Sins of the Stepbrothers
2 Wicked Stepbrothers, 1 Innocent Girl #1
By Stephanie Brother
© 2015 Stephanie Brother
All Rights Reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locations is purely coincidental. The characters are all productions of the author’s imagination.
Please note that this work is intended only for adults over the age of 18 and all characters represented as 18 or over.
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Prologue
My name is Blane Castillo, and I’ve messed up badly.
I’ve been in love with my stepsister for years.
The fact is a problem on its own, but add an enraged twin to the mix, you have a party.
You see, Aiden and I had a plan. It was a good one. We wanted to take what was rightfully ours, and reclaim what never should have been lost. But I never, not once, thought I would become lost in those soft green eyes, the curve of her breasts, her hair falling down her naked back like a waterfall.
I hated her.
I wanted revenge.
I was sure it would work.
She would pay, and we would triumph.
But as I look at her form under the duvet, her chest rising and falling softly with each breath she takes, I realize I care for this girl … I want to protect her from all of the bad things – but what do I do when I’m the biggest danger she’s facing?
I’m torn between loyalty to my real sibling and a budding love for this girl – no, woman, because I just made her that – and this decision is going to tear me apart – I already know it.
I stroke her silky soft hair; my lips lightly brush her porcelain skin. She breathes a sigh of pleasure and I realize I’m completely,
Utterly,
Royally
Screwed.
Chapter 1
“Well well well, would you look what the cat dragged in,” Aiden smirks as I make it into the kitchen, rubbing my bleary eyes and grumbling something in response. He’s standing at the kitchen counter, wearing an apron that says Fuck the cook. Classy.
“Fun night?” Aiden asks.
Oh, the joys of living with your twin brother when you’re 25 years old.
“Hey,” someone says timidly from behind my back and I turn around to see a girl.
Redhead. Tiny, but curvy. Not my type at all.
What the hell did I do last night? I wonder.
“Um,” I say intelligently and Red looks at me meaningfully as I scramble for her name, coming up blank. Sarah? Sloane? Something with an S. Or a B. Maybe a K?
Her bottom lip pushes out slightly and clearly I’ve upset her, but since that isn’t enough in the Castillo household, my brother stars grinning like a mad man.
“Who is this now?” he asks, his eyebrows waggling. “Can I have a go?”
I wish he would shut that mouth. Being the older/more responsible brother, I have this sentiment often.
Red looks utterly confused and glances from me to Aiden, and her eyes stop on his muscled arms. Of course they do.
“You should probably go,” I offer lamely, feeling like a total douchebag.
She doesn’t object but disappears into my bedroom as Aiden manages to calm down and flip a burnt looking piece of dough, all the while shooting me meaningful glances.
The girl comes out of the bedroom in time to catch him sniffing a very blackened and inedible looking pancake, and then shrugging as he throws it at my head. The pancake lands on my forehead and I peel it off with a tired sigh.
Red looks at us and shakes her head. “You guys are weird,” she declares.
I really want her to go, because I’m not about to relive last night, which I’m sure involved a lot of drinking and even sloppier kissing. I have a moment of brilliance.
“Bye, Serah,” I say sweetly.
“It’s Kara,” she says with venom in her voice. Oops.
She looks over my shoulder at Aiden and winks at him. “I should’ve at least chosen the hotter brother.”
Aiden cracks up again as she finally leaves.
“Your face!” he manages to say. “When she said that!”
I roll my eyes and make my way to the fridge to get some milk.
The worst part is this is just a standard morning for us.
Chapter 2
After Serah – sorry, Kara – leaves, we sit down to breakfast. Like we’re a normal family, and not the sad remains of what we used to be, I think sadly.
Aiden proudly presents me with some lopsided pancakes and I fake enthusiasm as I dig in. Honestly, they’re not as bad as they look and I desperately need some food in me to fight the incoming hangover.
I only remember last night vaguely, and that’s been happening too often. Aiden doesn’t hesitate to tell me so, either.
“You’ve been out every day this week,” Aiden complains. “I watched TV without you. No one made popcorn.” He glares accusingly at me, which I choose to ignore.
“And then you drag that back home with you,” he continues, jerking his head towards the door which the redhead left through earlier. I keep my head down and eat my pancakes, not saying a word. To fight with him means to let him win, because he won’t stop until he has the last word.
“I wonder where you go every night,” Aiden wonders out loud. “A whore house?” he guesses excitedly as I give off a loud sigh, finally having enough of his speculations.
“I went to a bar,” I offer the smallest fact possible to hopefully make him shut up, but of course, I should’ve known better. He’s like a hyena.
“What do you order at a bar?” he wonders out loud, flicking a stray cereal flake at my head.
One of these days, I swear.
