Chapter Ten
Brianna
Brianna was happy.
It had been a long time since she could say that about herself, but she was well and truly happy. With Adrien gone, and Samuel and Camila spending time with her every day, she was starting to improve.
In her early years, Brianna had been like any other child her age, bouncing all over the place and talkative, very open. But because of… that day… her thoughts skirted over it just like they always did, the world suddenly turned into a scary place. Aside from her parents and her brother Samuel, she trusted no one and closed herself off from everyone in every way possible.
She had been four years old when she stopped talking. It wasn’t that she forgot how, or didn’t want to, but that she couldn’t. The mental scars left from trauma pretty much closed her vocal chords, and she’d never once made a sound since that day.
Recently, though, her vocal chords were getting some exercise. She wasn’t talking, but she laughed sometimes, a lot more than she had for the past fifteen years, and it was all thanks to Samuel and Camila.
Brianna wanted to talk. For several reasons. After she’d met Camila, and realized that Camila had dated Adrien before Samuel, she’d wanted to speak to her. At first, it was so she could warn her about her brother Adrien.
Brianna had firsthand knowledge that Adrien wasn’t a good person, and for this reason, she tended to avoid him at all costs. Any time he’d been home, Brianna had made sure to lock her door and not leave her room until she knew it was safe to leave. Over the years since their parents had died, and Samuel had returned, Adrien had tried to turn himself into a copy of Samuel in every way. He always claimed to be the better copy, but in so many ways, he failed miserably.
When Camila had befriended her, Brianna had tried her best to warn her about Adrien’s games, but Camila hadn’t exactly understood her. In the end, bad things had still happened.
She recalled the day Samuel had brought Camila back to their house and she slept over for the first time. Just thinking about it made her shiver in terror.
“Bri, Camila is staying in the guest room tonight,” Samuel had said in the gentle way he had always spoken to her. “Something bad happened.”
What? Brianna had signed to him. It was Adrien, wasn’t it?
He’d nodded, but he didn’t specify anything.
She’d felt bad that she couldn’t have been of more help.
While she hadn’t been happy about what happened to Camila, she was happy that Adrien was gone. There was no love lost between her and Adrien, and with him gone, Brianna had been improving in all sorts of ways. Lately she’d been thinking of ways to strengthen her vocal cords.
It had been fifteen years, but finally, Brianna wanted to try and talk, and she tried to make attempts.
The first time it happened, they had been out, all three of them. It was meant to be a fun outing, and her spirits had been so high, she’d made the attempt without thinking. Of course, she failed. Instead of words, only rough sounds came out, sounding garbled. But all three of them were surprised that she’d made even that much progress.
At that point, she wasn’t sure if the problem was with her vocal chords or her mind, but when Samuel offered to have someone come and assess the problem for her, and help her, she flat refused with a quick shake of her head. If she was going to do this, she was going to do it on her own, or there wasn’t much meaning to it.
Deciding she wanted to make even more improvements in her life, Brianna woke that morning with a plan. Quickly dressing, she went down to the dining room to wait for Samuel and Camila.
When they arrived downstairs a half hour later, they were surprised to see her seated there.
“Bri, were you waiting on us?” Samuel asked, giving her a quizzical look.
Brianna nodded and smiled. I have something I’d like to discuss, she signed. She’d been using sign language more often as a means to communicate, rather than writing.
“And what would that be?” he asked, clearly surprised.
“What is it?” Camila asked, looking between them.
“She says she has something to discuss,” Samuel commented.
Camila took her seat.
Once both of them were seated and all of them had plates set before them, Brianna signed again. “I’d like to take a car and go to the library.”
“The library?” Samuel looked thoughtful as he studied her.
“She wants us to take her to the library?” Camila asked.
Brianna sighed and picked up the notebook next to her plate. Since Camila was having trouble understanding what was going on and she didn’t want to be rude, she wrote out what she wanted.
No, I want to go by myself to the library and spend the day out doing what I want, reading, maybe have lunch, and then come home this afternoon. I want to be more independent. I’m practically an adult. I should be able to do this.
She handed the notebook to Camila who read it and passed it to Samuel.
“I think it’s a great idea, Brianna.” Camila reached a hand out to her and Brianna took it with a smile.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Samuel asked, still concerned.
Brianna nodded enthusiastically. With Adrien gone, she wanted nothing more than to break free of her own prison. She wanted to be free. Well, freer than she had been. She’d greatly enjoyed her trips out with Camila and Samuel, but she couldn’t continue to be the third wheel on their dates. They needed alone time and she needed to prove, even if it was just to herself that she could do this.
“Alright, I’ll have the car brought around for you. Take this,” he said, handing her a wad of cash.
She looked at him and frowned.
“For lunch and whatever else you find.” He smiled.
Grinning, Brianna took it and then hugged him.
