Double Heat [Twin Ties: 3] (38 page)

Alek tried to call Brennan as he sped home, after the detective had assured him he would be tracing the messages sent to Alek’s phone. At the detective’s request, Alek also sent a message back to Drew, asking to get together to settle things like men. The detective’s idea was to lure Drew out in the open, so they could intercept and finally bring him in.

Brennan also failed to answer his phone. Alek tried Carter next, actually hoping the call wouldn’t be picked up, and give him hope they were all still busy with the band.

But when he heard Carter’s voice say, “Hey man,” Alek yelled, “Where are they?”

“What? The twins? Home. They’re home,” Carter said confusedly. “Just dropped ‘em off.”

“Shit,” Alek cursed, pressing the gas a little harder, driving faster to get home and make sure everyone was okay.

Chapter 31
Twist of Fate

Carter dropped Evan and Brennan off at the apartment after band practice was over. Looking up and down the street, checking out the pedestrians and vehicles parked nearby, Carter seemed to anticipate trouble. Evan still didn’t like that Carter was carrying his gun. It just made him uneasy, like the gun was drawing bad luck to them somehow, tempting fate to fuck things up some more.

In the backseat of Carter’s car, Brennan gathered his backpack and smiled Carter’s way. “Thanks for everything.”

“No problem,” Carter replied. “You gonna try singing with the band next time?”

Brennan chuckled uncertainly. “Maybe, if everyone’s okay with it, and there aren’t tons of people hanging around.”

“There are always tons of people hanging around,” Carter told him. “The whole point is to have an audience, right? You can’t let it get to you.”

“Yeah, you’re right. We’ll see.”

“You’re not coming in?” Evan asked as he opened the passenger side door and swung a leg out.

“Gotta get home, check on Pres. We’re supposed to go out tonight.”

“Cool. Tell him we said hi,” Evan said, getting out the rest of the way. Brennan got out too. “Catch ya later then.”

“You guys’ll be fine, right?” Carter asked, still looking everywhere like he was making sure no one suspicious was nearby.

“Of course,” Evan smiled. “Alek’s probably on his way home right now.”

“Good. Well, before I go, do me a favor and check the front door’s locks. I want to make sure everything looks cool before I leave.”

“No problem.”

Evan pulled out his keys. The door was still locked, so he opened it with his key. Everything was quiet and dark inside, just like they left it. Standing in the entryway, he waved to Carter to tell him to go on.

Carter waved back, then pulled away and drove out of view. Evan’s stomach growled.

“We have anything good for dinner in the fridge?” he asked. “Or should we just order something? Maybe text Alek so he can pick it up on his way back?”

“Yeah, I think we have plenty of veggies for a nice salad,” Brennan said with a grin, then laughed at the expression on Evan’s face. “Unless you want to take a walk down to the pizza place, get a couple of slices?”

“Friggin’ hate salad,” Evan complained. “Let’s do pizza after we drop your stuff.”

“Sounds good,” Brennan agreed, closing the door over so the heat wouldn’t all rush out, then hurried up the steps to set his backpack and books down. “But, you know, the lack of murder involved in attaining a salad makes it taste that much better.”

They got to the top of the steps. Evan hung back while Brennan charged ahead. There was no point in following, since they were heading back out in a second anyway. The large, framed photo of the four of them, taken while playing touch football, hung there on the landing. It was a pleasant reminder of how lucky they were to have each other, and to be able to look forward to seeing each member of their foursome at the end of every long day. You could tell with one glance at that image how much love was shared between them.

The apartment was dark, the curtains over the windows closed, all of the lights turned off. Evan thought it was interesting how he was getting used to the smell of the place. It didn’t seem foreign to him anymore, like it had when he’d first moved in. Now it felt more like theirs. Even the faint urban noise filtering in from outside was kind of nice instead of a nuisance.

Brennan flicked the light switch, turning on the overhead light at the top of the stairs, dispelling some of the gloom. He dropped his bag by the coat closet with a
thunk
and sighed in relief.

“Gimme one sec,” Brennan said. “I’m gonna hit the head. Be right back.”

Going over his assignment for the next day’s Growth and Development class in his head, Brennan walked into his bedroom. The air felt colder than it should have. He wondered distractedly if there was something wrong with the heating system. He didn’t bother turning on the light, even though it was too dark to see much of anything, and headed right for the bathroom. He knew the place well enough to navigate around the furniture blindly.

As soon as he reached out to push the bathroom door open, his arm was grabbed. Since he’d assumed he was alone, the suddenness of feeling a hand clamp down around his forearm startled him enough to provoke a cry. Immediately, the cry was muffled by another hand covering his mouth as someone pulled him to his right, spinning him.

He caught a glimpse of something glinting on the ground by the window—shards of glass? Someone had broken in through the window, climbed up the fire escape?

Drew....

A body fit snugly against his back and Brennan screamed, struggling. His right arm, the one not in a brace, was twisted behind his back, immobilizing him. He tried to spin and kick and break free, but the hold on him was brutally strong. He was wrestled over to the bed and pushed down onto it, face-first. The hand over his mouth stayed but his arm was released as knees pressed hard into the backs of his legs, keeping him down. Too fast, his arms were twisted behind his back. He floundered, mentally, for what he’d learned in the self-defense class, but nothing seemed helpful enough now that he really needed an idea of what to do. Metal scraped his wrists as handcuffs were snapped around one, then the other. The one on his left squeezed around the brace, constricting the bones enough to hurt.

