I was in a really fucking bad mood and whoever had fucking dared to break into my house tonight was going to die very painfully and very slowly.
I ignored Cleo and Zayn calling my name when I walked towards the sliding doors that led to the backyard, holding my gun with my finger already on the trigger.
After I saw the shadow moving outside and rushing to hide behind the tree near the wall surrounding my house, a few feet away from the pool, I just lost it. I couldn't fucking rest in my own home? No fucking way.
Whoever it was, they had to be extremely ignorant or suicidal to literally break into my fucking house.
Zayn and Cleo were here, there was no way I'd let anything happen to them, so I was going to kill this person... and I had a feeling Louis had sent this stupid fucking asshole to spy on me or snoop around, he'd been quiet for too long and we still didn't know what to do about him.
My alarm system was clearly not working, or maybe I was so tired that I forgot to turn it back on after Cleo and I arrived. I had two systems, one for the house itself and another one outside, and there was just so much on my mind that I didn't even think about it, especially since we were sleeping during the day.
But this never happened before, no one was actually this fucking reckless. Maybe I needed to remind this intruder who the owner of the house was.
I walked out into the backyard and the lights were on around the pool, making the water seem a clear blue as I slowly stepped closer to the tree, keeping my gun aimed. I could feel the grass beneath my feet and I remembered I was only wearing my briefs, I didn't even bother to get dressed after I woke up.
I could hear footsteps behind me and I knew Cleo and Zayn had followed, but my gaze was locked on the tree... and the person was completely hidden by it for now.
But the moment I saw the shadow moving, and I saw a glimpse of a shoulder, I didn't hesitate to shoot.
My finger was already on the trigger and I pulled it, obviously hitting my target. The scream of pain that followed echoed around us and I walked closer to the tree so I could see who the fuck was-
Shit, he was running away.
The man simply ran towards the wall, holding his wounded shoulder as he probably hoped he'd make it out alive. God, I pitied him... I even considered letting him try to climb the wall and shooting him when he was at the top.
But no, I wasn't in the mood at all, so I simply aimed the gun at his head just when he turned around, realizing he was a stupid dead man walking.
"Harry, stop!" Cleo shouted, catching me off guard when she rushed towards me, grabbing my arm and trying to lower my hand, but there was no fucking way I'd put my gun down while a fucking intruder was in my house.
"Let me go, baby... since when do you care if I kill someone?" I asked her, never looking away from the man.
He seemed to be a bit younger than me, with brown hair and blue eyes. Now that the lights were illuminating him and he was out of the shadow, I could see his face clearly. And I had never seen him before.
However, his gaze was focused on Cleo, not on me.
"It's my brother, Harry." She whispered at me, and I was sure as fuck I had misheard it.
"What the fuck?" I asked her, keeping my gun pointed at him and glancing sideways at her.
Zayn was a few steps back, holding the gun and simply watching what was going on, and I knew he was just as confused as I was.
"It's Niall, my brother," Cleo repeated, squeezing my biceps slightly as she tried to lower my arm again.
"I'm sorry, but why do you think that is going to make me want to shoot him any less?" I had to ask her, which rewarded me with a deadly glare.
I rolled my eyes at her and turned to look at Niall again, and he still had his hand on his wounded shoulder, the white shirt he was wearing was all stained with blood and he was chewing the inside of his cheek, looking the most nervous a person could look.
"Put your fucking gun down," Cleo said through gritted teeth and I looked at her, raising one eyebrow.
"So he breaks into my fucking house, hides behind my tree, and I'm supposed to let him get away with it?" I asked her, still refusing to put my gun away.
She was looking deep into my eyes and she didn't budge, but I could be just as stubborn if she wanted to. Apparently, she had forgotten that his fucking name was on our board because he was a fucking suspect.
I agreed to trust her with the whole Amber situation, but this was entirely different. Why the fuck was Niall here? I bet Catherine sent him and the stupid boy followed her orders like a fucking puppy.
He was so fucking useless, though.
"You already shot him, he didn't shoot back. He's my brother, Harry, and we're not sure of anything on that fucking board!" She raised her voice. "Put. The. Gun. Down."
