“Yes, drugs. But he simply trafficked the drugs. He made big and small deals, ran drug circles, even managed to use two elite rival universities to hide one of the biggest drug operations around within the campus walls, and it managed to make him a sizable fortune. But I think bigger than that, bigger than simply trafficking drugs that other people also take a cut of. I am going to do much, much more than our father ever dreamed of doing. I’m not just going to move the drugs and sell them; I’m going to create them. I’m going to develop and make new kinds of drugs that I will sell myself and keep one hundred percent of the profits. I’m going to turn this place into a breeding ground for addiction. Addiction to the drugs that I make.”

I rolled my eyes. And honestly? I would have slow-clapped him if I thought he was worth the energy. “What, so you’re some kind of chemist now too?”

I tried to seem unfazed by what he had just said. If he truly managed to accomplish being the developer, manufacturer, and distributor of the largest drug circuit in the city; it would be nearly impossible to take him down.

But, David simply proceeded forward, as if he honestly believed in what he was saying. “I don’t need to be a chemist, that’s what all my money is for. I’ve already hired some of the smartest people I know and very soon they will present me with viable drugs to begin making. You’ll wish you had jumped in on this opportunity with me when you were offered the chance,” he said.

And I answered with the clearest, most concise statement that I felt permeating through my veins.

“No, I won’t.”

When the guards came to take me back to the stone room, I wondered the entire way there how long David was going to keep us inside that box. That’s what it felt like—a box. I didn’t want to go back inside of it.

“I have to pee,” I said before we had made it all the way there.

One of the guards rolled his eyes at the other.

“Didn’t you hear me?” I said louder this time. “I have to use the bathroom.”

They took me to one of the campus restrooms and stood outside the door. I knew this only bought me a few minutes of freedom, but a few minutes outside that room was better than none. I stood inside the stall and felt guilty for being here and enjoying a few minutes outside the stone room without the guys.

This is what my life had become now: feeling guilty for stealing three minutes of time inside a dingy bathroom stall.

“Hurry up in there!” one of the guards called.

“Give me a minute! I’m taking a shit, too!” I hollered back.

I washed my hands under the warm running water as slowly as I could until one of the guards finally came in and dragged me out. I had half a mind to throw a punch to his gut, kick him in the cock, and make a break for it as quickly as I could. But, I couldn’t leave my boys behind. I had to save them.

So, I let them drag me away and we were well on our way back to the box.

My eyes had just started getting used to the light when they opened the door and threw me back inside. Then I was all the way back to square one with not being able to see anything again.

“Lisette, are you okay?” Adam’s voice said somewhere near my ear.

I felt the hands of all three guys running over my body to make sure that I hadn’t been hurt or mangled in any way.

“I’m fine,” I said. “I’m okay.”

Julian hugged me and I felt his arms wrap around me in a tight hug. I knew it was him without him even having to say anything. I grew up resting my shoulder on his head all of the time and had committed the scent of his shampoo to memory. It was funny, even after all these years he still used the same damn shampoo.

“It’s okay,” I whispered to him. “I’m okay.”

I felt him let out a breath that he had been holding in.

“What happened?” Michael asked.

He tried to make his voice sound calm and matter-of-fact, but I could hear the shaking in his vocal cords, and I knew that he had probably actually been the most worried of all.

“David asked me if I would join him,” I said.

Even saying the sentiment out loud sounded ridiculous. And the silence that met me from my boys told me they thought it was just as asinine.

“Join him with what?” Adam asked incredulously.

“He’s planning to build on our father’s drug operation. He’s not just going to use the school to traffic the drugs, he’s going to manufacture them too.”

“Shit,” Julian said. “That’s a whole lot of evil ambition right there.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” I agreed.

“Why did he want you?” Michael asked.

I shrugged. “I don’t really know. He made some strange comments about how he’s always been jealous of me and thinks that making me join him will somehow be better than killing me. Bottom line is that the guy is just batshit crazy.”

“Yeah he definitely is,” Michael said. “But there might be a weakness there to exploit.”

“Any idea when we’re getting let out of this room?” Adam asked me.

“No.” I felt my heart sink when I said the word. Feeling helplessly trapped was the worst feeling in the world, worse than pain in my opinion.

“It’ll be okay,” Adam said as he reached for me and pulled me into his lap.

We all sat together, me in Adam’s lap, and Michael and Julian on either side of us. I always felt like I was okay when a part of me was touching a part of each of them. As uncomfortable as the stone room was, we were all still exhausted and it didn’t take long before we all fell asleep again; me against Adam’s shoulder with Michael and Julian spread out on the floor at our feet.

With their hands planted on my feet and ankles to keep in contact with me.

After a little while, though, I woke up. It was hard to tell if my eyes were open since the change in light was negligible either way. It sounded like the guys were still asleep, at least Julian and Adam were from what I could tell. Julian had a soft heavy-breathing noise that he made while he slept which I had heard since we were kids, and I could hear them while he slept. Adam’s chest rose and fell in long, hard breaths that coincided with a deep state of sleep. But, I didn’t hear Michael, and something told me that he was awake as well.

“Did they hurt you guys after I left?” I whispered to him quietly.

“Nah,” he whispered back. “Not any more than usual.”

I reached my hand over to his lap and felt his fingers curl around mine. “All I could think about after they had taken you, was what they were going to do to you; what he could have done to you.”

His fingers squeezed around mine more tightly. “Lisette, if we make it out of here, we need to get as far away from David as we can. No matter what it takes.”

“Agreed,” I said.

Michael’s voice still sounded more nervous than it usually did. And I wondered why. I mean, apart from the absolute obvious.

“He has the worst part of both of our parents, you know,” he said. “He has your father’s cruelty and my mother’s blatant lack of a moral compass. He’s certainly the product of monsters.”

I drew in a deep, quiet breath as I listened to Adam and Julian sleeping soundly around me. “I think he might be even worse than a monster,” I whispered. “Monsters can sometimes be tamed, but I don’t think David can be anything other than deranged. I wish I knew what my mother had seen in him, what one redeeming quality she thought she could use to save him. Because all I see is a rabid animal that needs to be put down.”

“Then that’s what we’ll do,” he said. “We’ll put him down. We just need to find a way to get out of this box first.”