Moving to Washington from Texas to live with her mother's new family, which includes a stepfather and seven stepbrothers, Katherine braces herself for building walls and embracing isolation. But she doesn’t expect to run into the man she had a one-night stand with just a few days ago in Texas, and he is one of her stepbrothers. Trying to resist his charm, she finds that one look from him sends her heart racing. However, he’s not the only one with that effect on her—each of her seven stepbrothers begins to show interest in her, and she can’t help but feel drawn to all of them. Can she survive in a house with her seven deadly stepbrothers?
View MoreCaspian barely slept in a week and it was showing. None of us really got any sleep, but it was a little different with Caspian. The lack of sleep wasn't the only reason for the permanent exhaustion in his eyes like us, it was the weight of everything he was letting press down on him—crushing him, consuming his thoughts. It had been a whole week since the news about Derek's involvement in the money laundering was aired all across the country. Everything had only gotten worse after that. The Salvatore name was plastered across every news outlet—big or small. Everyone had their own take on the case, be it the editors of the Washington Post or The New York Times, anchors from CNN or Fox News, and even the social media influencers who were reporting the controversy in the hope of getting views and likes.In no time it became one of the biggest scandals in recent times. And Caspian being the oldest, took it all upon himself. Although we knew it was the politicians and businessmen whose
The main purpose of us getting a safe house was to be safe, but the FBI made it feel anything but safe for us. The air inside the house felt suffocating to me, thick with an unspoken fear that we all felt, but none of us dared to voice. In the last three days, the FBI has visited us five times. The first day they took statements from us and collected evidence—the standard protocol—nothing more than that. We thought it was all, but Caspian warned us that it was just the beginning, and just like he said, they came back once again. This time they took our individual statements and cross-examined us. Since we were already prepared with our answers, nothing felt out of the ordinary. However, I noticed the way some of the officers were looking at us. They knew we were hiding something, but they had no proof. Caspian made sure that everything in the house was how it was supposed to be after Derek left. It was their sixth visit that day. The FBI agents sat across from us in the living ro
They weren’t kissing, but they were about to, I was sure of that. Matthew called just a few seconds ago, to update on the situation. It wasn't looking good for us and we needed to plan our next move. I went into the room Dev was staying to call them both so that we could discuss the problem and try to come up with a solution together. However, I didn't expect to catch them just as they were about to kiss. I saw the way Dev hesitated and pulled away from Kat when I pushed the door open, the way Kat looked utterly lost as if she didn’t know how to process what had just happened between them. I was heartbroken by that but hid my feelings because it wasn't the right time to have that conversation. Instead, I focused on my brother and noticed the slight flush on his face. His fingers were twitching at his sides like he was debating whether to reach for her again or not. And Kat… she was frozen. It looked like she hadn’t yet decided if what happened was a mistake or not.And for a secon
Kat was never mine to fall for, to hold, to kiss, or to even dream about. She was in love with Caspian even if she didn't realize it herself, or was too afraid to accept the truth. Everyone in the house knew it, and I tried to convince myself the same thing a thousand times, that she wasn’t mine to love, that she had never been mine. The moments that we shared together were the prize for the good deeds I'd done in my life. There couldn't be any other reason for someone as beautiful as her to be interested in someone like me. Someone who is predictable, obsessed with things that don't matter, and lacks any social skills. I had nothing to offer her and I knew I was just another fool caught in her gravity, nothing more. It wasn't her fault or mine, it's just the universe forcing the likes of me to orbit around her. Each one of us was attracted by her warmth and kindness at first but couldn't break free after because leaving her meant spending eons in darkness. In her heart, there ha
Silence filled the room as Lucas finally exhaled and nodded in agreement with Caspian. “I don’t like this plan,” he admitted truthfully, rubbing his temples. I knew it was a hard decision for him because he did blame Derek for the things that were happening to the family. And neither of us could disagree with him. We knew he was right, but the actual issue was Derek's safety. “But… I don’t want Dad in prison with Alaric either. You are right, Alaric would make friends inside if he didn't already have one.”“Not just Alaric, the politicians and businessmen whose names are on the list would also try to have Dad killed,” Harry added, scratching his head. “You know the legal system of our country, one can pay to get anything done. We have to find a solution for them too.”“True, they are going to be troublesome in the future,” Neel agreed with Harry, bringing another pressing matter in front of our eyes. They made many new enemies in order to get rid of Alaric from their lives. “We have