My jaw clenched on its own and I huffed, lowering my arm against all my instincts and turning around so I could walk closer to Zayn, leaving her alone before I could snap, since she wanted her brother to live so badly.
Fuck.
As if I would hesitate to shoot him if he even dared to try anything with her, I'd put a bullet in his head and call it a day, no matter if I was more distant or not.
I was actually in need to blow off some steam, all this new information we'd learned was making me hyperactive and so tense, my thoughts were restless. Killing him would be a quick distraction but good enough, I could focus on the anger I was feeling and I was sure Catherine would be upset, which was another plus.
I watched as Cleo walked closer to her brother, and my finger was still on the trigger just in case. Zayn was standing right next to me with furrowed eyebrows and I glanced sideways at him, thankful that Cleo still had her knife in the pocket of her jumper.
"That's Niall Horan? What the fuck is going on?" Zayn asked me in a low voice and I glanced at him, meeting his eyes.
"Nothing good." I sighed, and I could see Cleo was talking to Niall now, but I couldn't listen to what she was saying.
Now we knew Cleo had gotten all the brains, it was obvious that her brother wasn't as smart as she was.
Given the way she was moving her arms, she was fucking pissed. Niall wasn't pleased as well, keeping his eyebrows furrowed and pointing in my direction eventually. Great, so now he was talking about me?
He had a fucking death wish.
"I think he's innocent," Zayn spoke up and my jaw literally dropped open. "What? I was going to tell you guys earlier but he showed up...it's ironic, if you stop to think about it."
"This isn't funny, Zayn!" I groaned in frustration, wondering what the fuck was wrong with people around me lately. "He looks pretty innocent right now, doesn't he?"
"I agree with Cleo, we should talk to him. And you need to calm down." He arched his eyebrows nonchalantly, and those words were the ones that pissed me off the most, I hated being told to calm down.
And now I was even angrier precisely when Cleo was walking towards us, dragging her brother along with her.
She had to be fucking kidding me.
"Inside." She said simply, not even looking at me as she walked towards the door, grabbing Niall's uninjured arm and pulling him with her.
He looked deep into my eyes when he walked by us, and I could see disgust, anger, and confusion mixed in his expression. We had that in common.
Cleo walked back into my living room, this time allowing an untrustworthy son of a bitch into my home, and I had to take a very deep breath before following them. I trusted her a lot but I was very conflicted at the moment.
I tucked my gun on the waistband of my briefs, in the back, and Zayn glared at me as a warning because he probably knew I was thinking about shooting Niall.
A trail of blood was staining my floor and I found them sitting on the couch after I walked back inside, and Cleo was already with the first aid kid, instructing Niall to take off his shirt so she could remove the bullet probably.
Niall glared at me and then at her, his eyes scanned her face as she grabbed the forceps and the gauze, and then I just knew he'd looked at the bruises on her thighs.. most precisely the ones with my initials.
And then he looked at me again, with furrowed eyebrows as his gaze dropped to my chest.
"No fucking way." He snapped all of a sudden, and I just knew this wasn't going to be pretty. "What the fuck is going on here, Cleodora? You're lying about not working with mom, aren't you? Why are you barely dressed in his house? Who the fuck is the other dude?"
Cleo glanced at me with an almost sad look in her eyes, and she let out a deep breath before she sat down on the couch so she could take care of Niall's gunshot wound.
"I'm not working with our mother." She told him, taking the bullet out as he literally whimpered in pain.
That boy was certainly in the wrong career if he was being squeamish about this, his face was so fucking pale that I thought he'd pass out, and I didn't even shoot him anywhere deadly.
The first mistake he made was to actually break into my house unarmed, I just realized he wasn't carrying a gun or a knife, and I wondered if he also didn't use firearms like his sister.
I doubted it, Cleo was the one who watched her father die, her trauma was more than justifiable.
"You're not helping her with Desmond? How the fuck do you expect me to believe that when I followed you to his son's house! What is this!" Niall was screaming again and he sounded really upset.. and that's when I realized what he thought was going on.
