I Have Five Kick-Ass Brothers – Episode 14
Theo caught the falling container against his forearm, twisting it away before the contents could strike Raina. Hot sauce splashed across his sleeve and the ground, sending workers backward. Raina seized a bottle of water and dragged him behind the stand, fear wiping every other emotion from her face.
“Take off the jacket,” she ordered. Theo obeyed, more startled by her authority than the pain. She cooled the reddening skin while Noah called for medical assistance and Joshua placed himself between Coco and every exit.
Coco stared at the overturned pot as if it had moved by itself. “It slipped,” she said. No one believed her. The angle of the shove and the timing had been too clear, but proving intent would be harder than recognizing it.
Raina looked up from Theo’s arm. “You could have burned him badly.” Coco scoffed that Theo had chosen to interfere. The absence of remorse disturbed even the Smith companions who had arrived with her.
Theo insisted the burn was minor. What mattered was that Coco had tried to harm Raina after lying about the scar. “Do not come near her again,” he said, his voice low enough to make the warning more frightening.
Coco appealed to the promise he had made his childhood savior. She displayed her bleeding imitation as though pain created truth. Theo studied it without sympathy. “The girl who saved me would never have pushed boiling food at another person.”
Joshua wanted police called immediately. Raina hesitated, unwilling to drag both families into a public scandal before she understood her own memories. Coco exploited that mercy, declaring the incident an accident and threatening to accuse the Lincolns of assault if anyone detained her.
Noah released her with a final warning. He knew influence could bury her counterclaim, but using it would expose his identity to Raina. Every secret now carried a cost, and he was beginning to despise the bargain his family had made.
After Coco left, Raina accompanied Theo to a nearby clinic. The burn required ointment and a light dressing, nothing more. Even so, she blamed herself for the injury. Theo reminded her that Coco’s choice belonged only to Coco.
“You keep protecting me,” Raina said as she fastened the bandage. “First the tray, now this. Is it because you think I saved you?” Theo watched her fingers move carefully over his skin. “I would have done it before I saw your scar.”
The answer unsettled her more than obligation would have. Debt was simple; affection was not. Raina had barely found a family and could not risk building her sense of worth around another powerful person who might choose someone else.
Theo understood the fear beneath her distance. He admitted his proposal to Coco had been reckless, an attempt to honor a memory without knowing the woman attached to it. “I won’t make the same mistake with you,” he promised. “I want to know who you are now.”
Raina asked what would happen if medical records proved she was not his savior. Theo’s answer came without hesitation. “I would still come for lunch tomorrow.” A reluctant smile broke through her caution.
Back at the Smith mansion, Coco locked herself in her room and tore the bloodstained bandage away. The copied scar was swollen and ugly, useless now that Theo suspected the truth. Rage surged as she remembered the way he had shielded Raina.
Mrs. Smith knocked, worried by her daughter’s behavior. Coco hid the wound and claimed Raina had attacked her. The lie brought immediate concern, but Mrs. Smith’s questions were sharper than before. She had begun noticing the contradictions in Coco’s stories.
“Why were you at the construction site again?” Mrs. Smith asked. “And why does Theo believe Raina saved him?” Coco accused her mother of taking Raina’s side, then slammed the door hard enough to shake the framed photographs.
At the clinic, Theo’s assistant delivered archived emergency records. The date matched Raina’s hospitalization, but the patient file listed her only as a minor from the Smith household. One page was missing—the page describing how the injury occurred.
Someone had removed it recently. Access logs showed a request made through a company connected to the Smiths. Theo no longer believed Coco was improvising alone; either she had help or someone else feared what the records would reveal.
He concealed the discovery from Raina until he understood the threat. She had survived one identity theft already. He would not frighten her with another conspiracy based on incomplete evidence.
As they left the clinic, Theo received a photograph from an unknown number. It showed Raina and him through the examination-room window, taken only minutes earlier. Beneath it was a single message: Stop searching, or the next accident will burn more than his arm.
