SWNOVELS Fear The Reapers: Chapter 30
I shouldn’t have been watching, but I just couldn’t help myself. She needed to be punished. Needed to know there were consequences for her actions, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t check in on her.
When we bought the house, we outfitted every room with hidden security cameras. I monitored the cameras in both our businesses and our home, but I made it a point to never check the footage in our house unless it was absolutely necessary. Monitoring Stevie was like a necessity.
As I sat at my desk and turned on the live feed to her room, she was nowhere in sight. I switched screens to the hallway camera and found her guard, Tony, posted in his usual spot. It was just after 8pm and her dinner still sat untouched outside of her bedroom door. I had to give it to her. The girl was as stubborn as she was beautiful.
After watching her for the last couple of weeks, I knew her daily patterns like the back of my hand. She wasn’t in bed, not sitting in front of the fireplace, nor staring out of her window. The only other place left was her closet. It was the one space in her room the cameras couldn’t pick up on. I scrolled through my phone and tried not to stare at the empty screen. She’d show up, eventually. It wasn’t like she could go anywhere else.
Ten minutes had gone by and I glanced at the monitor again. It wasn’t like her to be out of view for that long. I searched the screen, trying to pick up on any clue that something was wrong, but nothing seemed amiss. She just vanished.
Barrelling out of my room, I threw my door open and barked at Tony for the key to her door. Tony fumbled, caught off by my sudden appearance and the fact that I spoke to him. He was taking too long to find the fucking key on his key ring and I was growing impatient. Stevie would’ve heard the commotion and come to the door by now. Something wasn’t right.
Jamming my shoulder into the door with full force a few times, I ripped the door off of its hinges. As soon as I entered the room and spotted Stevie, my heart seized. Her frail body looked so tiny in the white nightgown she wore. Her skin was paler than before and gone was the rosy flush of her lips and cheeks that brought her expressive face to life.
Fuck.
I pulled her into my arms as Tony’s dumbass stumbled in after me.
“Call a fucking ambulance and tell my brothers to get their asses in here, now!”
Tony frantically nodded his head and raced for the door as I checked her vitals. Her breathing was shallow, and she felt cool to the touch, but she had a steady pulse. She was going to be okay. She had to be okay.
“Fuck.” I cursed, pressing my lips to her cold forehead. “Hold on, baby. Help is coming.”
◆◆◆
“What did Dr. Roswell s… say?” I asked, eyeing Atlas as he reentered the room.
After getting her stabilized, the doctor pulled Atlas aside to discuss Stevie’s condition in private. He was probably trying to pinpoint how her health had deteriorated so much under our care.
“She’s stable.” Atlas grunted, looking out her window at the dark sky. “She needs to rest.”
Ezra gave Atlas a somber look as he brushed Stevie’s hair out of her face. As soon as the medics laid her on her bed, Ezra curled up next to her and refused to leave.
“She needs to fucking eat.” Cyrus retorted, pacing at the foot of her bed. “This shit,” he said, gesturing to Stevie’s sullen body, “has gone on long enough.”
He was right. We set out to teach her a lesson, but we were going about it all wrong. She ran because she didn’t trust us, but keeping her locked up would only strengthen that distrust. Besides, she wasn’t the only one that created this mess.
She may have walked into our world willingly, but we were the sick fucks that welcomed her with open arms. We were the ones who thought her presence wouldn’t affect us. That all she’d be was a token of our power.
But Stevie was so much more than that. She didn’t seem fazed by the blood on our hands. She had seen the damage we could cause, had been exposed to the lifestyle and attention we garnered, and she still wasn’t intimidated. She was one of us. Even if we didn’t want to admit it. Even if she couldn’t admit it to herself.
“Just be grateful Dr. Roswell let us keep her here for now.” Atlas said, turning to face us. “He wants us to bring her by his office next week for a follow up.”
Dr. Roswell was on our payroll. The old man knew what kind of businesses we ran and had stitched us up more times than I could remember. His discretion was something we could rely on. But above anything else, Dr. Roswell was a good man who took his code of ethics seriously. If he found out we were holding Stevie against her will, he would flip his fucking lid.
“So, things have to change.” I said, holding her frail hand in mine.
“Indeed, they do.” Atlas sighed, running his hand through his hair. “Indeed, they do.”