For whatever reason, he was following Cleo and he ended up at my house... which made me overthink that more people could've followed us before, but I decided to focus on Niall for now.
He seemed angry that she was here and he clearly thought she was working with her mother and Desmond, because she was staying with me. But how the fuck did he know?
Well, it didn't look good that Cleo and I were together, that was a fact. But what the fuck was going on? Was Niall really innocent and Zayn was right about this?
When I looked at Zayn, he was already looking at me with one raised eyebrow, and he didn't even need to say 'I told you so' because it was very well implied.
Niall wasn't faking this, I could tell.
I ignored him and looked at Niall again, pinching my bottom lip between my fingers as I stepped closer, watching as his entire body tensed in the process. He was scared, there was no way to mask that.
He actually sucked at hiding how he was feeling and I was very observant.
Cleo ignored him, bandaging his shoulder and giving him his shirt back, and I noticed he had a snake tattoo on his arm... I wondered how they felt about it now that they knew the truth about their parents, it was clear that Niall knew that my father was working with his mother.
"How did you find out they're working together, Niall?" Cleo asked him, standing up from the couch and walking closer to me. "Is this why you were about to break into my apartment that day? Because you wanted evidence that I was working with mom?"
"Well, she told you about that job from the anonymous client and then you simply vanished! Mom was acting weird and having meetings without me more than usual, I realized it one night that I went to Eroda so I could talk to her, and the dancers told me she wasn't there.. so I went to her place and when I parked in front of her house I saw Desmond there, talking to her in the living room. He was there for about an hour and I just watched, then he got into his car and drove off." Niall blurted out, glancing at me. I knew I had to be quiet about this and you weren't around, that's why I was going to check your apartment. What was I supposed to do?"
"Meeting him in her own house?" I asked Cleo, chuckling under my breath. "They're way too confident about this, fucking cunts."
"Keep going," She told Niall, grabbing a towel from the first aid kit to clean the blood off her hands.
"Then you were there... we went to mom's place that day and you asked her about dad's files and the trafficking, I was really glad you weren't involved but then I started to overthink it. You grabbed a few files and simply left, what if mom set it all up to play a fool and you helped her? What if she knew that I knew? And you're back in the city, so I was following you around, trying to figure out what to do... and you're with him." Niall's disgusted tone when he mentioned me made me smile and I winked at him.
"So you discovered it recently... she's being more careless because she's too confident, or maybe she was always like this, and sooner or later we'd end up catching her. I was honestly terrified that you knew all along. Niall." Cleo let out a relieved breath, and I was trying to see the bright side.
She would be devastated if her brother was helping with the trafficking, she didn't deserve any more heartbreak.
But this was so weird to me... there were two Horans in my home and we all were against our parents? Fuck, what a goddamn twist.
"You're not explaining what the fuck is going on here, Cleo! What if you're playing me? Why are you at his house?" Niall asked her, turning his head to look at me. "And where are his pants!"
"In our bedroom," I said casually, and it looked like Niall was about to have a stroke.
His face was flushed and he winced when he moved on the couch, cursing under his breath and shaking his head. I was almost feeling bad.
"You're dating?" Niall asked way too loudly and I was sure I heard Zayn chuckling behind me.
"No... we're.. working together." Cleo cleared her throat, looking at me.
I didn't know why but hearing that bothered me a little... we were doing much more than just working together and I actually liked her. And I knew she liked me.
Was she embarrassed?
"And I'm fucking your sister," I decided to add.
"Figured I should put it out there."
"For fuck's sake, Harry!" Cleo glared at me, and of course I'd done it on purpose.
Niall really looked like he regretted coming here tonight, but he was under my roof now and I didn't like him. simple.
Plus, seeing my initials all over his sister's thighs would make it obvious, I was so fucking done sugarcoating things.
Our situation wasn't the best and I had run out of patience, so just fuck it.
"H.? Come on, let's go to the kitchen. Leave them." Zayn suddenly touched my arm and I turned around to look at him, knowing what he was thinking about already. "They have a lot to talk about."
"Please," Cleo said, looking very much annoyed at me. "Listen to Zayn."