Unhinged (Necessary Evils #1)(35)

“Not yet,” Adam said. “Once we see how big the ring is, how it works, whether we can identify the targets…I’ll take it to Dad.”

Asa nodded. “We’ve never had a family project before,” Asa said, affect flat.

“How do you guys do that?” he asked.

Adam frowned. “Do what?”

“Just turn it off like that?” Noah asked. “One minute, you guys seem completely normal, and the next, it's like somebody flipped a switch.”

Asa and Avi exchanged glances before Asa shrugged. “Practice. From the time Dad took us in, we learned to act normal. We can’t process emotions like fear, anxiety, sadness. They don’t exist for us. We had to learn to fake it. Not just fake it but…believe it.”

“But you can experience other feelings? Like happiness?” Noah asked, twisting in his seat to look back at the brothers. Maybe if Adam could experience other things, one of those things was love?

They looked at each other for a long time, and Noah had the creepy feeling they were communicating somehow. Finally, Avi said, “Yeah. We can be happy, sad, jealous, angry, surprised. Psychopathy doesn’t mean we feel nothing. It just means we don’t form attachments in the same way others do.”

“Right.” Noah’s voice sounded more disappointed than intended. “How did your father teach you to fake emotions?” he finally asked, refusing to dwell on Adam’s inability to form attachments.

Asa seemed almost eager to talk about the process, while Avi and Adam remained silent, though not uncomfortably so. “There’s a professor—Dr. Molly Shepherd. Our dad met her after he donated money to his alma mater. She was guest lecturing. She had spent thirty years researching psychopaths like us and used her own son as a case study. That’s where our dad got the idea and the techniques he employed to teach us to be more…human.”

“This is all so interesting,” Noah managed, squeezing Adam’s hand. “Why are you willing to tell me all of this?”

Once more, Asa and Avi exchanged meaningful glances. “Can’t hurt now. You already know too much. Besides, our father will do whatever it takes to protect us, to protect what he created. So, if you betray us, he’ll probably kill you.”

Asa said it so casually it took a full moment for the threat to penetrate Noah’s brain. “Oh,” was all he could think to say.

Never ask a question if you can’t handle the answer. That was what his father used to say. It seemed like solid advice in that specific moment.





Adam’s blood boiled at his brother’s casual threat. Were they trying to intimidate Noah? Scare him? Make him leave? Noah’s thumb began to lazily stroke the side of Adam’s hand, as if he could sense his agitation and wanted him to relax. Maybe he could. Maybe that was Noah’s superpower. He had too much empathy and Adam had none at all. Was that a bad thing? To Adam, it felt like balance. Did Noah feel the same?

“I think you’re making our baby brother mad,” Avi said, amused. “He doesn’t like when you threaten his new toy.”

Asa snickered. “Atticus said this one is different.”

“Well, we know that. When have you ever known Adam to bring home any of his playthings? Hell, when was the last time he even saw the same boy twice? Yet here he is, all tied up in knots over this one in just…what? A week?”

Two days. Just two days. But it felt like more. It felt like he’d met Noah a million years ago and they’d been separated all this time. And now, he was back. Back where he belonged. With Adam. And that was how it would stay, no matter who tried to get in their way. But Adam kept that to himself. He wasn’t allowed to threaten his brothers.

One of his father’s many rules. Never turn on family. What if they turned on him first? It felt like they were threatening Noah, like they wanted to make Noah so scared of them that he wasn’t willing to risk life with Adam. His jaw clenched and relaxed, clenched and relaxed, his whole body flushed with…something…at the thought of Noah leaving him. Noah could never leave him. Never. He belonged to Adam. No matter how wrong it was. Or crazy. Or possessive. Noah was his.

Noah’s thumb stopped stroking and his hand squeezed Adam’s hard, pulling him out of the rage spiral currently consuming him. Asa and Avi had their creepy twin thing, so they were only talking out loud to piss Adam off and to make Noah uncomfortable. Brother stuff. That was what his father called it. He said it made them seem normal. Siblings teased each other. Siblings had banter.

His siblings were going to need a ride the rest of the way home if they didn’t shut the fuck up because he was going to dump them on the side of the highway. They had it coming. Even his father would see that, once he explained it. They could call an Uber.

Noah craned his head around to give Adam’s brothers a hard look. “I don’t know if this is, like, your attempt at intimidating me, or if you’re just trying to piss him off, but if I tell you I’m suitably terrified, can we please move past whatever the fuck this is?” he asked, gesturing between them.

The twins blinked at each other, then at Noah, their confusion obvious. Adam squeezed Noah’s hand this time, giving him a smile he hoped conveyed how…proud of Noah he was. He was so soft in some ways. His skin, his features, the way he melted into Adam’s arms and his brown eyes went hazy when he let Adam take control. But he wasn’t a pushover. He wasn’t one to back down, even if it killed him. That was a necessary trait to navigate a life with Adam.