68 Showers and secrets

**Date = 1 July**
*In just a day, the little hooligan changed my view of life.*
**Place = San Francisco (Damion’s house)**
*The only place I could think of going.*

**POV - Enrique**

Steam billows out of the shower like smoke from a fire, curling around my feet as I sit on the bed, arms crossed, jaw tight. The walls of the house groan under the wind outside, but it was nothing compared to the storm I feel building inside me.

My stupid, crazy twin is back. Finally. Filthy, hollow-eyed, a ghost in tattered denim and dried blood. He hasn’t spoken much — just grunted something about a hot shower before disappearing into the bathroom like a man walking into war. Again.

I let him.

For now.

I know, from years of experience living under the same roof, not to poke. Poking almost always leads to a fight.

And getting into a one-on-one with my brother when he’s like this is definitely not on my to-do list for the day. No, I have more elaborate plans scheduled, plans that involve Aria, me, no clothes, and a box of condoms.

So I sit and listen to the hiss of the water and the occasional scrape of movement.

And I wait. Wait for the water to stop. Wait for him to speak first.

The bastard is pretty good at being silent. Once, we hauled his ass out of the pit, shivering and smeared with blood, and he decided not to speak a single word for three days.

I watch his form through the glass — standing under the spray like it is penance, skin pale beneath the grime, jaw clenched as if he’s rinsing off guilt instead of sweat and dirt. Rinsing himself clean, hoping the filth will go down the drain without taking him with it.

His voice, when it finally comes, is muffled by water and distance, but steady.

“You’re gonna sit there all night, or say what you came to say?”

I scowl. “I want to know where you’ve been? What you’ve done? What you’re doing?”

A beat of silence. Then the water cuts off with a sharp hiss, like something severed.

“I’ve been in the kitchen and shower,” Jackson says flatly. “I’ve eaten and washed. And now I’m getting dressed.”

I roll my eyes. “Don’t be a smartass. You disappeared for days, came back looking like death in boots, and expect me to just hand you a plate and a towel?”

The glass door creaks open, his bare feet thump on the tiles. “Pretty much.” His voice is lower now. He folds the towel around his lower body and leans against the bathroom door. His hair is soaked, his body bruised and pale, but he looks marginally more human.

“You clean up nice,” I tease, ignoring the bruises around his collarbone and a red welt, that might’ve been a burn, slicing diagonally across his abdomen.

With his mouth formed into an unpleasant twist, he crosses his arms tightly across his chest and eyeballs me. His expression is composed, but his eyes are wild and bloodshot with fatigue.

I wonder when he last slept. Or washed. Or ate.

“Where were you?”

His voice, low and flat — “You going to let me breathe first, or you want to interrogate me while I’m still wet?” He’s stalling.

I almost laugh. Almost. “You think sarcasm’s going to get you out of this?”

“I think I’ve had a long week.”

“Yeah? … So have I.”

He takes it in with dead eyes and an even deadlier silence.

“You went after Lee, didn’t you?” I press, holding his stare. “You found him?”

There is another pause. Water drips somewhere, a slow rhythmic beat against porcelain.

“I found the ship.” He speaks quietly, seeming unable to put the effort into being louder.

“What ship? Is Lee on it?”

His brows pull up, knitting in the middle. I touched a soft spot.

“Yes.”

“So why haven’t you rescued him then?”

“Timing …” Jackson cuts in, voice suddenly hard, the edge of a blade honed over too many sleepless nights.

“And because you called me here.” He breaths for a moment. “I can not blow it by showing up half-dead and stupid. I need to think. I need to plan. And I needed the goddamn dirt off my skin.” Jackson hates being dirty for too long. Me too. A side effect from the past.

I close my eyes for a second. That tone — it always drops like a trapdoor when Jackson is holding too much and letting out too little. Just like when we were kids.

Silence.

I feel my stomach twist. And take a breath, leaning my head against the bedpost, remembering a different silence — years ago — when we were small and sitting in the darkness of that cold pit. Or was it a well?

Pit, well, hole, hell … all the same thing.

I remember that time Jackson’s lip had been split and his arm was bent wrong. The water at the bottom had been too low that time, too shallow to save us from the fall. He hit first — hard — the sound of bone against stone echoing against the walls. And still, somehow, he caught me before I landed. His breath came ragged, wet with pain, but neither of us dared to make a sound because Alexander was still up there watching, still cruel, still breathing.

