Cruel Desires: My Bully Turned Stepbrother

House Of Wolves

Gabriel's POV

"Dead?" I asked. My voice sounded hollow, like I was yelling into a canyon. "Why would you want to kill us for a simple grudge?"

Derek leaned into my ear, his face half swollen, his breath smelling like blood and copper. He had a sudden fake twisted smile in his lips, he almost didn't look like the victim anymore. He looked like he just got a good idea. "Don't be scared, Gabe. The party is just getting started."

Before I could ask what the hell he meant, the world exploded.

Doors burst open. The sound of shouting, armed police, heavy boots, screaming commands. Get down! Get down!

Connor and his boys didn't even try to fight back. They went from big, tough mobsters to sniveling rats in a heartbeat, hands over their heads, faces slammed into the carpet. It was almost funny, if I wasn't busy trying to remember if my ribs were broken.

The police were everywhere, but it felt like a stage play. How exactly were we getting rescued all of a sudden?

"Wait," Derek said, catching his breath. Something clicked his my brain. The table in the corner, the one where Connor had been standing earlier. "Check the back of that table. Pull out my camera."

My heart stopped, I walked over to the table slowly and then I saw it. A hidden camera that looks like it was actually recording live.

Derek spoke, "We have been on a livestream the whole time. Every punch, every kick, every pathetic scream I had let out, the whole city had just watched it and they now know the monsters that were going to murder me and my Gabriel in cold blood."

The next few hours were just a haze of beeping monitors, antiseptic smell, and the kind of pain that makes your vision swim. I was in a hospital bed. Derek was in the one right next to mine. He looked like he had been dragged behind a car, but he was awake, staring at the ceiling, looking weirdly content.

Mr. Miller showed up around midnight. He wasn't acting like a guy whose son almost died. He was acting like a guy who had just won the lottery. He was pacing, beaming, talking about how smart his son was. It was surreal.

"How did you know they were going to stage an attack?" I asked, my voice coming out like a rasp. I just wanted to know if any of it was real.

Derek turned his head. He didn't look like a guy who had been beaten senseless. He smiled. "It's my superpower. I know everything."

Mr. Miller was glowing, but I wasn't looking at him. I was looking at the chairs. My mom was supposed to be here. She was supposed to be checking on me, crying, holding my hand. But she wasn't. She was on the other side of the room, sitting right next to Derek's bed, fluffing his pillow, adjusting his blanket like she was his f*****g nurse.

She didn't even look at me. Not once. I was just some piece of furniture in the other bed, covered in bruises and blood. It didn't matter. I didn't exist to them.

"So we have ended the deal then," Mr. Miller said, his voice loud, too loud for a hospital room. He was talking to the room, but he was looking at Derek. "Derek, this video of Connor that's all over the internet? It’s going to ruin their merger with the Thornes. That means our company, Miller's Construction... the Thornes will have no choice than to work with us now."

Derek and Miller laughed. It was a cold, sharp, metallic sound.

My brain felt like it was short circuiting. What merger? I stared at them. I couldn't breathe. Everything started to click. The fight. The beating. Derek let them do it. He didn't just let them, he orchestrated it. He let them tear his face apart so he could get it on camera, destroy Connor’s family reputation, and force a corporate merger. This was sick.

He didn't fight for me. He didn't care about the brotherly love bullshit. He used me. I was the bait. I was the pathetic, scared kid who made the video look authentic because nobody would stage a fake fight with someone they actually cared about. I was the emotional hook for the audience.

Before I could even voice out, Mr. Miller walked over to my bed. He didn't check my ribs. He didn't ask if I was thirsty. He just stood there, looking down at me with that fake, terrifying smile.

"Get well, Gabriel," he said. "I love the way you fight for your brother till the very end. That's exactly the kind of brother I needed for Derek."

My mom chimed in from behind him, looking absolutely smug. "Yeah, I trained my son very well."

I couldn't look at them. I couldn't look at my mom, who was still leaning in, whispering something into Derek's ear, laughing. Derek never even liked her, she was just forcing herself on him like the perfect good little step mum, what a fake she was.

I just closed my eyes, but I could still see the camera. I could still see the way Derek had smiled at me when he said, the party is just getting started. He wasn't talking about the fight. He was talking about this.

My own mother sold me out. She didn't just ignore me, she helped raise the guy who destroyed my life. I wasn't a son. I was an asset. And looking at Derek, who was watching me with those dead, shark eyes, I knew the worst part.

I was stuck here. I was legally theirs, I was financially theirs, and now, I was part of their f*****g business plan. I wanted to scream, but the air wouldn't come. I just laid there, broken and used, realizing that for the rest of my life, I was going to be the good brother in a house of wolves.

But you know who I hated most in all this? It was my mum. If she knew about this not once did she think what if during the fight, Gabriel died. What if I died from beating. Nobody cared about me. Not at all.