“Trashy redheads!” he shouts at the top of his lungs when I refuse to provide an answer, and I slam my fist on the table.
“Can you please?” I beg him, feeling defeated and deflated at the same time. “I’m tired, my head’s throbbing and I really cannot deal with you right now. I’m late to work as it is.”
“An hour and thirty minutes,” Aiden cheerfully reminds me and in that moment, I want to slap him so badly.
Because I’m the only one of us with a real job.
Sure, Aiden gets some money, but it’s not regular payments like mine. He paints and some months he’ll sell a lot, while others, he doesn’t have a dollar to his name.
So it’s on my shoulders to pay for myself, and most of all Aiden who is in school.
And it shouldn’t have been like this. We should be taken care of, yet we got nothing.
He backs off immediately, seeing he’s overstepped the line, and we sit awkwardly for a few minutes, not saying anything at all.
“What are you going to do today? Go to class?” I ask Aiden when I finish off my breakfast.
“No class today, will get some other stuff done,” he responds cheerfully, but I can tell it’s fake. I know him too well. I know when he’s hurting, and since we’re both going through the same stuff right now I know exactly how he feels.
Cheated.
Wronged.
Angry.
I give a brief nod and get up to start getting ready. I know no one will give me a piece of their mind for being late, but I’m still not thrilled about it. I get paid by the hour as a programmer and being late means less money on my paycheck.
“I’ll see you in the
evening,” I say twenty minutes later, showered and ready to head to work.
He’s sitting on the sofa in front of the TV, watching some show or other. He just nods.
And because I’m the big brother – if only by seven minutes – I make him some popcorn. The face he makes when he hears the corn popping makes me feel a little better, and we part on a good note.
But still, as I take the stairs downstairs – elevator has been broken since we moved in – I want a better life for us. We aren’t used to this, and we’re struggling. And I’m going to pull us out of this mess whatever it takes.
I want justice.
Chapter 3
My day passes as days always do – at the office. My job is not something I love, but at least I’m good at it, and it makes some money – not nearly enough though …
Lately, I’ve been too lost in the dark parts of my mind. My brother manages to keep me upbeat most of the time, though I suspect sometimes he feels just as lost as I am right now.
I close my jacket and cross my hands in front of me to stop the cold from getting in. My breath comes out in puffs of smoke and I’m stewing with anger and resentment. My hangover is not helping much.
I’m only a block away when I hear the engine of a car slowing down behind me. It is followed by angry honks and shouts, and I turn around to see what the commotion is about.
There’s a black limo behind me, the lacquer on it shiny and spotless. And the driver is rushing out now, opening the door. A second later, two impossibly long and slim legs poke out and a girl exits the vehicle.
She’s a blonde, tall and willowy. She looks like a princess of some lost forest land, her eyes a burning green and her hair long and wavy, natural, beautiful.
And then she stumbles in her too high heels and almost falls under the wheels of a car.
Thankfully, I catch her before that happens.
“What the hell are you doing?” I murmur as I place her back on her feet and more angry honking ensues. “You need to stop following me.”
She manages to stand up straight, giving me a nervous smile. God, but she really is gorgeous …
She waves at her driver and he gives a short nod before getting in the car and driving away, the traffic jam they’ve both caused slowly dissipating.
“I really don’t have time for this,” I say roughly to the girl, making my way off the road and onto the sidewalk. I tuck my hands in the pockets of my pea coat and start walking away with a purpose.
But of course, I hear the clickety-clack of her heels as she runs after me. “Wait!” she yells softly, if that’s possible. But somehow, all about her is soft – that mass of hair, her porcelain skin, and those full lips …
Shaking my head, I refuse to look at her and keep on walking, but she manages to catch up with me, taking long strides.
“Come on, Blane,” she says with that begging voice that used to work so well on our father. She managed to be the Daddy’s girl, despite the fact that she wasn’t even his blood.
“I’m not dealing with you today,” I tell her and keep walking.
She doesn’t waver. She follows on like a lost puppy.
“You have to talk to me at some point,” she presses on and I shake my head.
“Not today,” I tell her. “Not now. It’s … It hurts.”
That seems to shut her up for a bit, but she’s still following me relentlessly. The noise of her heels is driving me insane and I rub my eyes as I walk, too tired to deal with this now. I’ve got enough problems without Poor Little Rich Girl following my every step.
“Please, Blane,” she says behind my back, but I refuse to turn around or give her the time of day. It hurts though, because I’m a man who protects the ones I love. But not her, I remind myself. She’s on her own now, and she’s got enough money to take care of all of her problems.
“Let me be, Emme,” I tell her sternly and quicken my pace, but she runs behind me, wrapping a shaky hand around my forearm. I turn around and rip my arm out of her touch, watching her lips tremble with sadness.
