The 2015 R.L. Mathewson Chronicles Collection Read online

  “Uh huh,” she said, not really caring, which was fine with him. It would give him more time with his son.

  “Downstairs,” he said firmly before adding, “Now.”

  Swallowing nervously, Jonathan nodded with a murmured, “Yes, sir.”

  Dropping his gaze down to the chef’s hat that was of a mass of wrinkles now, Jonathan walked out of the room, Zoe’s moans of pleasure following them as they made their way to the kitchen where the three other traitors were all sitting around the kitchen table eating the delectable treats that Jonathan has somehow managed to create without him ever knowing.

  “You made all of this?” Trevor demanded once the kitchen door closed behind him.

  Jonathan swallowed nervously even as he nodded firmly. “Yes.”

  “Who taught you?”

  “No one. I got bored and started reading all those cookbooks that people kept giving mom,” Jonathan explained as his siblings continued to eat in utter bliss.

  “I see,” Trevor murmured thoughtfully as his attention landed on a loaf of what appeared to be homemade banana bread. “And how long were you planning on keeping this from me?”

  “Well, that depends,” Jonathan said, shifting nervously as Trevor reached for a slice of banana bread and nearly wept with pleasure at how moist and delicious it was.

  “On whether or not you’re gonna use this against me when I get in trouble?” Jonathan admitted.

  Trevor thought it over with a nod as he glanced at the large spread of food that his son managed to whip up in a matter of hours. “You think that if you get in trouble that I won’t allow you to cook as punishment,” he rightly guessed by the worried expression on Jonathan’s face.

  “Yes,” Jonathan choked out.

  With a chuckle, Trevor grabbed a plate and loaded it up with food. “That’s one thing that you’ll never have to worry about, Bradfords would consider that cruel and unusual punishment,” he explained as he sat down next to Sebastian.

  “Told ya,” Sebastian said, not bothering to look up from his plate as he handed the syrup to Trevor.

  Jonathan practically sagged with relief, that is until Trevor felt obligated to point out, “Of course, once Uncle Jared finds out that you’ve been hiding this from him…..,” he let his words trail off with a mock shudder that had all the color leeching from his son’s normally tanned face, deciding that was punishment enough for withholding such tasty treats from him.

  A Pyte Halloween Special…

  “Get up,” Chris said with an exhausted sigh as he dropped down on the couch next to him, practically falling on his lap and forcing him to shift over a few inches to accommodate his brother and save himself from being crushed by the large jerk.

  “Why?” Mark absently asked with a bored sigh as he beat level ten, again.

  “Because it’s Halloween,” his brother said, reaching over and plucking the controller from his hands and as much as he would love to get it back, which he really didn’t because he was bored out of his mind, his brother was a trained Sentinel and would just kick his butt as he tormented him.

  Chris really seemed to get such joy out of tormenting others…

  It was something that normally amused him, but not when he was the focus of his brother’s attention. Chris could be single-minded and if he’d decided to entertain himself tonight by tormenting him then he was going to have make a run for it and pray that he could reach Izzy before his brother managed to catch him, tie him up and hang him from the ceiling somewhere just for fun.

  “And this means what to me exactly?” Mark asked as he got off the couch and decided to go find Izzy and see what she was doing. Whatever it was, it was probably more exciting than getting tormented by his brother.

  “It means,” Chris said, grabbing Mark by the back of the shirt and with a simple twist of his wrist, had him stumbling back and landing right back on the couch next to him where Chris threw his huge arm around his shoulders, nearly breaking his back and making him wish for the day that he turned sixteen and slipped into a coma so that he could kick his brother’s ass, “something very important.”

  “Which is?” he asked, trying not to groan when his brother gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze.

  Seriously, the first thing that he was going to do after he went through his transformation was going to tie Chris up and hang him upside down on the biggest tree that he could find.

  “Trick or Treating,” Chris said with a huge smile that honestly scared the living heck out of him, because that smile meant that his brother wasn’t just screwing with his head.

  Chris was serious.

  Oh…God…, Mark thought as his stomach twisted with dread and he made a pathetic attempt to escape, but Chris was determined to keep him right where he was.

  “I-I’m too old,” Mark managed to get out, absolutely terrified that his brother was not only going to force him to go through with this, but that he also had a costume picked out for him.

  “Nonsense,” Chris said with that same damn smile that only made Mark more determined to go through his transformation as his big brother stood up, dragging him along with him. “It will be fun!”

  *-*-*-*

  “I’m so sorry,” Izzy mouthed the words, again, but Mark was purposely glaring away from her, understandably pissed.

