Claimed by My Stepbrother

Chapter 14

“Lex, we were just messing around. It was a joke. None of it was real, babe.”

Babe?

Lex shakes her head. “Yeah, well, the tears running down my face were real, Jax. You obviously don’t give a shit about my feelings. You know what”—she steps into his face—“you and Sienna are perfect for each other. She’s a bitch and you’re a coldhearted bastard.” She shoves past him and storms out of the room.

Jaxon turns his head, looking like he’s desperate to chase after her, but he doesn’t. He remains locked in his spot, pain written all over his face. He knows he’s losing her. It was bad enough that he betrayed her, but now, he just went and shredded the last bit of faith she had in him and their friendship.

She wanted him to help her. To come to her rescue when she was scared. But he didn’t. He kept up the ruse of their twisted game and continued to torment her. Man, guys can be so dense sometimes. I’m going to have to give him some advice if he wants to fix their friendship. Because standing here and doing nothing doesn’t work.

“Come on, Mercy,” Ava says, looking the least disturbed by tonight’s events. I’m not sure who took her, but she doesn’t look as angry or upset as the rest of the girls. “Let’s go.”

Mercy turns to follow Ava out of the cell, but Banner grabs her arm and stops her. “I’m sorry, Merce. I shouldn’t have taken things so far.”

Wow, he’s actually apologizing. Well, at least one of them knows the words I’m sorry and isn’t afraid to say them.

Mercy shrugs out of his hold and gives him a glare that has me shocked. That girl has only ever looked at Banner with hearts in her eyes, but now, she looks as though she never wants to see him again. I seriously don’t know what went down after everyone disappeared tonight, but it’s obviously time for us to go.

I turn to the guys. “You all are on my shit list. Especially you.” I point my stare at Cord.

“Baby, it was just a prank. We’re in the fucking Fright House. What did the girls expect?”

Cord steps toward me, trying to wrap me in his embrace, but I push his arm away.

“What I expect is that when our friends are visibly upset, the people who are supposed to give a shit, look out for them. Obviously, that didn’t happen. And why were the girls stuck in here in the first place and being tormented? Because of you, Cord.” I poke the center of his chest with my finger. “You’re the one who caused all this because your dick needed some attention. Well, now, I’m going to give your dick the same consideration these guys gave our friends. None.”

I turn in my heels and stalk back down the dark corridor in search of my friends. If he thinks I’m going to crawl into bed with him after this stunt, he’s wrong. I’ll be sleeping at Lexie’s house tonight.

Cord

“Dude! You’re a dick.” Drake flips me the bird. He bends over and takes a heaving breath, looking like he wants to hurl.

Serves them right. They took things too far with the girls last night, so now they get to suffer the consequences.

“Yeah.” I shake my head. “Well, so are you. I know you have your beef with Sam, but you should’ve backed off when you saw she was upset last night. That girl never gets rattled by anything and she was scared shitless.”

He stands back up, pointing me with a glare. “This isn’t about what we did. Because you know damn well we do that shit to anyone who comes through the Fright House. You’re just pissed because Piper’s icing you out.”

Yeah, I fucking am. My girl didn’t come home last night, and she hasn’t returned a damn call or text. I finally got a taste of her and now my dick’s been cast out into the cold.

Banner and Jaxon come huffing over, finishing up their stadiums. Both of them punching me hard in the shoulder and shaking their heads as they join us.

“You’re a dick,” Jaxon states, gasping for air. “And we’re even now.”

We’re only even when my girl warms up to me again. If I get home and find out she’s still giving me the cold shoulder, I’ll be giving them stadium runs at tomorrow’s practice too.

“Okay, so what’s the plan for Fright Night?” Jaxon asks on a heaving breath and I want to smack the guy upside the head. He’s already on thin ice with Lex; does he really want to pull off some mischief against the girls and piss them off even further? I sure as hell won’t be participating in any prank this year. I’m already in the doghouse with my girl.

“You really think that’s a good idea?” After last night, the guys should back the fuck off, get on their hands and knees, and grovel for forgiveness. That’s what I plan on doing as soon as I get home.

“You know the girls are scheming,” Jax says. “Did you see the look in Sam’s eyes? They’ll be out for revenge this year. We at least need to be ready to defend ourselves even if we don’t plan on pulling any pranks on them.”

He has a point. Knowing how Samantha is, we really need to watch our backs.

“Yeah, and we don’t have our little leak anymore since this one jacked things up.” He shoots Banner a look. After what the asshole did, Mercy definitely won’t be giving up the girls’ secrets anymore. In years past, we knew exactly what the girls were planning for Fright Night, and we were always ten steps ahead. Not this year. The guys will be going in blind.

Banner shakes his head. “I know I fucked up. I don’t need the reminder.”