CHAPTER 004: HIS HUMAN PET

NOAH’S POV

“You have a brother!?”

Luca didn’t open his eyes. He sat slumped in my passenger seat with an ice pack pressed to his brow.

“Six years, Luca. And I haven’t even seen him in one photo? Or even a damn Christmas card. How could you hide an entire sibling?”

He exhaled hard through his nose. “Birdy, I think he chipped my skull. I can’t answer anything right now.”

“Don’t give me crap, Luca. Why did your own brother try to hurt you? I know it’s more than just the game.”

“He was traded in. That’s all I know.” He lowered the ice pack from his eyebrow. “And unofficially, he’s going to ruin things for me.”

I was about to respond when he cut me off.

His head dropped onto my shoulder dramatically.

“Take me home. Please. Don’t make me beg.”

He always knew exactly what that voice did to me.

We reached the Leister estate in few minutes, the iron wrought gates pulled open itself.

Lucas swiped his key card and the front door swung open. He was two steps in when he froze.

“You.” The words came out through his teeth. His hand dropped from the door and he was already moving further into the living room.

“What are you doing here?”

I froze too, trying to make sense of the shape standing near the window before it turned.

Kade.

In a black compression shirt, grey joggers, and a glass of something amber caught low in one hand.

His eyes dragged over Luca slowly, and almost satisfyingly. That same smirk climbed back onto his face like it never left.

“I figured you’d be home early.” He drawled. “I did try not to break any bones in your body, or did I?”

Then his gaze slid past his brother.

To me.

“Hi, Birdy.”

“Don’t call her that.” Luca stormed forward, closing the distance between them. “Why couldn’t you just stay gone? Is this your grand plan, to try and suffocate me with your presence? To make me miserable?”

Why would his own brother want that? I stood frozen by the door, running through every version of Luca I thought I knew, trying to find the one where any of this made sense.

“Come on, Luca. You’ve always been a little selfish, don’t you think? Not everything is about you” Kade shrugged. “I missed being in the game.”

“Bullshit. You’ve been gone for twelve years, and you just show up on my team? If you missed it that much, join another team. Why get traded into mine?”

Twelve fucking years??

“I wanted to be in yours.” Kade’s smirk widened.

“Somebody’s got to look after you, little brother.” He took a slow sip from his glass. “Besides, Mom begged me to attend your wedding; a man could only miss being the right best man, once.”

A short humorless laugh escaped Luca. “After what you did, Mom would never call you. You should have stayed dead to this family.”

Kade didn’t answer that. He just watched him silently through the rim of his glass. That was the moment I’d figured, this ran deeper than I could comprehend. Their hatred.

“You’re not invited.” Luca said, lower now. “And I’m not your brother. Not anymore. Don’t ever call me that again.” He was already turning for the stairs. “Pack your things. Get out and crawl back into whatever hell you climbed out of.”

“You don’t want to know what hell I climbed out of, Luca.”

Something in the way he said it, sounded or felt like he was telling a truth, and that made my stomach churn.

“Let’s go, Noah.” Luca didn’t look back at either of us.

His door slammed somewhere above a few seconds later.

That left me—with him.

Kade’s eyes were already on me, had been and I realized it’d been on me since the second Luca walked out.

“Noah, huh?” He tilted his head. “What are you? His girlfriend?”

I wished.

“No.” I swallowed, made myself step further into the room.

“You dodged a bullet then.” He turned back to the window, already dismissing me.

“How did you know he calls me birdy?”

I watched him go still. If he had been gone for that long, then Luca definitely didn’t tell him, so who did?

Then he turned slowly,

“It wasn’t hard to guess.” His eyes stayed on mine. “Luca’s always had a habit of naming the things he gets attached to.”

So—so he was attached to me?

“Why are you being such a dick to him?”

“Please.” He clicked the TV off with the remote he’d apparently been holding the entire time and walked past me into the kitchen. “He’s not the worlds greatest brother either.”

“And you are? is that why you nearly beat him to pieces—because you’re the good one?” I followed him.

He set his glass down on the counter hard enough to ring against the marble, one hand braced beside it, his sleeve riding up. I could see ink climb up his forearm to his elbow—a grinning skull wrapped in chain link, something ghost shaped behind it I couldn’t fully make out before he moved again.

“No. I’m the worst kind.” His eyes flickered to me again, slowly, assessing me, like he wanted to get under my skin. “But you—what exactly are you, Noah? From what I can piece together, and how hard you’re trying to tear me apart for him. “

He paused. “I’d say you’re his human pet.”

My eyes widened. “How dare you? You are unbelievably rude!”

“Aren’t we all just rude creatures underneath, sweetheart?” He picked his glass back up.

“Don’t call me that. Why does he hate you this much? He won’t even say your name. And the second you show up, he’s out of character?”

“Ask him.”

“He won’t tell me.”

“Then what makes you think I would?” He started to move past me, and I caught his arm before my brain caught up.

He looked down at my hands. Then back up at me.

“Just tell me, please.”

He turned fully into me instead, and I found myself stepping backward without meaning to, one step, then another, until my back hit the wall and he was caging me in.

Heat crawled up my spine; his cologne filled the space between us, something dark and expensive and entirely unlike Luca.

“What are you willing to give me?” His breath ghosted past my ears.

“Excuse me?”

He planted a hand on the wall beside my head, close enough now that I had to tip my chin up to hold his gaze.

“What are you willing to trade me for that information, Covey?”

He knew my surname.

“How did—“

“Noah! What are you doing?” Luca’s voice came from upstairs, my head drifted to the entrance of the kitchen.

Kade’s hand caught my jaw, his fingers brushing softly against them, pulling my attention back to him.

“Tell me what you’ve got.” He said lowly, like he had all the time in the world and I had none.

“And I’ll tell you every single thing you need to know.”