By the time we arrived at the safe house, exhaustion and anxiety had settled deep into my bones. The thing we dreaded for so long finally happened and there was no taking it back. Mom confessed, Matthew showed the cops a file about money laundering and fake charities and officially lodged a complaint against Alaric. We did everything we could have done, there wasn't anything else in our hand. It was now on the cops and Matthew to move things forward. All we could do was wait for the things to unfold and hope they would go how we wanted them, and not in the opposite direction. The drive from the police station had been quiet, aside from Caspian’s occasional instructions about what needed to be done next. It was the same old thing, but I knew he was terrified and needed to say it, so I played along and kept nodding my head whenever he looked at me. My mom was in the back seat, staring out of the window, lost in her own thoughts after everything that had transpired that morning. Even
Before I could wrap my head around it all, the car stopped and we were in the parking lot of the police station. It was nothing like I expected. The inside was sterile, buzzing with incoherent movement. Officers moved briskly through the halls with a serious expression on their faces. Not a smile or light-hearted conversations like they showed in those TV shows. Phones rang in the background, and the permanent smell of coffee and printer ink lingered in the air.We approached the front desk, where a uniformed officer looked up at us. She was middle-aged, and her dark brown hair was tied in a tight bun. Her eyes flicked over the three of us before settling on my mom.“Can I help you?” she asked, trying not to come off as intermediating, seeing the fear in mom's eyes. “I-I need to speak with Sergeant Grayson,” she was able to speak out. “It’s about Derek Salvatore’s case. It's important and quite urgent.”The officer’s eyes sharpened slightly, but she nodded her head. “Do you have an
The morning air was like a kitchen knife, and I felt it pressing down on my neck, ready to draw blood. I was still unsure about the day and the plan they had cooked to fight against their uncle, but I kept a smile on my face to support them, especially my mom, for the big step she was going to take against Alaric. I tried to convince myself that nothing bad would happen, but it was futile. It's like I was waiting for something bad to happen and ruin everything. My anxiety wasn't helping either, and wrapped around the conversation I had with Cami about Caspian the night before, my head was a mess. Every time I looked at Caspian, I could hear Cami saying that I was in love with him. I was sitting at the dining table with Caspian, Lucas, and Dev, going through the plan for what felt like the hundredth time that morning. I could see that Dev knew something was bothering me, but just like I was pretending about Caspian's plan and smiling to support them, he was pretending and smiling
I didn’t want to talk about the Salvatore family with Cami. It was too depressing to have that conversation with her. I didn't want to talk to her about Alaric, or about my mother, not about Derek lying in the hospital while his sons tried to salvage the mess he unknowingly helped create.For once, I just wanted to talk about myself.And—more specifically—I wanted to talk about Caspian.“So, let me get this straight.” Cami’s voice was clear through the speaker, cutting through the quiet of my dimly lit bedroom. “You like Caspian?”I groaned, rolling onto my stomach and burying my face in my pillow for a second before lifting it again. “God, don’t say it like that. I didn't mean it like that. I meant there are things that have happened, and he has done things that made me feel weird.”“Like what? The true feeling you've been hiding for months?” She let out a breathless laugh. “Kat, this is huge. You’ve been dodging relationships for years, and now you’re telling me you have actual fee
I hated my family. And even more than that, I hated the fact that I had no other choice but to leave behind the town I grew up in and move to Washington, to live with my mom's new family. While I knew Washington would be a lot different from Texas, yet, my mind was consumed by the thought of living in a house filled with strangers. I blamed my poor state on my father, for not loving or caring about me. For calling me after years, only when he learned that I was going to live with mom's new family. I hated him for not coming to my graduation or calling me to tell me that he was proud of me. I hated him for choosing a man over me, his flesh and blood. I also blamed my mother and her habit of jumping from one man to another. However, I was also a little impressed by her, because this time, she hadn't gone after a carpenter, a chef, an author, or a musician. This time, she managed to catch a big fish. Her sixth husband was the owner of a multinational tech company and the sixth ric...
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