My Stepbrother’s Dangerous Touch

THE RITUAL MUST CONTINUE

Charlie's pov

Blood has a smell people don't warn you about.

Not iron exactly. Heavier. Warmer. It settles at the back of your throat and stays there long after you've left the room.

I stood at the edge of the hall and couldn't move.

The splash had reached the wall beside the altar, dark irregular streaks against white marble. Lycan was still upright, barely, one hand clamped over his arm, blood seeping steady and dark between his fingers. His face is already draining of color.

Matteo was at my side. Not comfort. Not warmth. Position.

Isabella's voice climbed.

"He needs a hospital. Fredrick, right now…"

"The ritual is not finished."

Four words. Flat as stone.

Fredrick stood exactly where he'd been before the gun went off. Suit unrumpled. Expression unchanged. Like nothing had interrupted anything at all.

"No one leaves this hall until Grandmother's ritual is complete." He glanced at Lycan once. Not cruelty. Something colder. Assessment. "You will stand."

Lycan's jaw tightened. He straightened slowly. Hand still pressing hard against the wound.

Isabella made a sound I had never heard from her before.

Fredrick turned back to the altar.

The ritual continued.

I watched my brother's face go from white to grey. I watched my father pray with his eyes closed like nothing in the room was bleeding out. The candles burned one by one. The prayers continued. My siblings stood frozen in their positions, nobody speaking, nobody moving, all of us hostage to a ceremony that had no business continuing.

I focused on breathing.

Midway through the final prayer Lycan's knees went.

No warning. Just down. His body folded, hitting marble hard. The sound moved through the hall like a second gunshot.

Isabella screamed.

Fredrick opened his eyes. Looked at Lycan on the floor for one long moment. Raised two fingers toward the guards at the door.

They moved forward, lifted Lycan between them and carried him out.

The door closed.

Fredrick lowered his head and finished the prayer.

"Family meeting. Three hours. My study. All of you."

He walked out.

The room exhaled. Everyone moved at once, voices low and urgent, bodies finding the exit fast. The hall emptied in minutes.

I stood there.

Told my legs to move.

They considered it.

One step and the floor tilted, then an arm. Firm. Catching me before I'd registered falling. Cedarwood and something darker hit my nostrils and my body responded before my brain could intervene.

The dream flashed. His hands. His voice. Tell me.

I grabbed his arm and straightened.

"You have three hours." Matteo. Low. Completely unbothered. "Use them."

The blood on my dress caught my eye. Lycan's blood. Dark and dry at the edges. My stomach turned.

"Let go." Steadier than I felt. "I'm fine."

He released me immediately. Stepped back. Like he'd never moved.

I gripped the bannister and climbed. My legs wobbled with every step. He followed behind me, that specific silent presence I'd learned to feel without looking.

Don't think about the dream.

Don't.

I made it to my room, closed the door and went straight down, slowly collapsing against the wood, back hitting the floor. I sat there in silence with Lycan's blood on my dress and Matteo's cologne still on my skin and my own body betraying me in ways I had no business entertaining right now.

Get up Charlie…..fuck.

I crawled to the bathroom.

The shower was brief and scalding. I stood under it long enough to stop shaking then turned it off. The dress stayed on the floor. I got dressed, fixed my face and walked back out.

Three hours. Not enough. Never enough.

★ ★ ★

The study felt different with everyone in it.

Twelve chairs. Twelve faces carrying twelve versions of the same tension. Nobody spoke above a murmur. Nobody looked directly at the empty chair where Lycan should have been sitting.

Fredrick sat at the head of the table. Hands folded. Patient.

Matteo stood at the far wall. Shadow still. Eyes moving.

I sat in my usual position, the edge of the room, close enough to be present, far enough to be overlooked. I had perfected that distance over twenty-three years. Today I was grateful for it.

Fredrick opened his mouth to speak.

The door opened.

Uncle Aldo walked in first, broad, grey-templed, wearing the particular expression of a man who believed every room he entered belonged to him. Behind him came his sons. And behind them, three Roman cousins, including Dante, who I hadn't seen since last Christmas and had hoped not to see again soon.

The family meeting had just become something else entirely.

Chairs scraped. The table reorganized itself to accommodate the additions. Fredrick said nothing about the intrusion — which meant he'd been expecting it.

Isabella's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.

I watched.

Uncle Aldo settled into his chair, surveyed the table and smiled the way men smile when they've already decided how a conversation ends.

Then he looked at Marco.

Marco Benedetti. Seventh born. Twenty-six years old and built like something that had never learned to stay calm. He sat three chairs down from me, shoulders already set, eyes already sharp.

Aldo's smile didn't waver.

"Still at that table, Marco." His voice was light. Conversational. The specific kind of casual that was never actually casual. "Surprising. Given that you carry nothing worth passing down."

The room went very still.

Marco's hand flattened against the table.

"Say that again." Quietly.

"I said what I said." Aldo reached for his water glass. Unbothered. "Some bloodlines produce leaders. Others produce…."

Marco stood.

The gun was out before the chair stopped moving.

Then Dante was on his feet, gun raised, aimed directly back at Marco. Cool. Practiced. Like he'd been waiting for exactly this moment.

Two seconds later the fifth born was standing. Then Aldo's second son. Four guns in a room that had started as a family meeting.

Fredrick sat at the head of the table.

He hadn't moved once.

I pressed my back into my chair and stopped breathing.

Matteo had shifted from the wall, one step forward, body angled, positioning himself between the crossfire and my side of the table without making it obvious.

I noticed. I always noticed.

The guns stayed raised.

Nobody fired.

Nobody stood down.

“Give me the ancestral keys Frederick.”