FIVE
Anthea
I’d knownit wouldn’t be long before I had to face the younger Rosanos. They did still live in the house, after all—in the same third-floor apartment they had before, from what I’d gathered. I could still picture the layout in my head from lazy summer days tucked between them on the sofa watching movies or playing video games, the guys tossing chips into each other’s mouths over my head and jostling against me.
I’d even gone into each of their bedrooms at least once, when we were younger and it hadn’t seemed like such a private thing. Each was the same size and similarly furnished, off its own wall of the common room, but with a vibe that’d reflected those three very different personalities: Darius’s displaying trophies from the sports teams he’d captained, Lucan’s strictly neat with a stuffed but perfectly organized bookcase, Felix’s an opulently chaotic mess.
But I wasn’t anywhere near the third floor when the brothers confronted me. I slipped into the kitchen late in the evening after my arrival, figuring I’d whip up some dinner discreetly. I was just bringing the frying pan to the stove when the door thumped at the other end of the room.
To my chagrin, I startled and dropped the pan on the stovetop with a clatter. When I spun around, I found myself faced with the exact three people I’d least been looking forward to reuniting with.
It was strange, seeing the guys again. Felix had been fifteen, Lucan seventeen, and Darius eighteen the last time I’d been here. They hadn’t had all that much more growing up to do, but the men before me definitely felt likemenin a way the guys I’d thought I’d known hadn’t.
And they were even more stunningly handsome than they’d been before, God damn it. No amount of animosity could stop me from noticing that.
Darius had come in last, shoving the door shut behind them, but he was already striding to the front of the pack like the leader he was. He’d always been tall and buff, and even more muscles filled out his brawny frame now beneath the fitted button-up and slacks and highlighted all the most enticing ridges of those assets. He’d cut his dark brown hair even shorter than before, slicked back down with a few stray spikes jutting along his temples. There was a scar on his jaw, a thin pale line like an extra-long smile line, that hadn’t been there the last time I’d seen him.
And those light blue eyes had never been as cold as they were now as they stared into mine.
The younger brothers flanked Darius, Lucan on the left and Felix on the right. Lucan had grown out his lighter brown hair, which I knew from family photos he’d gotten from his mother. The smooth strands were pulled back into a short ponytail. He stood almost as tall as Darius but significantly leaner, like always. The toned forearms that showed beneath the rolled-up sleeves of his dress shirt proved he wasn’t any slouch in the muscle department regardless.
His deep brown gaze considered me with a familiar contemplative air. It held none of Darius’ overt chill, but there was a stillness to his stance that I didn’t recognize at all.
Felix arched his eyebrows at me beneath his typically wayward black hair, which fell at an angle across his forehead. He folded his sinewy arms over his chest, tipping his posture at a jaunty angle, his foot tapping lightly against the floor. He’d always had trouble staying still. Normally his exuberant energy had translated into jokes and pranks. Now, the intensity in his midnight-blue eyes unnerved me. It wasn’t so much sly as outright wicked.
I crossed my own arms over the bodice of my day dress, glad that my preferred style covered so much of my skin. Even so, I felt weirdly naked under their combined gazes. Goosebumps rippled over my bare arms and calves.
No. I wasn’t letting them intimidate me.Theywere the ones who should feel humiliated after the way they’d treated me. And if they didn’t feel that way already, then I’d get them there. I was the wronged party returning to claim vengeance, whether they realized it yet or not.
Better if they didn’t, really.
“The firebird finally flies out of the nest—and ends up here,” Felix said in a wry tone that had too much of an edge to it to be really playful. A shiver tingled down my back at the old nickname, which apparently he hadn’t forgotten—in reference to my red hair and general tininess, at least compared to the three of them. At five foot two, I was a full head shorter than both Darius and Lucan, and my brow only made it up to Felix’s chin.
Not intimidated, I reminded myself. I’d survived Dad and Clyde and a hell of a lot more. They had no idea who they were dealing with now.
“It wasn’t planned,” I said calmly. “I was in a bad situation without many options. Believe me, I had no illusions that I could run to the three of you as my heroes. Thankfully your dad has some chivalry.”
“You assumed you could lean on his loyalty to your dad to get your way,” Lucan said. His gaze might not have been as icy as Darius’s, but his tone was flatly cool.
I turned to the stove as if I wasn’t at all concerned about leaving my back vulnerable and turned on the heat under the frying pan. “I didn’t assume anything. Ihopedhe’d be willing to give me a roof over my head while I figure out where I’m going from here. Believe me, I’ve learned not to count on anyone but myself.”
Darius’s voice rolled out of him with a hint of a growl. “But somehow you didn’t predict your asshole brother kicking you out. Not very independent if you’re jumping from one man to another. To yet another, if we count your late husband in that line.”
I hadn’t so much jumped as been tossed, but I didn’t think it’d help my presentation as an independent, capable woman if I brought that up.
I shrugged and cracked open a couple of eggs to scramble them in a bowl. “See it however you like. Your opinion doesn’t particularly matter to me.”
“It should,” he said darkly. “Because this is our house as much as it is our father’s, and you’re going to play by our rules too. For starters, you should look at your hosts when you’re talking to them.”
I glanced briefly over my shoulder at him, ignoring his glower. “Or you’ll do what?” Then I returned to my cooking, lashing the eggs with a fork since I hadn’t been able to find a whisk. The vicious movement bolstered my resolve. “I haven’t had dinner yet. I’m hungry. If you want me to look at you, you could grab me the butter from the fridge.”
When none of them moved, I went and got the butter myself, along with a hunk of cheese.
“You can’t expect us to believe that your brother really threw you out,” Lucan said as I dropped a pat of butter into the pan, where it sizzled faintly. “His recently widowed sister who has no place else to go?”
“That shows how well you know—or don’t know—my brother,” I retorted.
“We know you, Firebird.” Felix tsked his tongue. “But don’t worry. You play games, and we can play too. It’ll be lots of fun. Mostly for us, of course.”