“I’m so lonely,” she says sadly. “I miss you … You got each other, and I got …”
“You got our parent’s fortune,” I tell her sternly. “You got every last cent, and don’t pretend you’d give it up for us. We’re not going to play the puppets in your little play, so you might as well give up and get lost.”
With that, I finally turn around and walk away, and this time, she doesn’t follow.
But the image of her quivering bottom lip is etched onto my brain now, and I know it will be even harder to fall asleep tonight.
Chapter 4
I’ve done a number on you, haven’t I? I started telling a story but I never did explain what happened, why I’m acting like a total ass. It’s a hard story to tell, and I don’t like thinking about it, but I guess you have to know eventually …
Emme Ford is a thief.
She didn’t do it intentionally. She didn’t ask to inherit all that money, money that should have rightfully belonged to all of us – me, Aiden and Emme.
But she got it all anyway.
My mother died in childbirth, and it’s something I’ll never stop feeling guilty about. Maybe, if there was only one of us instead of two, she would have lived. Maybe, if I never existed, she would still be breathing today – instead of me.
But here I am, and she’s been in the ground for 25 years. Not much else to tell you about that without breaking down.
So my Dad raised us, with my help occasionally.
He was a good man, and he gave us everything he could. We never wanted for anything. I knew he had big hopes of doing more, but he never had time for it with both of us on his hands. Then he met her.
Rachel Ford was beautiful, younger than him, a single mother.
They hid it from us for a long time, only telling the three of us when we were 13. My Dad sat us down and told us we would soon meet a nice lady and her little girl, who was 9 at the time. We were hesitant, but as soon as Rachel and Emme walked through our door, everything was forgotten and an instant friendship was born.
From then on, the kids would beg to be together as much as possible. Our parents didn’t mind at all, because it gave them an excuse to be together. And then before we knew it, we were moving in together.
One kid can be a handful.
Now imagine having two boys and a little girl running around the house.
It was a good childhood, though. We loved each other, and our parents made no differences between us, even though we weren’t related by blood.
And because there were two of them raising us, they had more time to talk about their ambitions. My father was a programmer, like I am today, and he had some ideas that were way ahead of his time. Rachel was a college dropout, yet she proved to be irreplaceable when it came to marketing my father’s ideas.
And so it happened that they built a small company, right out of my Dad’s office in our house.
And pretty soon, that company exploded overnight.
Suddenly, we were moving into a bigger house, getting better cars, hiring housekeepers. We moved to a beautiful building in a rich neighborhood. We had a dog that cost more than some cars for years.
Our family flourished.
I always thought of Emme as a sister. A silly kid with a gap between her teeth, her knees always muddy. She was closest with Aiden though – they were inseparable.
I guess we were close too, but it was never like her relationship with my brother. We didn’t do stuff together, didn’t make plans, just the two of us.
I was always awkward and nervous around her, and it was only when I was about 20 that I realized why that was.
I had a full-blown crush on Emme.
She was 16 at the time and it was unacceptable for so many reasons.
So I stayed quiet and stayed away. I looked away when she tried to find my gaze, ignored her words, and distanced myself. I knew it would hurt our parents if something happened between the two of us,
so I stayed in the shadows.
Years after my revelation, my father passed away.
He was a big man, and we knew he had some health issues, but when he dropped like a stone at a dinner we never expected it. He was gone, just like that – just a body before the ambulance even arrived.
We were all alone.
What we didn’t realize was what would happen next.
My father left everything he owned to Rachel, the woman who showed him love again after our mother passed away. And it was never thought to be an issue – we were Rachel’s children as well, and she would take care of us.
Wouldn’t she?
Life dealt another blow.
Rachel collapsed during a meeting at the firm, where they were discussing her new position as head of the company. We were all so scared after what happened with our father, but we kept telling ourselves it would be okay. Surely, so many bad things couldn’t happen to us at once?
Oh, but they could, because Rachel was diagnosed with Stage 4 breast cancer.
She was gone in less than a month.
I had three parents, and they’re all buried now. I’ve had two siblings, yet I now only have one. I’ve only been in love with one woman, and she is my stepsister, which is reason alone I can never have her. But the bigger reason is this:
When Rachel died, we were forgotten. The only person who mattered to the lawyers was Emme, the clumsy girl who had turned from a girl with muddy knees to a stunning young woman. She was Rachel’s blood relative, and Aiden and I … we were nothing.
And she was now the one who held the company in her hands.
We fought.
We cried.
We spoke up.
It was all in vain. At the time, we were both in college, and we were informed we couldn’t return home. Our bills would need to be paid, and no one really cared where that money came from.
Emme was desperate after the news broke out. She offered us money, a fund in each of our names, but that fell through after she realized most of the money was out of her hands. She had her pocket money, sure, but the rest of it was tied up in the company.
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