Owned by my step uncles

Chapter two

I woke to the sound of a suitcase rolling across marble.

For a second I thought it was still yesterday. My mother’s perfume still clung faintly to the hallway, or maybe I was inventing it. Then the low murmur of Dorian’s voice drifted up the stairs and I knew it wasn’t her.

I stayed in bed longer than I should have. The sheets were cold on the empty side of the mattress. Outside my windows the ocean looked the same gray it had the day before, endless and uninterested. I pressed my palms against my eyes until small lights bloomed behind the lids. When I finally got up, the floor was cold under my bare feet.

Downstairs the foyer already felt different. Dorian stood near the front doors in a charcoal coat that looked like it had never been worn twice, his silver-streaked hair was perfectly in place and he was speaking quietly into his phone, the same clipped tone he used in boardrooms. A black car waited outside, engine running, different from the one that took my mother.

Jarrah leaned against the banister the way he had yesterday, arms folded, watching without speaking and Reeve stood a few feet away, holding his phone in one hand and the other tucked into the pocket of dark jeans. Neither of them looked surprised as I felt the leaving had been decided before I woke up.

Dorian ended the call and turned, his gray eyes found me on the stairs and stayed there a moment too long, the way they always did when he was measuring whether I was going to cause trouble.

“Kirrily.” My name sounded formal in his mouth. “I’ll be gone for three weeks or four. Zurich first, then Frankfurt.”

I stopped three steps from the bottom. “Both of you?”

“Your mother is already there.” He said it like that explained everything. “The negotiations require both of us.”

“You’ll be looked after,” Dorian continued. His gaze flicked briefly to Jarrah, then Reeve. “They know what’s expected.”

Jarrah’s jaw tightened almost invisibly. Reeve’s expression didn’t change at all.

I nodded because there was nothing else to do. Dorian came up the two steps between us and rested a hand on my shoulder, the weight of it was light, almost paternal, he smelled like expensive cologne and the kind of soap that came in hotels I would never stay in.

“Stay inside the gates,” he said quietly. “No unnecessary trips into town. The staff has instructions.”

Then he was gone. The door closed behind him with a soft, final sound. The car pulled away and I watched until the gates swallowed it.

Silence settled over the house like dust.

I turned and Jarrah and Reeve were still there. Neither of them had moved. The foyer suddenly felt too large and too small at the same time,High ceilings,Polished floors, Windows that let in too much gray light. I became aware of how thin my sleep shirt was and how the hem brushed the tops of my thighs. I crossed my arms without thinking.

Reeve was the first to speak. His voice was easy, almost casual. “You want coffee?”

I shook my head. “I’m fine.”

Jarrah’s dark eyes stayed on my face. “You’re not fine, You’re cold.”

I didn’t answer as the observation felt too sharp and too close. He pushed away from the banister and walked past me toward the kitchen without waiting for my permission. His shoulder brushed the air near mine, not touching, almost. The heat of him lingered after he was gone.

Reeve’s mouth curved, not quite a smile. “Come on. You’re shaking.”

The kitchen was all white marble and steel, too bright under the recessed lights. Jarrah already had the espresso machine running. The rich smell of coffee filled the space. Reeve leaned against the island, watching me the way he always did, like he was cataloguing every small movement and filing it away.

I sat on one of the high stools because my legs felt unreliable. The counter was cold under my palms and Jarrah set a cup in front of me without asking how I took it. Exactly the way I drank it when no one was watching. I wrapped both hands around the ceramic and let the heat sink into my fingers.

“Dorian left earlier than planned,” Reeve said after a moment. His tone was light, but his eyes weren’t. “Something came up.”

I looked up. “What kind of something?”

Jarrah’s voice came from behind the counter but low. “The kind that doesn’t need explaining.”

The words landed heavy. I stared into the dark surface of the coffee. Steam rose in thin curls. Outside the wide kitchen windows the grounds stretched toward the high stone walls. Empty paths. Empty lawns. The ocean beyond them, restless and gray.

I was alone with them.

The thought arrived fully formed and stayed. My mother was gone. Dorian was gone. The staff moved through the house like shadows, present when needed, invisible the rest of the time. No one else. Just me and the two men who had spent years keeping careful distance and were now the only walls between me and whatever waited outside the gates.

Jarrah came around the island and stepped closer than he needed to. I could smell the clean scent of his skin, something woodsy and warm underneath the coffee. His hand rested on the counter near mine. Not touching but close enough that I felt the heat of it.

“You’ll stay in the main wing,” he said. It wasn’t a suggestion. “Your old room is too far from the rest of us.”

I looked up at him. His eyes were darker up close. The scar across his collarbone disappeared under the collar of his black sweater. I had the sudden, unwelcome urge to know how it felt under my fingertips.

“I like my room,” I said. The words came out quieter than I intended.

Reeve’s voice was softer. “It’s not about liking it. It’s about not being alone on that side of the house at night.”

Something cold slid down my spine. “Why would that matter?”

Neither of them answered right away. A look passed between them quick, loaded, the kind of silent conversation people have when they’ve already decided something and you’re only now being told.

Jarrah’s fingers flexed against the marble. “There’ve been cars on the access road the last few nights, Unmarked, Sitting too long.”

My pulse jumped. “Watching the house?”

“Maybe.” His gaze held mine. “Maybe watching for something else.”

The kitchen felt smaller. The coffee in my hands suddenly too hot. I set the cup down carefully so it wouldn’t rattle against the saucer.

Reeve pushed off the island and came around to my other side, now they flanked me, not crowding but just present and solid. The forced closeness of it pressed against my skin.

“You’ll move your things after breakfast,” Jarrah said. “Reeve will help.”

I wanted to argue. The words sat on my tongue and dissolved. Because underneath the unease was something else, something warmer and more dangerous. The knowledge that the distance they’d kept for years was collapsing. That the house was no longer large enough to hold all the things none of us were saying.

I slid off the stool and my bare feet touched the cold floor. Both of them watched me stand. Neither stepped back.

“I’ll pack,” I said.

Jarrah’s voice followed me to the doorway, low and final. “You’re not alone here, Kirrily. Not anymore.”

I didn’t look back. I walked toward the stairs with their eyes on me and the silence of the house pressing in from every empty room.

Halfway up I heard it.

A soft, deliberate sound from the far end of the east wing. The wing no one used. A door closing that should have already been closed.

I stopped on the landing.

Behind me, the kitchen had gone quiet but when I turned, both brothers were already in the foyer, looking at the same direction I was.

Jarrah’s face had changed. The careful control was still there, but underneath it something sharper had woken up.

Reeve’s hand was already reaching for the security panel on the wall.

And the house, vast and listening, held its breath with us.