Kidnapped by My Lover's Younger Brother

Noah’s P.O.V

By the time I realized something was wrong, my knees had already given out.

The glass slipped from my fingers and shattered somewhere beneath me, but the sound seemed distant, muffled beneath the violent pounding of my heart as weakness spread through my body with terrifying speed. I tried to steady myself against the table, but my fingers missed, and suddenly, I was falling.

Arms caught me.

"Easy."

My stomach dropped. I knew that voice. I forced my heavy eyes open and found Ethan Sterling staring down at me.

"What..." My tongue felt thick, my words slurring together. "What did you do?"

Something flickered across his face—pain, regret, and something else that made fear crawl down my spine.

"You shouldn't have made me do this," he whispered.

My eyes moved toward the broken glass. "The drink..."

"I'm sorry, Noah." He lowered himself in front of me, one hand brushing against my cheek as though he were trying to comfort me, and somehow, that was worse than anything else.

"Ethan..."

"I tried to let you go." The room was disappearing around me, the lights stretching into blurred streaks as darkness crept steadily across the edges of my vision.

"You were always supposed to be mine."

For the first time in my life, I looked at my childhood best friend…and didn't recognize him.

And as darkness swallowed me whole, one thought burned through my fading consciousness: This wasn't how our story was supposed to end. This was how it began.

Four Years Earlier…

My phone started vibrating for the fifth time in less than a minute.

I stared at it from where I sat in the corner of the university library, my laptop open in front of me, three different financial reports scattered across the heavy oak table, and an untouched coffee slowly going cold beside my elbow.

Mason calling.

I declined the call. Five seconds later, my phone rang again. I closed my eyes, taking a slow, steady breath.

"Please tell me you're going to answer that," Lucas said from across the table, barely looking up from his notes as his highlighter moved methodically across a page.

"I'm not."

Lucas glanced at the screen, then at me. "Mason doesn't usually call you repeatedly unless something is wrong."

"Everything is always wrong when Ethan is involved."

As if summoned by the accusation, my phone stopped vibrating for approximately three seconds before it started again. I swore under my breath, grabbed the device, and pressed it to my ear.

"What now?"

"Noah!" Mason sounded breathless. That was never a good sign.

I leaned back in my chair, already feeling the faint onset of a headache behind my eyes. "Where is he?"

There was a pause on the line. "How did you know this was about Ethan?"

I pinched the bridge of my nose. "Mason."

"Right. Sorry. We're at The Row."

My entire body went still.

The Row was one of the most expensive clubs near campus, which meant Ethan had somehow convinced half our university to abandon their assignments and spend the night drinking overpriced alcohol while pretending we weren't all privileged enough to have someone else worry about the consequences.

"What happened?"

"There's been a fight."

Of course there had. I shut my laptop with a quiet, decisive snap.

Lucas immediately started laughing softly. "You haven't even heard the details yet."

"I don't need the details." I kept my voice lowered so as not to draw the ire of the surrounding students. "How bad?"

Mason hesitated. That was worse.

"Campus security called the police."

I stood so quickly that my chair scraped loudly against the carpeted floor, earning several irritated looks from nearby tables. Lucas's amusement disappeared in an instant.

"Is Ethan hurt?"

"I don't know," Mason said into my ear. "He was fine when I called, but he punched someone, the guy's friends started fighting back, and someone smashed a bottle—"

I was already slinging my messenger bag over my shoulder and walking toward the glass exit doors. "Don't let him leave."

"What?"

"Don't let him run."

"Why would he run?"

I pushed through the heavy library doors into the cool night air. "Because he's Ethan."

The Row was fifteen minutes away by car. I made it in nine, taking advantage of every empty stretch of road. By the time I pulled up in front of the club's velvet ropes, flashing red and blue lights were already reflecting against the glass facade, while a small crowd of curious students stood outside pretending not to stare and failing miserably.

"Fantastic," I muttered, turning off the ignition.

"Noah!" Mason appeared near the entrance before I could even reach the police officer standing guard. His designer shirt was wrinkled, his hair was a windblown mess, and he looked considerably more sober than he probably had been an hour earlier.

"Where is he?" I asked, cutting straight to the point.

"With security."

"Is he hurt?"

"Not badly. His lip is bleeding, and I think someone punched him in the ribs."

I stared at him, my expression deadpan. Mason winced. "Before you get mad—"

"I'm already mad."

"He didn't technically start it."

I stopped walking. Mason immediately reconsidered that statement. "He might have thrown the first punch."

"That's starting it."

"But the other guy insulted—"

"I don't care."

Mason shut up instantly. Everyone knew better than to call me when Ethan got out of hand, but unfortunately, everyone also knew that calling me was the only thing that ever worked.

The second I stepped inside the holding area near the security office, I saw him. Ethan was sitting on a leather bench with his head tilted back against the wall as though he were somehow the aggrieved party in this entire situation.

His white shirt was stained with a smear of blood near the collar, his knuckles were red and bruised, and his lower lip was split.

Yet, despite all of that, the moment his eyes caught mine, his careless scowl vanished. Something softer flickered across his features for a fraction of a second before he flashed that familiar, infuriating grin.

"You came," he said softly.

I stopped directly in front of him. "Again?"

Ethan blinked, adjusting his posture. "Hello to you too."

I stared at him, eyes narrowed, and he stared right back, his grin widening slightly.