  Not that she was all that happy about being forced to go Trick or Treating, she told herself as she adjusted the gloved hand of her Freddy Krueger costume that she’d bought in preparation of this day five months ago. She tried sending her little brother-in-law a smile that told him that everything would be okay, but that glare…

  Yup, she was going to have to make this up to him, she decided as he shifted his glare to her even as he carefully shifted Jessica, whom she’d dressed up in a teddy bear costume, in his arms so that he could intensify his glare at her, making damn sure that she knew that he knew who was really behind this fiasco.

  “Are we ready?” Chris asked with a smile as he leaned down and pressed a baby kiss against Jessica’s forehead while Mark continued to stand there, scowling at her and admittedly frightening her just a tad bit.

  It made her wonder if he would remember this incident in four years when he went though his transformation. Judging by the glare he was probably making a mental note and tucking it away for later. She’d worry about that later, she decided, too excited about taking Jessica out on her first Halloween to really care about her impending doom.

  “Don’t. Do. This,” Mark bit out even, his glare never wavering from, which once again she found a bit concerning, but…

  Whatever.

  She’d taught him how to beat level eight of the latest Walking Dead video game so he owed her. “It will be fun,” she said with a smile that became forced once she saw the wheelchair that Chris planned on putting her ass in tonight.

  She didn’t want to go in that damn thing. She wanted to walk with the other parents, scaring the hell out of teenagers and getting her fill of free candy, but thanks to her hip, she didn’t have much of a choice. Granted, Chris had already told her that she didn’t have much of a choice when she begged him to take them out tonight so she was just going to have to suck it up and deal with getting pushed around tonight.

  Next year would be better, she lied to herself as she carefully sat down, hiding her cringe when pain shot through her hip and leg, threatening to make her scream in pain and ruin this night before it had a chance to begin. Mark’s glare turned knowing as he once again shifted Jessica in his arms as his glare took on a whole new meaning.

  “You’re in pain,” he said accusingly as he handed Jessica off to Chris, who unfortunately had that very same look on his face as his brother.

  “No,” she said, pausing to wince on a small gasp of pain that she couldn’t quite hold back, “I’m fine.”

  Chris cocked his head thoughtfully as he studied her while Marc, the little traitor, folded his arms over his chest, looking oddly dangerous in that zombie costume that she’d picked out fo
r him, and simply glared at her, daring her to lie to them. Which, she fully planned on doing since the alternative would land her ass in a hot bath for the rest of the night and sitting in the foyer on candy handout duty.

  “She’s lying,” Mark pointed out thoughtfully as Chris slowly nodded in agreement, guaranteeing that she was never going to have sex with him again.

  “Yes, she is,” he said, sounding just as thoughtful as she sat there, trying her best to look innocent, which the Krueger costume probably was ruining for her.

  “Then I guess we should call it a night,” Mark said with a triumphant little smirk that had her eyes narrowing on him, because if he really thought that she was going to stay home on Jessica’s first Halloween then the boy was crazy.

  “We’re going,” she said, directing her glare on Chris, letting him know without words exactly what would happen if he even thought about putting an end to this night.

  He’d never get laid again, and considering how large his sexual appetite was, she knew that he would never do anything to risk his post-patrol blowjob. It just would never happen and they both knew-

  “Sorry, sweetheart,” Chris said, sealing his fate as he leaned down and brushed his lips against hers, “but it looks like you’re on candy detail.”

  She opened her mouth to argue, but unfortunately for her that was the moment that Ephraim came in. When his eyes narrowed on her and shifted red as he scented the air, she knew that it was pointless to try and lie her way out of this. He could smell the pain radiating from her the muscle in her hips swelled and cramped, earning another gasp of pain from her and guaranteeing that she wasn’t leaving the house tonight.

  So, when Ephraim grabbed the large bowl of candy off the table and placed it on her lap, she took it, knowing that her fate had been sealed, but she would get her revenge sooner or later.

  Oh, would she have her revenge…

  Trick or Treat

  “Let’s go over the rule one more time.”

  Sebastian sighed heavily and Jonathan closed his eyes in defeat. They’d been so close to making their escape, but their father was a nervous wreck and absolutely terrified about allowing them to go Trick or Treating for the first time on their own.

  “If a police officer brings you home, you won’t be able to sit for a month,” their mother simply said as she walked past them, knowing that going over the rules with them was a complete waste of time.

  If they wanted to get around a rule, they would not only find a way to do it, but also make sure that their defense would save their butts from spending a month in their room or having to run from their mother when they’d finally worked her last nerve. Than again, if the police ended up bringing them home all bets were off and nothing they said or did was going to save them from spend the next thirty days separated, in their own rooms without any electronics, non-fiction books or a way to communicate with the outside world.

