My Three Stepbrothers' Dirty Games

7. The Fire In Her Eyes

Sebastian’s POV

The skin of her upper arm was warm beneath my palm, vibrating with every frantic beat of her pulse.

She was terrified. I could feel the tremor running through her small frame as I guided her up the iron spiral staircase, but she walked with her chin up, her spine rigid as a steel rod. That was the problem with Mia Calloway. Any other eighteen-year-old girl pulled into the lower vaults of the Kings of Chaos would have dissolved into tears, begging for mercy.

Not her. She looked at me with those wide, fiery hazel eyes like she wanted to slit my throat while I slept.

It was maddening. It was intoxicating. It was distraction I didn’t need.

My grip tightened just a fraction on her arm—not enough to bruise, but enough to remind her who owned the space between us. Her scent filled the narrow, stone stairwell, a intoxicating mix of sweet vanilla and the sharp, ozone crispness of the summer storm brewing outside. It completely wiped out the smell of cold iron and damp stone.

“You’re squeezing too hard,” she muttered without looking back at me, her voice tight.

“Then move faster,” I growled, my voice rough in the enclosed space. “Unless you want to go back down there and let Micah finish explaining the rest of the terms.”

That shut her up. Her jaw clenched, a tiny muscle ticking in her smooth cheek, and she took the remaining steps two at a time.

We reached the top of the stairwell, stepping out into the hushed, carpeted corridor of the east wing. I shoved the heavy oak door closed behind us, listening for the automatic click of the deadbolt as it engaged. The upper house was quiet, bathed in the soft, golden light filtering through the high arch windows, completely removed from the dark machine running beneath its floorboards.

I kept my hand on her, guiding her down the hallway toward her bedroom suite. Every inch of my skin was wired, high on the adrenaline of the catch. When I’d smelled her perfume lingering near the service door earlier, my blood had gone straight to boil. She was a liability. A wild, unpredictable variable in an operation that required absolute precision.

And yet, when I’d pinned her against the stone wall in the archway, feeling her heart hammering against my chest like a trapped bird, the instinct to break her had tangled up with something far darker, far more dangerous.

Touch her and die. She is only mine to ruin.

The oaths of the Brotherhood didn’t applied to outsiders. She didn’t have a place with us. But looking at her now, standing in the middle of her sunlit bedroom as I pushed the door open, I realized my irrational feelings applied to my brothers, too. Lucas had been looking at her all morning with that lazy, hungry smirk. Micah looked at her like a piece on a chessboard he was eager to capture.

They didn’t see the way she held her ground. They didn’t see the lethal little spark hidden behind her fear.

“In,” I ordered, stepping into the room after her.

Mia spun around the second she cleared the threshold, backing away until the edge of her vanity table hit her waist. She crossed her arms tightly across her chest, her posture defensive, her eyes burning into mine.

“Are you going to chain me to the bed, Sebastian?” she spat, her voice laced with pure venom. “Or is locking the floor down enough to satisfy your ego?”

I closed the space between us in two heavy strides, crowding her against the mahogany vanity until she had nowhere left to lean back. I planted one hand on the edge of the wood beside her hip, towering over her, letting my shadow swallow her completely.

“If I wanted to chain you, little step-sister, you wouldn’t be standing on your own two feet,” I rasped, leaning down until our noses were barely an inch apart. “You have no idea how lucky you are. If anyone else had caught you near the central chamber—anyone outside this family—you wouldn’t be going back to your bedroom. You’d be at the bottom of the Pacific.”

Her breath hitched, a faint flush creeping up her neck, painting her porcelain skin a delicate, dusky rose. She didn’t look away. “You think I should thank you?”

“I think you should start listening,” I growled, reaching up. My thumb brushed against the soft curve of her jawline, trailing slowly down to the hollow of her throat where her pulse was jumping frantically against her skin. The contrast between her softness and the brutal, callous world I lived in made my blood burn. “You think you’re smart, Mia. You think you can play hero and save your father from a debt he chose to sign. But all you’re doing is putting yourself in the crosshairs.”

“He didn’t know what he was signing!” she argued, her voice rising slightly, her fingers digging into the edge of the vanity behind her. “You tricked him!”

“He signed because he was greedy,” I corrected coldly, my thumb pressing lightly against her throat, feeling every rapid thud of her heart. “Just like every other politician, CEO, and power-hungry bastard who comes crawling to the Kings of Chaos. He wanted the money. He wanted the prestige. And now the bill is due.”