I know my twin’s pain. Lived it. And I know right now I need to figure out how to get him to retreat a few steps before he tumbles over that cliff.

“You think you’re the only one who can protect us?” I say more softly now. “You always think it’s you. Like it’s your penance.”

“This time it is,” Jackson says. No hesitation.

“Because it’s Lee,” I state. “

He lets out a deep, hard sigh. Drops the towel and walks into Damion’s closet like it is his own.

The 6-inch scar, old and somewhat faded, on the backside of his left leg just below his butt cheek, draws my attention.

Me … I’m the cause of that particular wound. How old were we back then … seven? Maybe eight? He helped me escape the pit, but he got hurt. Again. Nearly bled out and died. I got help just in time.

“I’m starting to question our almost-brother-in-law’s masculinity,” Jackson says, his voice muffled now by the sound of hangers sliding on the metal bar. “What man wears pink?”

“A man whose girlfriend buys it for him. Or is sponsored.”

I get up and lean against the closet door. It’s big enough to fit a small car. Backlit shelves, cedar panels, mirrors that make everything look ten percent more expensive. Rows of jeans folded with geometric precision. Racks of button-ups, hoodies, jackets, all of them sharp-lined and brand-labeled. Most are Calvin Klein. His backer. Also mine.

Jackson is into comfort, not branding. He wears Mack Weldon’s AIRKNITx and Bauer — not by sponsorship, by choice. He’s not big on freebies that come with legislations.

He opens a drawer and holds up a bra with a light chuckle. Mel’s. Clearly, she’s moved in. Her stuff took over half the space already.

He plucks out the first dark charcoal hoodie, soft cotton with faint embroidery at the cuff, a black shirt, and a pair of blue jeans. Not the most expensive, but good quality. Functional. Comfy. Blood will wash out.

“You sure you want to wear CKs?” I tease, eyebrows raised. “I thought you were more of a murder-in-the-woods brand loyalist.”

Jackson turns to me, holding the clothes up against his frame. “They’ll be lucky to have me.”

“They were designed for clean, model types with great bone structure and well-developed dicks.”

He looks down at his crotch, now covered by one of Damion’s jocks. A black one. Like me, he has no reason to be shy.

“Yeah, don’t think that’s the problem … my dick just prefers to breathe.”

“Good thing he has so many clothes. He won’t miss a pair.” But we both know, even if Damion had only one pair, he still would not mind us taking it without permission. That’s just how our group works. There are stuff we’ll share without question … like clothes, food, and even our toothbrushes … then there are stuff we don’t share … like our personalized helmets, emotional trauma, and girls.

He steps into the jeans, struggles a little, mutters under his breath, and hisses in pain when he fastens the button.

“Why are these jeans so fucking uncomfortable?”

Probably because you have wounds and bruises all over your body, I want to say.

“They are fitted.” Not the type he usually wears. “They are for looking good, not for being shot at.”

“Your lifestyle confuses me.”

“Mine confuses you?” I sneer. He doesn’t answer, just puts on the rest of the outfit.

The hoodie gives him an eerie softness, like he’s just rolled out of a curated apocalypse. His damp hair is already curling slightly at the ends.

I let out a low whistle. “Damn. You look like a paid ad for emotional baggage.”

Jackson holds out his arms, poses like a broken scarecrow. “Tell Calvin I’m available for trauma-themed campaigns.”

I smirk and decide to tease him some more, deeper, to see where it lands. “Lee’s not going to recognize you. He might fall in love.”

Jackson goes still for half a second, but then the grin curls his lips — half-deflection, half-defiance.

“Oh, Lee likes me because I’m broody. Not because I’m pretty. Although I have both going for me.” That just sounds weird. Like his unexpected confession earlier.

I let out a chuckle that sounds like a cat stuck in a tumble dryer. Don’t ask how I know what that sounds like, just believe that I do.

“So what’s this thing between you and Lee?” His glare tells me not to push. But I’m pushing. “I’ve asked before … and still don’t know. I have my own theories. But I would like to know the truth.”

He swallows. I look him straight in the eye. He ponders a bit.