A part of her was still worried. She had only started coming out to the world recently, and she felt like a novice surrounded by strangers. It was even worse, because she was doing this on her own. But she wanted to do this. Not only for herself, but also for Samuel who had always stuck by her. Even after he enlisted to the army, he made sure to send her several letters, no matter where he was. When their parents passed away, she was the one to send him the letter, and he was back weeks later to look after her, which made her happy, because the last thing she wanted was to be left alone at home with Adrien.
Brianna felt determined to get better now that her brother had found someone and the two of them seemed happy. Having Samuel and Camila be there for her had been great, but she didn’t want to be a burden to them, either. She wouldn’t always be able to depend on them, so she needed to learn how to stand on her own two feet.
* * *
Camila
“Well, that was unexpected,” Samuel said as they stood on the front porch and waved as Brianna was driven away in the black Mercedes.
Camila wrapped her arm around Samuel’s waist, tucking herself under his arm and smiled. “Scared?” she asked.
Samuel chuckled. “Terrified.”
Camila laughed too. “I bet.” Together they started back into the house. “So, what are we going to do today?”
“I don’t know…” He looked down at her and she could see the lust in his eyes. “Do you have work to finish?”
“Well, technically, yes, but…” she bit her lip and looked at him flirtatiously, “it can wait.”
“Good,” Samuel said, bending to kiss her. He scooped her up in his arms and carried her up the stairs to his suite.
They spent a lazy afternoon relaxing together in bed after spending several hours making love and cuddling. The two of them didn’t even move from Samuel’s bedroom until it was late enough for dinner.
“I’m hungry,” Camila murmured as she lay against his chest.
“We should go down to dinner.”
“Think Brianna’s home yet?” Camila asked, sitting up.
“I heard the car a while ago. I imagine Bri has been
back for ages. I suspect the staff warned her we were occupied.” He chuckled.
Camila blushed, ducking her head as she picked up her clothes and began to dress. Before she put her top back on, Samuel pulled her to him and he kissed her stomach.
“Keep that up and we’ll be skipping dinner,” Camila said, laughing lightly.
Samuel rested his head against her middle and nodded. Squeezing her ass, he stood up and kissed her softly on the lips, and then strode into the bathroom. When he returned a few minutes later, he was dressed.
Food had been made already, and as soon as they sat down, they were served. Brianna joined them a few minutes later, a huge smile on her face.
“How was your day, Bri?” Camila asked as she took a bite of her chicken.
Excitedly, Brianna wrote on the notepad next to her and then held it up. Utterly fantastic!
Samuel grinned at her. “What did you do?”
Camila watched her as she scribbled on the paper, but as she did, she was making little happy noises and a small giggle burst from Brianna’s lips. Looking up in surprise, Brianna put her hand over her mouth and then returned to her notepad.
Camila looked at Samuel and she could see the pride in his eyes as he watched his sister making such leaping progress. When Bri handed her the notepad, she read it out loud. “Bri says, she went to the library and spent the day browsing the stacks, she sat with a group of quiet students and read. After that she went to Marco’s with a few of the girls she met and had pizza.”
Brianna made at grabbing motion at the notepad and Camila handed it back.
“That is wonderful, Bri. I’m so glad you’re making friends.”
Brianna scribbled some more and then handed it to Camila again.
“She says, the girls were really nice and one of them was able to sign with her. They exchanged phone numbers. Her name is Maria and her sister is deaf, which is how she learned to sign.”
Camila smiled at her. “I am so happy for you, Bri.” She looked over at Samuel who seemed a bit teary. “Don’t you start crying or I will too,” she teased him.
Samuel chuckled as he stood up and went over to his sister, giving her a hug. “I am so proud of you.”
Brianna grinned and signed, I am proud of me too.
As Samuel returned to his seat, his phone rang. With a sigh, he looked at it and stood up. He clicked the answer button and said, “Hello?”
Brianna and Camila both watched him expectantly. A look of shock crossed his face, then his expression turned grim.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” His voice was harsh and his jaw went rigid.
I exchanged a glance with Brianna as a feeling of panic coiled in my stomach.
“I understand,” he murmured harshly into the phone. “I’ll inform her, she’s with me right here. Please update me as often as possible when there’s a change in the situation…” A muscle ticked in his jaw. “Yes, I trust you’re working hard to rectify this situation. Thank you.”
He cut the call, and both of them just continued to watch him silently.
Camila could guess from the conversation that something had gone really wrong, and she could feel uneasiness continue to coalesce in her chest, making her heart squeeze uncomfortably.
“Samuel, what’s wrong?” she asked after a long moment of him silently staring at his phone with a deep frown on his face.
Finally, Samuel let out a heavy sigh and looked up at them with a guarded expression, but they had already seen the weariness he was trying to hide. He glanced at the both of them, eyes lingering on Brianna for a moment, before turning to Camila. She was holding her breath, waiting for him to say what the problem was, but it still surprised her when he came out with it.
“That… was the police. They called about Adrien.”
“What about Adrien?” she asked, her voice quieter and trembling just slightly.
The look he sent her was apologetic and pained. “They said… he’s escaped. They don’t know how he managed to orchestrate it, but it was pretty daring. They don’t know if he had help or not, but he left two guards and his cellmate dead.”