She stared up at me, her chest heaving against mine. For a second, the anger in her eyes faltered, replaced by a raw, naked vulnerability that made something deep in my chest twist violently. She was entirely at my mercy, trapped in a house full of monsters, with no one coming to rescue her.

And yet, she didn’t beg.

“If you hurt him,” she whispered, her voice laced with a lethal promise that belied her trembling lips, “I’ll make you regret it. I don’t care what secrets you have down there. I’ll burn this entire house to the ground.”

A slow, dark sound escaped my chest—a low chuckle that sounded almost feral.

“There it is,” I murmured, leaning in until my lips brushed the shell of her ear. Her whole body went rigid at the contact, a tiny gasp escaping her throat. “The bite behind the sweet little face. Keep that fire, Mia. You’re going to need it.”

I pulled back slowly, taking in the sight of her—flushed, breathing heavily, her hazel eyes wide and stormy. I stepped away from the vanity, breaking the suffocating proximity that made my own self-control fray at the edges.

“The doors to this wing are locked from the outside,” I said, my tone shifting back to the flat, unyielding voice of the enforcer. “Food will be brought to your room. You stay here until Micah decides what to do with you.”

“And if I need something?” she asked, her voice tight as she smoothed down her tank top with shaking hands.

“You ask me,” I replied, grabbing the heavy brass handle of her bedroom door. I looked back over my shoulder, locking eyes with her one last time. “Only me. If I catch you talking to Lucas alone, or trying to bargain with Micah behind my back, we’re going to have a very different conversation.”

Before she could respond, I stepped out into the corridor and pulled the heavy door shut. I turned the key in the lock, the sharp metallic click sounding like a gunshot in the quiet hallway.

I stood there for a long moment, my forehead resting against the cool, dark wood of her door, listening to the soft sound of her footsteps inside as she paced the room.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out, seeing a text from Micah:

Study. Now.

I straightened my shoulders, shoving the phone back into my pocket, and walked down the hall toward the main estate stairs.

Ten minutes later, I pushed open the double doors of Micah’s private study.

The room smelled of old paper, rich leather, and expensive tobacco. Micah was sitting behind his massive mahogany desk, a glass of dark scotch in hand, reviewing a set of financial ledgers on his tablet. Lucas was stretched out on the leather sofa near the marble fireplace, spinning his signet ring on the coffee table with a bored expression.

When I walked in, both of them looked up.

“Is our guest settled?” Micah asked smoothly, taking a measured sip of his drink.

“She’s locked in her suite,” I said, walking over to the bar cart and pouring myself two fingers of bourbon. I downed it in one smooth swallow, feeling the burn settle the low, restless agitation in my gut. “Floor security is active.”

“She’s feisty,” Lucas remarked, a wicked grin spreading across his face as he caught the ring between his fingers. “Did you see the way she looked at Micah down in the vault? Most people fold when he uses his board-member voice. She looked like she wanted to tear his throat out.”

“She’s a liability,” I snapped, turning around to face them. “She knows too much. If she finds a way to contact her father before Friday—”

“She won’t,” Micah interrupted, setting his glass down with a quiet thud. His grey eyes were cool, devoid of any stress. “Her phone has been cloned and scrubbed. Every signal coming in or out of this estate passes through our private server. She couldn’t call a cab right now if she tried.”

“So what’s the plan?” Lucas asked, leaning forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “We keep her locked up like a princess in a tower until Arthur takes the fall?”

Micah leaned back in his leather chair, steepling his fingers beneath his chin. He looked between Lucas and me, a slow, calculating expression settling over his sharp features.

“No,” Micah said softly. “Locking her away makes her desperate. Desperate people make noise. If we want her complete silence, she needs to understand that her survival depends entirely on our goodwill.”

“And how do you propose we do that?” I asked, my jaw clenching.

Micah looked straight at me, his gaze cold and unyielding. “We initiate the games early. Tomorrow night, Arthur’s deal closes stage one. We bring Mia into the fold. Step by step. Rule by rule.”

Lucas let out a low, dark laugh, his ocean-blue eyes lighting up with wicked anticipation. “I like the sound of that.”

I didn’t laugh. I turned my eyes toward the window, looking out over the Bel-Air estate toward the wing where Mia was currently trapped.

They thought they were going to play with her until she broke. But I had felt the pulse running through her neck. I had seen the lethal, stubborn fire in her eyes.

Mia Calloway wasn’t going to break. And when the games started tomorrow night…she was going to drag all three of us straight into the dark with her.