“Lee doesn’t have balls,” he then says. His vocal utterance hums with natural jocundity. Literally or figuratively … it’s not clear which. He’s avoiding. Playing games. A strategy we learned as kids.

“He’s a coward?” I try figuratively, hoping the poor little dude hasn’t lost his tools like Harry did.

“No.” Shit.

“He’s gay?” I try my theory.

“Nope,” he chuckles. I don’t see anything funny. It takes all my willpower not to attack him and knock some sense into him. He surely notices my annoyance. He sighs again.

“It’s complicated.” When is it not? Everything about him is always complicated. That’s just how Jackson rolls.

A boy with zero patience, a huge temper, amazing control (until it’s lost), and the most fascinating vigilant mind … if he would just stop and take a moment — instead of rushing in and thinking on the go — which usually lands him in deep shit. Granted, he seems to get out okay, but still.

He sucks in some air and wheezes it out.

I swallow the need to strangle him and continue my interrogation, adding in some begging, hoping to scratch at his conscience. Hoping he might open up. I need to know what he’s rushing into this time.

“I’m your fucking brother … you can trust me, so talk to me. Please. So Lee is like —” I try to think of a better way to say castrated. “— half a man?” A eunuch, in other words.

Jackson pines, fighting himself about something, and then he looks at me as if he’s going to tell me the biggest secret in the world.

“More like not a man.” I blink a few times to digest what he means.

My mind pops like a fucking bug on the windshield, and “Fuck,” is all I can come up with to say.

“Yeah,” he snides. “Just keep it to yourself.”

“Why are we keeping secrets from each other?” I ask, my mind still twirling like a fly around a heap of poop.

“The same reason you didn’t tell me about the contract.” His voice is flat, but the mockery is sharp. “Or we didn’t tell Mom about the pit.”

We didn’t tell her a lot of things. Believed it was for the best.

Like everything Alexander did to us. And fucking hell, the man had a knack for torture. Sick, terrifying plans cooked up in his deranged head — spiders, balloons, needles … you name it, and he turned it into the thing you suddenly feared the most.

“To not let her worry about something she could do nothing about,” I answer.

“Exactly,” my brother points his finger at me with a huge smile. I really want to strangle him, but that’s not legally possible.

“So Lee’s on a boat …” I go back to the beginning, “What boat?” Being an incredibly closed-off prick, one always needs to pull every little detail out of him with frickin tweezers.

“Graham’s boat. But it was not docked where it was supposed to be, according to Brian … at his Belvedere home or the St. Francis Yacht Club. So …” Thoughts shoot through my head — Graham has a boat? And a Belvedere home? And why is Lee on it? But more importantly …

“You talked to Brian?” I interrupt.

“Yeah, have him on speed dial now.” Ugh, he can be so annoying.

“Anyway, we found it tucked in some little cove near Alcatraz.”

“You and Brian?”

“No, Axel.” His expression is deadpan, unreadable.

“But we fell into a trap. So it fucked up plan A. Now I have a new one — using their own bomb.”

“You’re going to try to disable a bomb … on a ship … by yourself?”

“No, we’re going to blow it up, and fuck up my choice.” He stands at the windows and lets his arms hang loosely at his sides, slack and heavy. “I’m hoping whoever hates it so much he’s willing to show his face.”

“You and Axel?”

“And Miguel.”

“Miguel … from —”

“Yeah,” he cuts me off. We have known Miguel since childhood. Kind of. Seen him and his brothers, Marco and Mathias, every other X-mas.

Their father is THAT Barry. Alexander’s Barry. But he’s now Black Pit’s caretaker, I hear. With his wife, Rosa, our old nanny.

Jackson seemingly inherited them with the property. And for some undisclosed reason, he trusts Barry and his sons with his life. And with his loved one’s lives.

“You need a damn team,” I snap. “At least take me.”

“I don’t need backup. I need silence. I need to think,” he says solemnly. “I need to know if it goes wrong,” he continues coldly, “you or anyone else I love don’t die with me.” He can be such a martyr at times. And I know why.

I stare at him. “You think he was right, don’t you?”

Jackson doesn’t look up.

“You think Grandfather was right. That you’re not worth saving.”

“That’s … no.”

