Claimed By My Biker Stepbrother

CHAPTER FOUR: FILE 45C

LAILA

Fuck!

Fuck , f**k, f**k! My heart rate accelerates at the sound of my father knocking on my door. I’m so screwed.

“Laila, it’s time for dinner !” My father barks. “Get out here right this second!”

“I…I’m coming, father. Just a few seconds. I need to get dressed,” I call out, thanking God for the steadiness in my voice. I reach out to push Nero away, but the fucker makes no move. He simply sniffs me like he’s f*****g dog!

“You have five minutes,” he barks and I hear his footsteps moving away.

“What will father dearest say if he finds his little girl naked, in the arms of her stepbrother,” he murmurs , his voice vibrating against my skin, spreading a tingling sensation.

What the f**k!

I push him away, harder this time and he actually moves away. That arrogant smirk on his face makes me want to slap him. But the sick asshole might just see it as some form of foreolay.

“See you at dinner , Gattina. Don’t take too long.” And with that, he’s out of my room.

As soon as the door shuts behind him, I let out a sigh I never knew I was holding, my heart racing in my chest like it’s competing for the Olympics. I head over to my closet, got dressed and proceeded downstairs for dinner.

Everyone’s already seated at the table , father at the head as usual, Caroline to his right on the seat that was left for my mom and the motherfucker Nero right next to her. I feel my anger rising as I notice that my father had no problem letting another woman take mom’s place.

To you or anyone else, it’s just a stupid dinner table. But to me, it’s another promise he broke. After mom died, we promised never to get rid of her. Her clothes still hung next to father’s in the closet, her personal belongings still on the vanity, and her seat at the table always remained untouched, no matter who came over. Not his female friends, colleagues, or our relatives. Not even the women he f****d –not that most of them stayed for a meal anyways.

Maybe he’s finely moving on. Something I’m not sure I’ll ever do. Anger rises in me as I think of the possibility that he’s finally forgetting my mother, the woman who made him who he is, the woman who held our family together. The woman he killed.

I push the memories out of my head, not wanting to sink into the sea of despair.

I take my place at the table, next to my dad and after “The Grace”, everyone starts eating. My father is not a religious man, mind you and I’m not big on that either. But prayer before meal is another tradition my mother installed in our household, another habit we practice even with her gone.

“Where were you last night?” Father asks all of a sudden, making me choke on my food. As I grab a glass of water, I quickly think of an answer to tell him. I can’t tell him I was at Kat’s house because he might have already asked her father.

“I went out with Kat,” I tell him casually. “Needed some air after you dumped it on me that we would be having two additional members to our family.”

He growls, not remotely happy that I am talking back to him in the presence of Caroline and Nero. Well he better get used to it or get his new family a separate place to live. I’m still baffled at the fact that he is okay with Nero of all people living with us, or maybe like me, he has no idea who he is.

I doubt that.

My father might never step foot in Blood City , but he’s got a lot of friends in the police. Surely he must know something about Nero – as small as it may be.

“Caroline will take on the role of the lady of this house,” he begins with an authoritative voice. “That includes playing the role of a mother to you. You will listen to her and under no occasion are you to defy her.”

I merely glare at him, not trusting myself to speak without snapping. Not that I care about snapping at him, but the last thing I need is to be scolded in front of Strangers.

“As for Nero,” he continues, voice turning sour just at the mention of his name.”He’ll stay at Blood City and will drop by for a visit every once in awhile.”

Caroline shoots her son a sad look. “I still don’t know why you don’t want to move in with us.”

Nero sighs. “I already have a life built in Blood City, Mom. I just can't get up and leave everything because you want me to,” he says, giving her that “we talked about this look.”

Caroline sighs and shakes her head, like she knows nothing she would do or say will change his mind.

The rest of the dinner is as horrible as horrible can be. Caroline and my father spend the entire dinner chatting about their upcoming wedding which is supposed to take place next week. I groan internally just thinking about it.

As much as I tried to ignore it, I could feel Nero’s stare on me, silently watching me throughout dinner.

***

“It’s obvious you don’t like Nero.” I barge into my father’s office without knocking. “Why then do you allow him in our house? What happened to not mingling with people from the slums and all that s**t you’re fun of saying?”

We finished with dinner over an hour ago, Caroline retired to the master bedroom where she’ll be staying with my father and Nero left for Blood City, saying he had something urgent to do. My father on the other hand had retired to his office to do some work.

“It’s late Laila,” he says, ignoring my question. “You should be in bed.”

“That is not the answer to my question.”

He drops his pen and looks up from his file with that look that says “You’re really pissing me off.”

“Stay away from Nero. He might be Caroline’s son, but he’s the head of the gangsters in Blood City. The only reason I tolerate him is because he’s my fiancé’s son.”

I roll my eyes. “Staying away from him is a pretty easy thing to do given that he’s going to be in our house more often than not.”

“Not if I can help it,” he grumbles under his breath.

My father has always been a difficult man to read and this is exactly one of those times when difficulty seems like an understatement. Adrian Thorne hates anyone from blood city. You don’t have to do much, just exist on the wrong side of town with run down buildings and graffiti walls and you’re officially on his s**t list.

Take Katniss for example. Her mother is a stripper from Blood City that her father knocked up. My father does not like her –never have. So that baffles me as to why he will go as far as marrying a woman from said community.

“When are you retaking the maths exam?” He asks , switching the subject.

“In a month.”

He straightens up in his seat, leveling me a glare. “This is the third or fourth, maybe the sixth time you are retaking that exam. You know the only reason the resit is happening…”

“…is because you paid a s**t ton of money to the school board so they could give another,” I finish, rolling my eyes. “I know that.”

There are certain perks when your father is as rich as mine. You fail a subject a hundred times over and all he has to do is pay the teachers to set another exam for the students who failed.

“Exactly! So I expect you to do all you can to get this correctly. If you bring anything less than a “B” I’ll…”

The sound of his phone ringing cuts him off. He picks it up and a shadow crosses his face the moment he recognizes the caller ID.

“I’ll be back,” he says, rising from his chair and stepping out of the room to take the call.

I leaned against the tiny bookshelf in his office, my mind running back to the nights where we’d sit in this office as a family. Father would be at his desk working, mom would sit on the sofa with me on her lap, singing to me or telling me beautiful stories about the princess and the monster.

I let out a sigh of nostalgia at the memory. I moved to dads table and picked up the family photo he kept there. My fingers gently caressed the photo, lingering on my mom’s face. I’m about to reach out and put down the picture when my eyes fall on the papers on the desk.

At the top of it is written in bold letters FILE 45C. There are pictures of my mother as well as little information about her. My eyes flicker to the bottom and I freeze at the single word written in red ink.

SILENCED