I hated that smile. I'd hated it since we were twelve, when Ethan convinced me to help him sneak out to climb his garage roof, only for him to fall through a window. I’d spent the entire night helping him clean up the mess before his parents found out. It was a pattern that had defined our entire lives.

A police officer stepped out of the security office. "Are you representative of the family?"

"I am Noah Calloway," I said smoothly, stepping into the role I had been forced into far too many times. "I handle things for Mr. Sterling when his family is unavailable."

The officer looked between us, noting the stark contrast between Ethan's disheveled, bloody state and my immaculate coat. "You know him?"

"Unfortunately, I've known him my entire life."

Ethan put a dramatic hand over his heart. "That hurts, Noah."

"You'll survive."

The officer cleared his throat, reading from a small notepad. According to the report, Ethan had been drinking with our social circle when another student made a derogatory remark about the Sterling Group, specifically insulting Ethan's older brother, Elliot.

According to security footage, Ethan had shoved the guy, thrown a punch, and kept swinging until bystanders pulled them apart.

I looked over at Ethan. He offered an unapologetic shrug. "He insulted Elliot."

"So you decided to catch an assault charge?" I asked, keeping my voice low and controlled. "You're sitting in a security office with a split lip because some idiot said something you didn't like."

"He deserved it."

I squeezed the bridge of my nose and closed my eyes. Here we go again…

I spent the next forty-five minutes managing the situation: speaking with the venue manager, offering a formal commitment from the Calloway estate to cover all property damages, and ensuring the injured party's medical bills would be settled discreetly so no formal charges were logged.

Ethan and I had known each other since childhood. Our families were inextricably linked by wealth, business, and decades of friendship. We had shared holidays, family vacations, and endless quiet moments. To everyone around us, we looked inseparable. People often assumed there was a covert romance between the two heirs.

They couldn't have been more wrong.

Ethan created disasters, and I cleaned them up. It wasn't romantic passion; it was the ingrained, heavy responsibility of a lifelong caretaker.

By the time the officers agreed to let us leave without handcuffs, it was nearly two in the morning. Ethan followed me out to the parking structure, his feet dragging slightly on the concrete.

He got into the passenger seat without a word, resting his side against the door. I started the engine, and for the first five minutes of the drive, the only sound was the low hum of the car.

"Are you mad?" Ethan finally asked, turning his head toward me.

"No."

"Liar."

"I'm driving, Ethan."

Ethan turned toward the window, resting his head against the glass.

"You should have called me sooner," I added after a pause. "Instead of letting Mason panic."

"I told him not to call you," Ethan mumbled, his voice dropping an octave as the alcohol began to wear off, leaving him visibly drained. "I didn't want to drag you out of the library."

"Yet here I am."

He turned his head toward the window, the dried blood on his lip stark under the passing streetlights. "You still came. I knew you would."

I didn't answer. What was there to say? Of course I came. I had always come.

When he got into fights at school, when he crashed his father's brand new BMW into a wall, when he broke his arm during a summer trip—I was always the one sitting by his hospital bed. It was just the dynamic we had built over twenty-two years.

"You know," he said, apparently deciding the silence had lasted too long, "normal friends don't bail each other out of police stations at two in the morning."

"Normal friends don't get arrested at two in the morning."

"I wasn't arrested."

"Only because I got there first."

Ethan smiled, shaking his head.

"Take me to your place," Ethan murmured as I bypassed the turn for his family's estate. "My father is probably awake, waiting to give me a lecture."

"You need to face him eventually."

"That is tomorrow’s problem." He looked over at me with a faint, hopeful expression. "Please? I’ll crash in the guest room."

I let out a long breath, yielding as I always did, and turned the wheel toward my apartment building.

When we finally reached my subterranean garage, getting Ethan out of the vehicle was an ordeal in itself. He stood up unsteadily, immediately leaning half his weight against my shoulder as we walked toward the elevator.

"Walk normally," I muttered, adjusting my grip on his waist. "You have a bruised lip, not a broken leg."

"I'm injured, Noah," he slurred, though a small, tired laugh escaped his lips. "Have some sympathy."

"I used up all my sympathy paying off the club manager."

I navigated us down the corridor and unlocked my door, guiding him straight toward the guest bedroom. He collapsed onto the mattress with a soft thud, rolling onto his back and staring up at the ceiling.

I stood near the foot of the bed, kicking his discarded shoes into the closet and reaching for the thick duvet folded at the end of the mattress. I unfolded it and pulled it up over his chest, carefully tucking the edges around his shoulders.

Ethan opened one eye, watching me through dark lashes with a faint smile forming on his lips. "You're tucking me in."

"I'm keeping you from complaining about the air conditioning tomorrow morning." I pulled the blanket a little higher, ensuring he was settled. "Go to sleep."

"Thanks, Noah," he whispered, his tone suddenly devoid of any bravado or sarcasm. "For everything."

"Goodnight, Ethan."

I switched off the bedside light, stepping out into the hallway and leaving the door cracked open an inch. I walked slowly into the quiet kitchen, leaning against the cold marble counter as I poured myself a glass of water.

Looking back toward the dark hallway, I felt the familiar weight of exhaustion settling deep into my bones. At twenty-three, I thought I understood the boundaries of our world. I thought I knew exactly what Ethan Sterling was to me: my childhood best friend, my greatest headache, and the reckless boy I was bound by habit to save.

I didn't know that one day, his dependence would curdle into something dangerous. I didn't know that I would eventually have to run for my life from him.

And I certainly didn't know that the boy I had spent my entire life protecting would someday become the monster in my story.