After putting the pan in the oven I hurried to the bathroom to shower. I hurried to wash, dry and dress because I didn’t want dinner to burn. In an attempt to calm Dean, I made his favorite.
I ran back to the kitchen and almost froze in my tracks. Dean was sitting at the kitchen table. I rushed over to the oven, checked the food and pulled it out. I put the bread in to toast it and began making coffee for him.
“In a hurry to get rid of me?” he asked.
“No, just making sure everything is done and nothing burns,” I explained as I turned to him. He nodded to me.
“I’m a little upset with you Princess,” Dean started but I could hear Lorik in the living room.
“Yeah we get in trouble and he calls us by our entire name, she gets in trouble and its princess.”
I watched as Dean frowned but he continued as if Lorik hadn’t said a word.
“At some point in the simulation you began to think it was real and I really wanted you harmed, did you not?” I nodded to him. “But yet you still refused to defend yourself? What if I had ordered you killed?”
“I know you’re not going to like what I say Dean but I’m begging you to let me finish before you punish me.” He nodded to me and I turned to get the bread out before it got even crispier.
“There is no way I could kill you or one of the guys.” I paused and stared down at the floor. “They are like my brothers in so many ways, one I’m even in love with. I couldn’t rip my own heart out. As for you, you’re the only Daddy I have left,” tears rolled down my face. I knew the guys were listening and probably wondering which one of them I was in love with. Only Gabe and Braydon knew the answer to that.
“Dean I would rather die at your hand than kill you. I hope you don’t think me weak for that but it is how I feel.”
“No I don’t think you’re weak,” he said holding out a hand to me. I went over to him and he pulled me into his arms. He held me the way my Dad always did. The way only a Daddy could. “But Princess, you still have to train with me and as for an added punishment you’re not going to like what I say this time.”
I waited with baited breath. I knew it was going to be something that got to me more mentally than physically. The fact he was being so gentle with me let me on to that.
“I want you to watch the training videos I have of you and John.” He was right. I didn’t like it. I immediately broke down into sobs.
After finally getting myself together, I began dishing out the food and taking everyone’s plate to them. Dean joined them in the living room and the looks I was getting from the guys had me looking at the floor to keep from meeting their gazes. I couldn’t stand for anyone to feel sorry for me. I didn’t want their pity.
After bringing them drinks I sat down in the floor leaning against the couch.
“Rissa, you need to eat. Your glucose levels are already down slightly.”
I knew Gabe was concerned but there was no way I could bring myself to do it.
“I can’t. It won’t stay down if I do,” I replied in a monotone voice even I didn’t recognize.
I sit staring at the blank television. I didn’t want to do this but I understood why he was making me do it. The puffiness in my face blocked my peripheral vision and I was glad for it. They were still staring. I tried to hold back the tears. We hadn’t even started watching it but the memories were flashing in my head.
My breathing became ragged and I had to blink repeatedly. My body was shaking. I felt someone put a hand on my shoulder and I gasped before closing my eyes to calm myself. I knew it was Braydon and I would have climbed in his lap had it not been for the fact that he didn’t even let me know he had returned. He also hadn’t really spoken to me. I guess he would stay mad at me longer.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Shayden asked but there was no response.
I heard movement but kept my eyes closed. When I heard the whirring of the DVD player and then the music start my eyes shot open. As much as I didn’t want to do it I needed to see his face.
I held my breath until he came into view. I could feel my lip quivering as I crawled toward the television. I put my hand on it to touch his face but could only feel the cold of the screen. “Daddy,” I whispered. I sit down and wrapped my arms around my legs and watched as the tears continued to fall.
Dad never complained as I blasted my rock music while we trained. He would laugh and say I had a bad habit of timing my blows with the beat. With each song that played things got more intense in our training until we were really trying to hurt the other. We would have our suits on and never aimed for the face but never held back.
I couldn’t help but smile as I watched the look of awe on Dad’s face when I flipped over him, landed on my feet and took him down. I couldn’t stop the laugh when it showed Dad goofing off and dancing. He had an air guitar moving his hips and head banging. The next scene showed me running toward the wall and grabbing a hold of a chain hanging from the ceiling.
I had to use every advantage I had, that meant getting up higher than the other guy. I swung from the chain toward Dad and as he ducked I flipped back landing on him. Another point for me. By the third song I had four points to his two. That was impressive considering who he was.
The music ended and it showed me and Dad goofing off. He had always been the one that made me want to fly. He would take me in his arms and spin me around then let me go. Of course when I was little he didn’t let go but after we installed padding in the basement of our house and I got up around fourteen, he would.
It had started when I had slipped out of his hands. It was the most fun thing I think I had ever done. Because even after he let me go, I found I could spin in the air and land so I didn’t hurt myself, roll and be back up on my feet without a single scratch.
“Holy crap, Rissa you didn’t tell me that you and your dad tried to kill each other when you trained,” Braydon sounded shocked.
“I guess I’m not as fragile as you thought huh?”
I remember how much I loved to train like that. Not having to hold anything back. I never let the boys see that, only Dad and Dean did. The feeling afterward was exhilarating.
“Do you still have your music?” Dean asked.
I nodded to him and smiled.
“Did you notice you time your hits to the beat?” Shayden asked.
I fell back in the floor laughing so hard. I could see the blurred look of confusion on his face as the tears filled my eyes again as I laughed. I saw Dean lean over and whisper something to Shayden who just smiled at me.