  Their father would be the one that would enforce the punishment, but it would be their mother’s look that told their father just how badly they’d screwed up so that he knew how far to go with their punishments. No matter what their parents thought, they didn’t intentionally go looking for trouble. Trouble just usually found them and inspired them to do things that would get most adults slapped with a federal charge.

  But not tonight.

  Tonight was Halloween and they were going to have fun being on their own for the first time in their lives. If they screwed up this year, their parents told them that it would be their last. Since they weren’t quite ready to give up free candy just yet, they planned on being on their best behavior.

  “No hanging out with teenagers, going to strangers’ houses, or leaving the agreed upon proximity. If one of us calls you, you have twenty seconds to answer the phone and let us know that you are okay. No accepting homemade anything from anyone unless it’s from family. You will also wait until you get home and we check your candy to make sure it’s safe before you eat a single bite of it. Do I make myself understood?” their father, Trevor asked in that firm voice that told them that he wasn’t playing around.

  “Yes, sir,” they both answered easily, because they had absolutely no problem with any of these rules.

  Besides, they’d have their mother or Aunt Haley checking their candy. They weren’t stupid enough to hand over a bag of candy to their father or any male Bradford for that matter. They’d learned early on how quickly your food could disappear if you made the mistake of taking your eye off it for even a second.

  As though they were both remembering the time that their father had helped himself to their baby oatmeal, both brothers narrowed their eyes on him, remembering the promise that they’d made to each other that one day…

  They would make him pay.

  Granted, their father had choked it up once he’d realized that the oatmeal had been with baby formula, but that wasn’t the point. They were Bradfords and they protected their food.

  Catching their glares, their father rubbed his hands roughly down his face. “You two really need to get over that.”

  “You know that can’t happen,” Sebastian said with an amused little smile and just to screw with their father’s head, because that really did entertain them, Johnny did the same.

  Sighing heavily, their father handed them each an empty black pillow case and shook his head, mumbling to himself, “I’m going to start locking my room at night.”

  They had to smile at that, because they all knew that wouldn’t save their father from their revenge. It was foolish to think it would, he thought as he shared a look with his twin. From the look on Sebastian’s face, he knew that his brother already had something in mind for their father. That was fine with Johnny, because that just meant that they would get the old man back for daring to touch what was theirs.

  Apparently realizing how close they were to finally getting their revenge, their father said, “Your mother would kill you.”

  True, but it was worth it.

  It was the principle of the matter. Don’t touch their food. Every Bradford understood the family motto and you broke it, you should expect some form of retaliation.

  Knowing just how close they were to exacting their revenge, their mother came back in the room, sighing heavily. She grabbed each one of them by the arm and led them towards the door, going up on her tippy toes to kiss them, she whispered, “Remember that I love your father very much and would be heartbroken if you did any permanent damage.”

  Like they’d leave any permanent damage, Johnny thought with a sigh and a sad shake of his head as he allowed his mother to push him out the door. Permanent damage constituted evidence in their book and that was something that they were very careful about. They always made sure that their little “crimes” as Judge Mitchell liked to call them could never be linked to them since it was hard to get a conviction without solid evidence.

  “She’ll get over it,” Sebastian said confidently as they walked over to the tree and waited, because they knew without a doubt that they were about to have company.

  Sure enough, thirty seconds later their little brother, Mathew, came running outside wearing a matching Bradford Construction outfit and joined them. He didn’t bother begging them or even asking them if it was okay if they joined them, because it wasn’t necessary. He was their little brother, their responsibility and they took that seriously. They were raised to look out for each other and that’s exactly what they were going to do.

  So, with a nod and a gesture to the left, they proceeded towards the long end of their street where the king sized candy bars would be given out first.

  *-*-*-*

  “Fucking crybaby,” the big moron who’d just made the mistake of pushing Mathew out of the way so that he could look tough for his friends said.

  He shared a look with his brother Johnny and the two of them bent down, checked to make sure that nothing was broken and made a mental note of the bloodied knee that their little brother was holding.

  “Sta
y here,” Sebastian said to Mathew as he pulled out his phone and quickly text messaged the address to their father and then one to the rest of their cousins.

  Nodding, Mathew wiped at his face with the back of his hand, but he kept crying which was understandable. Tossing their filled bags of candy down next to their brother, they turned to face the teenage boys climbing into the back of a pickup truck, all laughing and showing off their loot.

  With a single look and a nod, Sebastian and Johnny walked over to the truck, straight for the hood. Without a word, and with a trick that their Uncle Jared had taught them, they popped the hood, carefully reached in and with one tug of a wire, they killed the engine.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” one of the teens demanded as he jumped out of the truck.