Chapter Eleven
After they got the phone call, everything that occurred in between Adrien getting arrested and escaping felt like such a dream.
Camila thought back on it and realized, it really was too good to be true, like a fleeting dream, and she should have expected for things to turn out this way.
When it was just Adrien making calls from inside prison to bother them that was one thing. This, though, left her petrified, and she felt like she was back in her nightmare again, running away with Adrien at her tail, trying to hurt her.
He won’t be able to get to me, she thought, trying to console herself. He can't. Not here.
The first place Adrien had attacked her had been her home, and he’d somehow found out where she worked, as well. From the moment they got the call, Samuel had been insistent on her staying inside the mansion no matter what. Not that she minded. The mansion was built on huge grounds, but it also had good security. The only problem was that Adrien knew all about the mansion and its great security so Samuel had also talked to the police.
Or it was more like the police insisted on talking to Samuel. From what she’d seen of him, he’d looked a bit reluctant to go to the police himself. But Adrien hadn't just escaped, he’d gotten people killed, he might have even done it himself, and he wasn’t the only one to escape from the prison.
If he could escape from prison, then Adrien wasn’t stupid, even though Camila had already known he wasn’t. The police needed to get into his head somehow, and who better than his own twin brother?
Everyone’s biggest worry though, was that now that Adrien was out of prison, he would try to go after Camila again. What if he got hold of a gun? She knew he couldn’t have gotten one during his escape because the guards in the prison didn’t have them. They were given other weapons, tazers she thought, so there wouldn’t be the risk of prisoners somehow getting a hold of a gun. But considering how resourceful Adrien had been while he was in prison, it was entirely possible that he had one now from his outside contacts.
In the end, both Samuel and the police had thought it would be a good idea for them to all be cautious. The next day, Camila made the call to her mom, and she was brought by a separate car to the mansion.
Morganna, when she appeared, had a grim expression on her face, but she didn’t act surprised at all when Camila explained what happened, as much as she knew so far. Camila supposed this wasn’t a first for her mom, not really. Camila was too young to remember what happened when her father died, but she did know that he’d tried to hold a weapon on her mom, who somehow managed to turn it all around.
She never expected to go through the same thing her mom went through with her dad.
The only difference was that Camila had people to take care of her. Her mother, having no family and few friends, who she didn’t even get to see or talk to because of her abusive, controlling husband, had been alone.
Everything is going to be fine, Camila tried to tell herself.
Why did it sound like such a lie?
After Samuel finished his talk with the police, he arrived back at the mansion to meet the three of them, Morganna, Camila and Brianna, so they could figure out what to do. Of course with Adrien at large, all of them had to be careful, which meant not being out on the streets. He was more worried about the latter two, but as this would affect all four of them, he didn’t plan on keeping anyone out of the loop.
“How is everything?” Camila was the first to speak, getting up and walking over to him.
Samuel sighed as he took her hand and faced all three of them. He didn’t look happy at all, and Camila could faintly hear a commotion outside.
“There have been no leads on Adrien yet,” he said, making everyone disappointed. “The police are advising us to stay together, which I agree with. What I, however, do not agree with is their wanting us to rely on police guard.�
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Camila saw he look irritated and rubbed a hand up and down his arm.
“Wouldn’t that be a good thing, though?” she asked. “We definitely need help from the police, don’t we?”
Samuel frowned. “The police would be useful, sure. But I’m a bit wary about trusting them, seeing as they haven’t been the best support through all of this. They couldn’t stop Adrien from constantly getting burner phones into the prison. It’s possible he even paid the guards to help him out. I don’t know everyone that he knows, we might be twins but I don’t know a damn thing about how he lived while I was away and even while I was here, so I don’t know the kind of help he’s getting. They’d be better off using all their manpower to look for him while I hire a private team to keep the grounds extra safe.”
“There are police outside, then?” Camila asked.
He nodded. “Yes. There’s a possibility he might show up here so there are several patrol cars outside. They don’t want me calling in outside security, either, because it will interfere with their investigation.”
Samuel was irritated, but Camila kind of understood the police. Adrien was from the Kane family, a big name in New York City. He kept violating rules of his incarceration and no one once managed to stop him, and even with such a huge warning sign, he managed to leave without them doing a thing about it. Twenty four hours later, and they still had no idea where he was, or what he was doing. They were probably under a lot of pressure, and a lot of that pressure must come from the Kane family name. If this kind of news got out, Camila didn’t doubt the police would be getting a lot of heat for all of it.
“Did they tell you anything about his escape? If he had help, or if he has a weapon so we knew what to expect?” Morganna asked, stepping forward.
Samuel turned to her. “They believe he had help, both inside and out. And at the same time he escaped, there were other people that escaped as well. They don’t know whether he’s with them or not, but this has grown into a problem of a much bigger scale than it should have.”
Tangled Obsession: Book 2 of the Obsession Trilogy Page 6