He stares out the window, a glassy-eyed look like someone who’s been hypnotized. He rubs his temples with a gentle, circular motion as if seeking relief from a pounding headache. I know my brother well enough to realize that he’s doggone tired. He takes a deep breath and again lets it out as a protracted sigh.

“You really gonna do this?” I ask again.

Jackson’s answer is quieter this time. “If I don’t … Lee dies.” And I know, without him saying more, that if that happens, it would totally break him.

“And if you die?”

“I won’t.”

“You say that like it’s up to you.”

Jackson meets my gaze. “It is.”

And somehow, I believe him. Even if I hate it.

A soft creak echoes from the hallway. Then the padding of bare feet.

Small. Light. Reluctant.

River.

She stands in the doorway, hoodie sleeves pulled over her hands, chin tilted up like she’d practiced her confidence in the mirror before coming in.

“I should go to bed,” River says to Jackson.

Not a suggestion. Not a question. Just a cold, flat fact that hangs in the air.

Jackson goes statue-still. His hands remain at his sides, knuckles pale against the dim light, and something flickers in his eyes — too fast to catch, like the shadow of a storm cloud moving across water.

“When you wake up, I’ll be gone, little Gremlin.” His voice is low, almost tender. Then steel cuts through it. “I’m going to get Lee.”

River doesn’t grin. Doesn’t even blink. Instead, her eyes narrow into flinty slits, studying him with the precision of a lie detector. “You smell better.”

“It’s called soap.”

She tilts her head, assessing him like he’s some busted-up mannequin in a shop window. “You look like a sad Calvin Klein ad.”

A laugh punches out of me, short and sharp. “Told you.”

“High praise,” Jackson mutters, but his voice doesn’t carry the arrogance it usually does.

River doesn’t let him off the hook.

She steps closer, inspecting him with all the bluntness of a kid and the cynicism of someone twice her age. Her gaze goes to the bruises on his neck, the shadows under his eyes, the way he holds himself like every joint aches.

“You got beat up.”

Jackson rolls a shoulder, casual, dismissive. “I got hugged too hard by a naval mine.”

I’m not sure if she knows what that is. But her voice drops, edged with something raw. “That a joke?”

I’m not sure about that either. A naval mine? Who uses stuff like that?

“Half of one.”

River flicks her gaze at me. “He’s being slippery.” Geez, this kid.

“I know,” I growl, jaw tight. “He’s good at it.”

Jackson shoots me a look, sharp, defensive. “I’m your twin. Show some loyalty.”

“I am,” I snap. “That’s why I’m not strangling you with my pink CK pantyhose.”

The corner of his mouth twitches, but River ignores the banter. She steps right up to him now, her small frame brimming with accusation, tilting her head like she’s trying to see through him straight into his dark, tired soul.

“You actually found her … Lee.” The slip cracks out before she can stop it. Her eyes go wide. She gasps and whips her head toward me.

“I know.” My tone is clipped, but I watch the relief drain out of her shoulders with a soft, shaky sigh — washing through her that she hadn’t slipped up.

“So you are really going to bring Lee back?” River’s voice trembles — just a flutter — before she locks it down again. She doesn’t show anything else, but I see the tension leave her shoulders.

“Yes.” Or die trying.

“But there’s a boat … with a bomb.” Flat. Certain. Like she’s just reciting the weather.

The air shifts. It sharpens, too quiet, too heavy. I see it — the flicker in Jackson’s body. A flinch, so quick you could miss it. But I don’t.

“How …?” I start.

“I’m great at eavesdropping,” she says, not even bothering to sound guilty.

Jackson hesitates. “It’s kinda small,” he offers, trying to sandpaper the truth down. I can hear it in his voice.

Her eyes burn into him. “A ship bomb is never small. Trust me, I watch MythBusters. And it’s literally science. Big boat, big boom,” she says confidently as if she’s an expert on both boats and bombs. “Next, you will tell me Santa’s real.”

That lands. I see it hit him. His expression tilts, humor draining out like blood from a cut. What’s left is raw, stripped. He doesn’t fight her. Doesn’t throw another joke. Maybe he’s too tired. Or maybe she’s right and he can’t deny it.

River takes a step back, scanning him from head to toe, verdict already written across her face.

“You promise to bring Lee back?”

