I Have Five Kick-Ass Brothers – Episode 15
Theo read the anonymous threat twice before deleting the notification from view. He did not want Raina to see fear on his face, but she had become skilled at recognizing withheld truths. “What happened?” she asked as they stepped into the afternoon light.
He claimed it was a work problem and immediately hated the lie. Raina accepted it with a quiet nod that revealed she did not believe him. Too many people had decided what information she could handle; Theo had just joined them.
At the Lincoln house, Noah examined the threatening photograph on Theo’s phone. The angle suggested someone had watched the clinic from a parking structure across the street. Joshua offered to deploy military contacts, while Mathew proposed tracing the number through one of his overseas security firms.
“And how do we explain any of that to Raina?” Henry asked. Their disguises had become cages. Protecting her required powers they were pretending not to possess, while maintaining the lie left her exposed.
Noah made the decision. They would investigate quietly for one more day, then tell Raina everything if the threat proved credible. His brothers agreed, though none liked extending the deception even that long.
Raina returned to the food stand the next morning despite everyone’s objections. Work gave shape to thoughts she could not control. Memories of Theo’s accident surfaced in flashes, but so did the image of him reading the mysterious message and pretending nothing was wrong.
Theo arrived without his usual driver and wore plain clothes to attract less attention. The effort failed; nothing about him blended into a construction site. Raina handed him lunch but withheld the smile he had begun to expect.
“If you want to know me now, start by telling me the truth now,” she said. Theo recognized the fairness of the demand. He showed her the threatening photograph and explained the missing page from the medical file.
Fear passed across Raina’s face, followed by anger. “Someone stole my identity, my family, and now pieces of my history. I am done letting other people decide what I’m allowed to know.” Her words carried far enough for Noah to hear, and guilt tightened his chest.
Theo apologized without excuses. Together they studied the image. Raina noticed a reflection in the clinic glass: part of a delivery logo from a local courier company. Luke could have identified it instantly through his digital network, but he maintained his role and suggested an ordinary online search.
The logo led to a courier hired for the Smith mansion the previous afternoon. Theo’s assistant confirmed Coco had sent a package to the clinic’s records office before the page disappeared. The chain was circumstantial, but it pointed in one direction.
Rather than confront Coco, Theo proposed a test. He would tell her the missing page had been recovered and contained a detail only the true rescuer could know. If she was involved in the theft, she would react before he revealed what that detail was.
Raina disliked becoming bait in another game, yet she wanted the truth. She agreed on one condition: no more decisions made behind her back. Theo promised, and Noah silently recognized that a near stranger had offered his sister more honesty than her own family.
Theo called Coco on speaker. He said the complete medical report had surfaced and asked her to meet him that evening. Her excitement sounded forced. As soon as the call ended, Mathew’s monitoring contact reported movement from the same anonymous number.
The message went to someone listed in Coco’s phone as a clinic employee. It ordered the remaining archive destroyed. Noah finally had the evidence he needed, obtained through resources Raina still believed he did not possess.
That evening, Coco arrived at a quiet restaurant prepared to perform recovered memories. She wore her copied scar uncovered, its unnatural redness disguised beneath makeup. Theo greeted her with formal coldness.
He placed an empty folder on the table and said the report described an object the girl had left beside him. “What was it?” Coco searched his expression, knowing the stolen page had contained no such information. She guessed a bracelet.
Theo remembered a small silver charm in the shape of a star, lost when the chain snapped during the rescue. Raina had unconsciously drawn the same shape on a paper bag that afternoon. Coco’s answer confirmed what he already knew.
Before he could dismiss her, smoke began curling from the restaurant corridor. An alarm shrieked. Guests surged toward the exits, and Theo realized the “destroy the archive” order had been a distraction from a more immediate plan.
His phone rang through the chaos. Noah’s voice came hard and breathless: the food stand was on fire, Raina had gone back for the cash box, and no one had seen her come out.
