Blackbird (A Stepbrother Romance #1)(3)

There used to be a path here but the stones are worn down smooth and covered with loam. I used to walk here all the time with my mother and father. When you’re a kid, Mom and Dad are just there. Only now with both of them gone do I realize how I miss them both so f*cking much. I can see them in my mind’s eye on this very path on a warm autumn day, walking hand in hand. Dad was built like I am-tall and heavily muscled, but he kept his coal black hair closely cropped.

That was so long ago.

The garage is big enough to be a house on its own. A long, long time ago, it was a stables, but my grandfather, or maybe great grandfather, had it converted and rebuilt into a garage. His car, a lumbering Packard, is still in the furthest bay, or was when I was last here. I went for a ride in a few times. It’s big and slow and ponderous to drive and I’m not here for it.

I’m here for my Dad’s car. Technically, she’s mine. They’re holding her hostage here.

The garage is in sight, but so is the house. The lights are on on the second floor.

I shouldn’t. I should go nowhere near it, not yet.

Refusing to listen to that little voice that says you shouldn’t is probably how I ended up in prison for five years, but old habits die hard. I run across the grass, hoping I don’t set off a motion detector or end up on camera. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I could end up back in prison serving out the rest of my term for this, plus interest, but I have to see.

I did this a dozen times when I was a kid. The back of the house is a huge terrace, with a roof supported by massive columns of real marble. They’re so worn from age and acid rain that it’s easy to shimmy right up. The pockmarks are like handholds, like the stippling and grippy spots on a climbing wall.

I was twelve when I did this the last time, but I’m in the best of shape of my life. Lots of weight lifting and constant body weight exercises in my cell, you see. It’s easy to get up to the terrace roof, though I go on all fours where I used to run when I was a kid. Work my way across to the wall. A ledge runs all the way across the house, and these brick buttresses jut out from the sides. They’re slick from the rain, so I take it easy, and work my way down the ledge, using the brick handholds. My old room is four windows down. The light is on inside. I stop by the window and lean over.

Evelyn walks out of the en-suite, wrapped in a towel. It’s a creamy white towel, but it’s darker than her skin, as pale as milk. When I first met her I thought she was an albino, but she’s not. Real platinum blonde hair cascades to her hips in a perfectly straight fall. The water turns it green when she gets wet. I remember seeing that the first time, first time I ever saw her go swimming. She loves to swim.

She sits on the bed and takes a blow dryer to her hair, never once glancing at the window. She’s more delicate than slender. I remember holding her wrists in my hands, feeling her long fingers lace through mine. I could stay here for hours and just watch. After running the hair dryer she starts brushing out her hair. I’ve never seen a shade quite like hers. It’s what they call platinum blonde but it’s almost silver, only a hint of gold in the right light. The only color is in her eyes, a striking blue. There’s power in those eyes.

Eve is my stepsister. Her father married my mother when I was nineteen years old.

Then he sent me to prison and stole my life.

Now she sleeps in my bed.

I edge away from the window, carefully make my way across the roof and down the column. She’s up early, but then, she was always an early riser. The light is still on, but the sun is coming up, bruising the eastern sky. I’ve been here too long, took too much of a risk.

I had to see her. It’s been five years.

She stole my life, along with her rat bastard father. She eats my food, lives in my house, sleeps in my bed.

…Still.

I’m here for the car. That’s my opening play. I sprint over to the garage. There’s ten bays, the car is in bay four. It was always in bay four. My father treasured this automobile, did all the work on it himself and taught me everything he could; he died when I was twelve, so it wasn’t much but I built on it as much as I could. I have more interest in being a mechanic than running a multinational business, but a man once wrote that what men want does not matter. Or women, I guess. The bay doors aren’t locked. I roll up the door, and there she is.

They knew how to build ‘em back then, Dad always said. She’s a ’70 Pontiac Firebird. She was born stock, but Dad did a load of work on her himself. All new running gear, topped off with a twin-turbo on a big block crate motor, four hundred cubic inches. State of the art disk brakes, all new steering, ivory pearl paint and a massive, multicolored screaming chicken decal on the hood. She’s a beauty. Just touching the cool metal of the fender brings me back. I remember screaming my head off when Dad drove me in this car. Once I even overhead Mom joking with him when I wasn’t supposed to be awake.

Yeah, that’s right. I was conceived in the back seat of this car. It’s as much my home as the house, if not more so, and it is mine.

Nobody bothered to lock the doors. Or drive her for a long time, from the dust in the interior. I flip open the glove compartment and pull out the registration.

Yup, VICTOR AMSEL. The address is wrong, but it’s my f*cking name. This is my car, legally, free and clear.

A quick trip over to the key box and I perform the only breaking of this breaking and entering operation, shearing off the rusted old padlock with some bolt cutter I find lying around. I take the key and the spare and slip back inside. The seat still fits me like a glove. They must have just dumped her here. Gas tank is empty, of course. Fortunately the garage has its own supply. I twiddle my thumbs until the tank is full, then finally get back in for the third time.