Jackson lets out a long, weary sigh, then extends his pinkie, of all things. “Pinkie swear.”

She stares, then slowly hooks her small finger into his. The gesture is absurdly fragile, absurdly binding.

Her eyes stay locked on him, stubborn, unflinching. But her lip betrays her — a tiny wobble, caught quickly between her teeth.

“Are YOU coming back?” she asks.

The silence after that is thick enough to drown in. Even the wind outside seems to hold its breath.

Jackson’s throat works. This time, he doesn’t mellow it down. “I’m going to try.”

She studies him, eyes sharp as knives, then suddenly surges forward. Her little arms fling around his neck. It’s not careful. It’s not polite. It’s fast, fierce, all teeth and heart.

Jackson stiffens like he’s been struck. His hands hover uselessly in the air before he finally rests them against her back, tentative, trembling, as if he’s terrified his touch will break her.

She holds on like she’s the anchor and he’s the storm. And then, just as suddenly, she pulls back.

“You better not die. Or I’ll kill you.”

“That’s fair,” Jackson says, voice stripped bare. No sarcasm. No smirk. Just truth.

“Because if you died … I’ll be the one stuck babysitting a whining Lee for the next hundred years. I’ll end up deaf and wrinkled, pining over a lost childhood.”

She spins on her heels and pads down the hallway, not a glance back.

Jackson exhales. Not a normal breath — but a sound like the air’s been ripped out of his lungs.

I let the silence stretch, then say slowly, “She’s not wrong.”

“I know,” he replies. Cold. Final. A steel edge in his voice that tells me he’s already decided.

Not even the devil himself could stop him.

“You really love Lee,” I murmur, the weight of it pressing between us. Knowing how vulnerable it makes a man. How lethal it is.

His eyes flicker, unreadable. “Does it matter?”

“Yes.” My voice sharpens. “Because you’re planning on dying.”

Jackson scoffs, sharp and humorless, then lets out a rough snort. “I plan on surviving. I’m just not counting on it.”

“And Lee’s worth that?”

This time, he doesn’t dodge. He looks me dead in the eye, unflinching. “Definitely. Worth dying for.”

I feel something sink heavily in my gut, but before I can respond, he moves. He takes a few steps, shoulders squared, then glances back.

“And after this?” I ask quietly. The thought that it might be the last time I see him is eating away at my heart.

His expression is split — half a grin, half a farewell.

“After this,” he says, voice low, dangerous, almost hopeful, “we see if I’m any good at miracles.”

And then he disappears down the stairs, a ghost in clean clothes, still wet from a shower that couldn’t wash away anything that really mattered. Heading for his doom. Or hell.

But he’s right … I have to stay here. For River. For Aria. For him.

But fuck … this helplessness … it grabs me by the throat and squeezes.

It comes back in jagged flashes, like someone slamming open doors inside my head … remembering what’s the worst of the worst.

Not pain. Pain was almost a constant — sharp, dull, searing, numbing — but it was something you eventually learned to bear. The body, cruel as it is, learns to live with pain.

It wasn’t the cold either, though the chill sank so deep into our bones it felt like our marrow turned to ice.

And it wasn’t fear. Fear we knew like an old companion, always crouched somewhere close by.

No. The worst part was the helplessness.

The kind that hollowed you out, left you raw and shaking inside, and even when your body was trying to ignore it, your senses were not.

The echo of chains rattling every time one of us tried to move, hearing your brothers’ breaths splinter into silent sobs, their teeth chattering. The stench of damp stone and old blood pressed into the walls. The metallic taste of iron in the back of my throat, like I’d been chewing rust. The feeling of failure in the dark, unfriendly shadows that scratch your skin. And the look on their faces, twisting in agony.

You knew you couldn’t move. Couldn’t help. Couldn’t fight. Couldn’t cry. Couldn’t even make a sound without making it worse.

Not because we were too weak.

But because every attempt to help lets the cruelty linger longer. If you tried anything, the others would pay — double … triple.

So you had to stay still. Silent. Helpless.

And the helplessness never left. It still sits in my chest like a stone, waiting, ready to crawl out whenever it can.

Like now.

I push it back and go looking for Aria.

Aria can help. Aria can pull me from the darkness.

But after everything … I’m not sure she wants to.