get back here, you little monsters!”I called, pulling my soaked shirt over my head as I followed after my youngest set of twins.

Were my brother and I like them at this age?

Probably a hundred times worse.

Every day, I had the urge to call my parents and apologize.Sometimes I gave in to the guilt and did.Only to hear my mom cackle in near hysteria at how karma had done her job so fucking well.Hearing her laughter always made me smile, thankful she was still here to rub it in my face that I was only getting back what I’d put out into the universe.

After nearly losing her years before to a brain tumor, I tried to call her every other day.Even if it was just to listen to her amusement over the chaos my life now was with two sets of twins.

As I stormed past open doors, I heard my elder pair of boys arguing, and I paused.Ethan had Elijah on the floor in a headlock, but Elijah didn’t appear to be in any hurry to release his death grip on the game controller in his hands.

“You’re ruining it!”Ethan shouted, twisting his hold, trying to find a more painful position.

“You wiped out my entire world!”his twin snarled.He was barely getting any oxygen from the new hold, but little things like breathing rarely seemed to slow either of them down.

“I spent three days getting the house right!”

“And I spent six weeks building that world.”Elijah made a choking sound, but that only had his fingers working more furiously over the control buttons.

On the screen behind them, I saw walls being destroyed, which only caused Ethan to roar his rage.From down the hall, Aidan came out of a room, still naked as the day he was born, laughing like the little manic he was.Behind him, Ciaran followed, his laughter borderline psychotic.

He had something in his hand.Knowing my boys as I did, it was probably a makeshift shiv.

“Everyone freeze!”I bellowed loud enough to shake every window on the second floor, and suddenly, there was silence.

It wasn’t lost on me that I’d sounded like my dad.When I was about to lose my shit, I had to channel him.Fuck, that man should have been considered for sainthood for not murdering my brother and me.God knew we’d given him enough reasons during the first twenty-plus years of our lives.

Ethan and Elijah were still on the floor, but the eldest twin had eased his hold on his brother.Elijah, thankfully, lost the purple hue that had invaded his face and was no longer flicking buttons on the controller in his hands.

Aidan and Ciaran stood in the hall a good five yards away, their identical faces scrunched up as they prepared for my wrath.Fearlessly, yes, but they weren’t stupid.Whatever weapon the youngest heathen twin had been chasing his partner in crime with fell to the floor at his feet.

A marker.

They most likely wouldn’t have killed each other—or anyone else—with that thing.But I didn’t doubt for a second that mayhem would have ensued.Ciaran would have had his brother covered in scribbles before I could have caught up to them.And then they would have gone for the walls and furniture.

Knowing which of the four boys was the most dangerous, I kept my eyes on the toddlers, but I pointed straight at the elder two.“Grounded.All weekend.Rooms.Now.”

Hearing them scramble to get up, I waited until they ran past me, then down the hall behind me to their rooms.Doors slammed.

Tucking the soaked shirt I still held into the waistband of my sweats, I slowly started toward the youngest boys.Approaching with caution, because those two were likely to turn into feral little beasts at any moment, I stared them down.Trying to assert my dominance.All they had to do was get a single whiff of fear, and it would be game over.

If any of the offensive players on the opposing teams I used to go up against every Sunday ever saw me dealing with my boys, they would shit themselves laughing.I was the one they feared on the field.

But they would fear Aidan and Ciaran too if they had to deal with their shit twenty-four seven.

And then, as if they had planned the whole damn thing, they both started pissing on the hardwood floor.

Yet another exciting night at the Thorntons.

CHAPTERTWO

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