Although it was something I didn’t want to do, I knew it was better to get it over with while I still held that warmth in my heart at seeing Dad’s face and hearing his laugh. I grabbed the envelope Dad had wanted me to open. I stopped Lorik from turning off the video because it still had me and Dad doing stupid things on it. He had never edited anything out.
I pulled the prongs back and opened the seal. I carefully removed the papers and began to look through them.
“Shay, come here,” I told him as I stopped at one of them.
I handed a title, key, and picture over to him as he sit in the floor beside me. Dad had bought him the exact same motorcycle he had bought me. I showed him all the paperwork. There were deeds to houses and titles to cars that I didn’t know Dad had even owned. He had made sure to leave some to Shayden and his Mom.
We put the papers back and I reached for the small box. It was rectangle and wasn’t much bigger than the box my photo printer paper came in. When I opened it up it held pictures.
I pulled a picture out and smiled, it showed me and my mom when I was a baby. Then the confusion set in. My mom had died in child birth. At least that was what I was always told. The picture however showed something different.
Me and my baby girl
I looked over at Shayden. He looked confused as well. I turned to look at Dean who just sat there with a blank look on his face. He knew something
, and he knew I was about to find out. He wasn’t trying to stop me.
“I thought my mom died when I was born.” He never answered.
I looked back at Shay and picked up another picture. It was of me and Dad. I could see out of the corner of my eye as Shayden picked up the picture of me and Mom I had just sit down and turned it over. His eyes widened and he grabbed the box out of my lap and turned it up dumping the contents on the floor.
“Shayden what are you doing?”
He didn’t respond. He scattered the pictures and picked up ones of me and Mom and looked at the back of them before grabbing another and doing the same. When he uncovered an envelope his hand stopped.
I grabbed the envelope before he had a chance to and tried to get up. I didn’t want him ripping it open when it was something that was meant for me. He grabbed my hand and jerked me down into his lap.
His arms went around me. His legs draped over mine. The force he had used caused the air to leave my lungs.
“Shayden let me go. You’re hurting me!”
“Open the envelope,” he said in a nervous voice.
“No. Let me go!”
I could hear something and then Dean stopping them. I looked up to see him wave Braydon back down. Dean wasn’t going to let him help me.
“Shayden you’re hurting me,” I said through gritted teeth.
“If I let you go will you open the envelope?”
“Yes,” I lied. He let me go and I tried to scurry out of his lap but he grabbed hold of me again and turned me to face him. He tangled his hand in my hair and pulled it back a little.
“Open the envelope,” he said with a manic look on his face.
I had never seen Shayden like this. He had never done or said anything to ever hurt me. I could feel the shaking in his body and my heart was pounding to match his. He was scared. I nodded slowly to him as I looked into his eyes.
I reached out and touched his cheek to wipe away a tear that fell.
“Do you want to open it?” I whispered.
“No. You open it. I can’t,” he whispered back.
He had released his hold on me but I stayed where I was. I didn’t like seeing him like this. I didn’t like feeling the pain that was coming off him in waves. He had figured out something that I hadn’t caught onto yet.
With my hands shaking I placed my pinky finger under the flap and started pulling it up. Shayden grabbed me, spinning me around so he could look over my shoulder as I pulled the contents out.
As I pulled them out a small photograph fell. I picked it up and the confusion was worse.
“I have a brother?”
My hand was shaking so bad that Shayden reached up to steady it. I let him take the picture from me and then frantically tried finding the rest of the papers that I had pulled out. They were in Shayden’s other hand that rested on the floor.
I pulled them out and slowly began to open them
.
Dear Marissa and Shayden,
I want to say how sorry I am that you two had to find out this way. I also want you both to know how much I love you. If you are reading this then it means something unfortunate has happened.
Shayden look out for Marissa. She is in danger. You both very well may be, so Marissa look out for Shayden too. I had hoped to have this all taken care of before you were grown but things don’t always work the way we want them too.
I never wanted this kind of life for either of you, please know that. It is not fair that the two of you had to live that way nor was it fair to your mother and I. Shayden know that I love you son, I always have, just the same as I have always loved your sister.
Love your Dad,
John Stone
My hands were shaking so bad that even Shayden trying to hold them as we read this couldn’t help. Shayden was my brother. My flesh and blood. That had explained why we had always felt so close to one another.
When I moved the letter from Dad, I saw the copy of the birth certificates. I gasped. My eyes widened and my jaw dropped. I turned to look at Shayden and he had the exact expression on his face. I looked up at Dean.
“We’re twins?” Dean nodded once. What air I had left my lungs in a whoosh. Twins? I looked back at Shayden. He grabbed me hard and wrapped his arms around me holding me close to him. I threw my arms around him and cried like a baby.
“Shayden is your brother?” Lorik asked.
I hadn’t thought to tell them that I was referring to Shayden. They must have figured it out when we grabbed onto each other for dear life. Then something else dawned on me. Shay had lost Dad as much as I did. Only I had more time with him then Shayden did.
I cried even harder for Shayden’s loss. I could feel his shoulders jerking with his sobs. My brother was in more pain than I was. He had been cheated out of having his Dad only to find out the truth after he was gone.
After we had finally calmed some, I looked over at the screen. Someone had paused the video. It showed a close up of Dad smiling from ear to ear.