Brennan made a fervent cry, as loud as he could.

A blow knocked the side of his head, stunning him, rattling him enough to cause him to stop.

He glanced to his right, seeing movement. The first thing that resolved in the dim light filtering in from the hallway wasn’t the person in the room with him, but the barrel of the gun leveled right at his eyes.

“Go ahead, Bren,” Tommy said, his voice painfully familiar. “Fight back now. Kick me now. See what happens. I can’t believe you fucking kicked me in the face.”

Brennan could see him then—the white scrap of bandage over Tommy’s nose, the shapes of his features.

Drawing in as much air as he could, Brennan yelled at the top of his voice, as clearly as he could, “EVAN, RUN!”

The butt of the gun swung down, connecting with his head in a devastating crash of blackness and pain.

Awareness slipped from him.

Brennan could feel the solidity of the bed under him, but he was cold and began shivering slightly. He realized his pants and underwear had been removed as soon as the words being spoken behind him began to resolve into things he understood.

“Always knew you were a whore for cock, Bren,” Tommy was saying, his voice somewhat strained, like he was struggling. “But I never expected
this.
You really couldn’t find one guy to compare to me, so you had to take on a whole bunch at once, huh? Are you really this far gone? Can you really not see how things were better before you came here? We’re meant to be. Us. Together. I came here to get you to realize that.
This
is the proof. I came here, saw that picture, saw how you’re living, and I knew it was the right move, coming to talk some sense into you. You’ll see in a little while, you’ll be thanking me for waking you up to how fucked up your life has gotten. I’m here to
save
you. You don’t have to act out anymore, okay? I’ll take care of you, better than these guys ever could.”

Brennan’s head had never hurt so much. The pain was in his eyes, in every breath, gripping his skull like metal claws. He blinked, his glasses had been knocked off so things were fuzzy.

At first, what he saw didn’t make sense.

Tommy was tying him up, but how could he be on the floor when he was on the bed, too?

Then, clarity slammed into his rattled head.

Evan.

Tommy had him hogtied just inside the bedroom door, a wad of fabric stuffed in his mouth to silence him. Evan was trying to scream anyway, trying to fight, fear making his eyes wide and every muscle in his body strung tight as he bucked and squirmed.

Tommy had been trained in roping calves. Brennan knew he could ride. He could rope. He could fuck them up. Brennan also knew how screwed they were. There was no way Evan was getting out of those ropes if Tommy had been the one to tie them.

Leaving Evan, Tommy walked back to the bed and began to unbuckle his pants. A wash of fear threatened to cloud Brennan’s mind again, his breath catching, his lungs refusing to accept oxygen as the level of his panic shot through the roof.

What should I do?

How do I get us out of this?

“You’re fucking all of them, aren’t you?” Tommy asked, getting the belt free of his buckle, then popping his fly, inching the zipper down. “Both of those guys in that picture near the stairs—the twins? How about
him
? You fucked your brother, haven’t you?
Your own brother
, Brennan. You really think you’re that pretty? So much so, you get hard looking at yourself? That’s disgusting. But, you know what? I know what you like. How to help. I think if I give you a taste of what you’ve been missing, it’ll wake you up a little.”

Tommy pushed the jeans down. Brennan glanced away, just for a second, at the gun lying on the bed where Tommy had set it down. Brennan’s bladder was threatening to let go. He didn’t want Tommy to touch him. He didn’t want this to happen, especially not while Evan was made to watch.

“Tommy, please,” he begged, his voice tight, small, and shivering. Tommy had his dick in his hand and stroked it hard. “Let’s just talk, okay? I get it that you’re serious. I know things got out of hand at the cemetery, but my head was somewhere else then. Thinking about Maggie. How about we talk about this? About us? I’ll listen to what you have to say, all right? You don’t need the gun. You’re scaring me, and not in a fun way.”

“You’re scaring me too. That’s why I knew I needed to come and give you a wake-up call,” Tommy said, moving up behind Brennan, kicking his legs apart and settling on the edge of the bed there, between them. Two dry fingers were forced into his anus and the panic went higher still. Grunting as the probing grew rougher, hurting him in places he didn’t want to hurt, Brennan stared at the gun, sensing Evan a few feet away, watching everything. He could hear Evan’s muffled screams; see his rage-filled, reddened face in his peripheral vision.

“Why’re you looking at the gun?” Tommy asked. “Is it getting you hot? I thought it might. You remember how we used to do role play? You’d be my prisoner and I’d punish you?”

“If role play’s what you want, how about you let my brother go, okay? He doesn’t have anything to do with this. With
us
. So just... just stop. Wait! Tommy, that seriously hurts. If you really want me to come back to you, you need to stop hurting me!” Brennan cried as Tommy jabbed at him harder, with all of his anger and frustration over Brennan’s previous escape.

Tommy’s fingers pulled out and Brennan heard him spit on his hand.

“Punishment’s supposed to hurt,” Tommy said, sounding kind of choked up, like he was trying not to cry. “You hurt me too, you know. You’ve hurt me every day since you left. You told me you would call! That we’d keep in touch! That once you figured things out, we’d get back together!”

“I said
maybe
, Tommy. Maybe we would! I’m sorry I hurt you, okay? I’m really sorry!”