Kaia's POV

Demanding to see Jamila, one last time, was my single request. Shadow didn't refuse, but there was hesitation in Dario's voice when I asked about it, insisting that there wasn't any reason to suspect that she was suffering in any way.

"I've got her in a comfortable place," he said, looking at me in a way that gave me shivers when I paired it with his forced, husky voice.

"I want to see her," I repeated. "Take me to her."

Dario snorted a laugh.

"You're the last person who can make orders around here," Dario said with crossed arms. His chest flexed, intimidating me – or at least trying to – with the bulky nature of his muscles, looming over the two of us like an overzealous bodyguard. "I like you to know we didn't treat her like a criminal—despite being one. I'm a rather generous man."

"A generous man?" I hooted.

"Call me a child and I'll have your tongue," he warned.

My tongue? What kind of medieval playbook was he reading from?

I was a moment away from bursting into laughter. Fear wasn't burning through me at the sound of his thinly vailed threat.

"I can't stand kids." I admitted. "Regardless of that, though, referring to you as a child would be an insult to all children. You're closer in relation to a weasel or a rodent." I paused. "Or better yet, a demon-like dog would be more fitting. You've got the bad dog breath to match."

The other two brothers, Shadow and Warner, muffled their amusement. Dario shot daggers through his eyes at them, making the matter worse. They struggled to keep a straight face. Seriousness was lost on the two of them, both nearly tipping over in hysteria.

"I know where she is." Lawrence touched my shoulder, regaining me back to my senses. Jokes aside, I needed to get to the bottom of this. "This isn't a good idea," he whispered, "I don't want you to think because you're older than the two of us that you have to take on a motherly role. It's not up to you to take care of us. We're adults here."

I hushed at him so that no one could hear him. "Please, let it go."

There was no point in fighting this. What would be done was set in stone for me.

Lawrence hardened his grip on my arm, yanking me as if still a pleading child desperate to play. Back when shadows and noises in the dead of night were thrilling adventures, not reasons to lose sleep. Peace was something I had faint memories of, fading with each growing set of birthday candles extinguished. The older I got, the darker my inner light dimmed. This was my fateful ending, undoubtably, and what better way to choose the poison that would take me out.

"She's going to be in the first room to your left," Shadow revealed, breaking the growing silence. "I can take you there—"

"Don't think I have a choice," I cut in.

Lawrence didn't loosen his hold on me. "I'm not leaving her side."

"I can arrange to change that," Dario announced, bumping passed Warner to make his present known. He loomed over the two, well over six foot five—making him half a head taller than Shadow, and a foot more than Warner. "Already, I can tell you're going to be a handful to deal with." His stone expression broke, but only faintly as he said, "I like a challenge."

Eww. Was this his lame attempt at flirting? Moments before, he was close to kicking me out into the cold. Veering at me with those chocolate brown eyes, the temperature in the room had changed the longer Dario stared at me. It was as though he wanted me to act out of character and lung at him.

If only, I thought to myself, if only he knew how much of an urge to vomit on him I was keeping at bay. Then maybe, just maybe, he would stop giving me those googily eyes.

"Right this way." Shadow motioned to the stairs. I went ahead of them, keeping Lawrence near me as much as possible on the route down to Jamila. Due to the speed of which we went to the first landing of the stairs, I almost didn't sense the presence of anyone behind us. Still, at the top, the three brothers stood in a huddle. Shadow was holding Dario's shoulders, grasping him in a way that made me think he was stopping him from joining us.

Muttering to themselves, I strained my neck to make out the words coming from their lips. Failing miserably in eavesdropping, I settled on reading their lips. Considering how they were standing, I had only a clear view of Warner. Dario's face was blocked by Shadow's head.

"What's taking them so long?" my cousin wondered, craning his chine, too, to see up the stairs at the cluster of clowns bickering at each other. "I think they're fighting about you."

"They're probably deciding who gets to kill me first," I voiced, looking at my fingernails—acting as though I was unfazed by my own revelation. "For all we know, they could be lying about the marriage part. They could just be cannibals."

"That's one weird ass cover-up for eating people," Lawrence said, shaking his head. "I hate Jamila for doing this. She put us in this mess. I could've been enjoying my day—"

"Doing what? All you do is play video games and jerk off to cartoons."

"It's called henti. Stop calling them cartoons."

"You say that like that's supposed to be better. You should be embarrassed to admit even that," I noted. "I swear, it's like your brain stopped developing after the age of fifteen. You do realize you're about to be twenty-three, right?"

"Hey, dipshit, do you realize that you pimped yourself out to some complete strangers?" He barked back.

"Whoa, now."

"Don't call me dense when you've made the dumbest business deal known to man." For the first time since he grabbed my hand, he released it, and as though he was dropping a sandbag off his own shoulders, he sighed deeply. "You're making a big mistake."

"Let it be mine to make, then."

Shadow appeared behind Lawrence, or rather, I finally took notice of him standing there, watching us, and listening in on our conversation. Extending his hand to me, he said a few sets of words, but they were lost on me. I'd gone numb. Dismissing the offer, I pushed his hand and repeated my demand of seeing my cousin. There was a laugh from upstairs. Undoubtably his brother, Dario, behind the chuckle and taunting nature of the echo it created.

"I'll take you to her," he suggested, "But only if you go alone."

I nodded.

Lawrence didn't resist. We shared a glance, and I followed Shadow, holding the railing for some sense of stability...knowing that I needed strength in something, anything. My knees felt weak on their own.

The more we walked, the less I was sure I knew the true size of this place. It felt like we were walking for ages. Each turn became another wing, and every flight of stairs seemed as though there was no real end to it. For a second, I wanted to ask for a moment to catch my breath. From outside, and from the number of times I'd driven passed the estate, the sheer vastness didn't dawn on me until now.

There had to be magic behind it - there had to be. If you told me that walls and new stairways appeared just like they did in the Harry Potter world, I would believe it. Despite that though, each time I twisted around, nothing moved out of place.

My left ankle made a popping noise when we hit the final step, reaching what looked to be a door to an even lower-level of the home. "She's down this way."

"You put her in a dungeon?"

"No. This was the only place we could safely keep her in a holding area."

"You locked her up?" I boomed. "There weren't any rooms that could've been locked from the outside?"

"It's not like that," he rushed to say with both his palms facing me. "I can promise you, it's not going to be like a jail cell."

The tip of my tongue hit the roof of my mouth the second it smelled the dry air within the basement. I raised my hand to my mouth, letting out a cough. The lights were too high up on the wall and too dim to shine much light on anything. Once more, I held on to the railing so that I didn't fall on my ass.

I coughed again. "You said she was in a good place."

"This place is routinely cleaned."

"By routinely, do you mean yearly?"

Shadow's shouldered stiffened. From annoyance or from holding back a laugh—I couldn't tell from where I stood behind him. Either way, I waited in anticipation on his next set of words.

"You have a few minutes to talk to her. And after that, you are no longer the person you were before. You will be stripped of your previous surname," he stated, "You will become a member of our family. You will be a Blaine."

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author's note: so so sorry for the delay in posting! please give me your thoughts on the characters + story + writing in general :) ❤️ thank you for your support

I've been so busy with school, but I do plan on making a legit schedule for this book.