I've been engineered to kill my siblings since birth.

My brother, Will has been trying to off me since we were kids. 

He was Daddy’s favorite. 

His methods used to be amateur: foxglove mixed into my chili. 

A cheeky shove down the stairs at a fundraiser.

Wen, a year younger, equally unhinged. 

He tried to slice my throat when I  was eight. 

When you’re rich, actions do not have consequences. From birth, we knew we were special. Knew we had to fight to inherit our father’s fortune. If we fucked up, we either shifted the blame or covered it up. Wen killed a classmate in his sophomore year. One five-minute phone call with our mother, and the boy never existed. Arabella was the youngest.

The smartest. She played people like cards.

I wasn’t any better, the stereotypical rich bitch.

As long as we made “donations,” we could get away with anything.

Zero consequences made killing each other easier.

Zero consequences meant zero empathy.

When we were sixteen, Arabella tried to burn us (and the estate) alive. 

Daddy lectured us in his office. 

Going against him meant getting my gold card revoked. 

So I pasted on a smile, “Sorry, Daddy.”

“William?” Daddy nodded at my brother, who rolled his eyes.

“Sure,” he muttered.

Wen didn’t say anything, arms folded, gaze glued to the ceiling.

Arabella stood silently, a charred matchstick clenched between manicured nails.

“Hold hands,” Dad instructed us. “Now.”

We did. Reluctantly.

I grabbed Arabella's hand, who snatched Will’s. 

Wen, after exhaling a long, dragged out sigh, accepted Will’s.

It was humiliating. My blood boiled. My cheeks burned. Arabella’s hand was too cold. Will’s was too warm. Slimy. Arabella drove the heel of her $800,000 stiletto into my toe when Daddy wasn't looking. Will dug bloody half moons into my palms. 

The two of them wore wide smiles for Daddy, perfect porcelain poker faces, while squeezing the breath from my lungs.

Daddy’s lips curved into a smile. “That wasn’t hard now, was it?”

He leaned forward. Daddy was old-old. Not normal old. Rotting corpse old. 

I expected him to be six-feet-fucking-under by my junior year.

“I want my children to always be together,” Daddy crooned. His tone held a terrifying authority I couldn't disobey. 

So, we made an unspoken pact. 

When our father breathed his last  breath, the killing game would continue.

But Dad didn't die until I was twenty four. 

98 years old. 

8 years had passed— enough years for resentment and hatred to fizzle out.

Enough time for me to develop an attachment to my siblings.

I cared that Will was engaged. I cared that Arabella and her girlfriend were trying IVF.

I cared about Wen and his stupid private island full of stray kitties. 

So, the day that Mom called me crying with the news, I felt lost. 

Wrong. 

I retrieved my gun from my bedroom, the one I'd  hid as a sixteen year old, promising myself I would shoot my siblings dead the moment our father croaked. 

Will immediately tried to kill me when I turned up at his apartment, gun pointed between his eyes. I remembered how to find the perfect trajectory.

But my brother wasn't stupid.

He opened the door, kitchen knife already tracing the curve of my throat.

Wen was sitting on his sofa, legs crossed, nursing his bruised eye.

Arabella leaned against the wall, cigarette between her lips, a golden lock of hair twirled around her finger. 

She'd been scalped, half of her ponytail ripped out.

Her dress was torn, a gaping wound in her arm. 

Will’s apartment was trashed, his lounge resembled a war-zone, couch tipped over, tell-tale splatters of blood staining rich marble. 

“Wait.” Will whispered, when I tried to pull out my gun. “Ruby, wait!” 

I let my hand drop, and in turn, he let his knife hit the ground.

“Dad left us a letter,” he whispered, his breath heavy in my face. My brother held up an envelope sealed with Dad’s signature. “Before we do anything… rash,” he gasped out. “We should probably read it.”

I surrendered my weapon. “Right.” 

Will stepped back with a grin. “Then we’ll open it together.” 

Arabella and Wen joined us, and we ripped it open.

The letter itself was folded into a tiny pocket square.

I impatiently watched my brother unfold it, my hands already twitching to pull out the knife I'd hidden in my jeans back pocket. 

“My dear children,” Will read out, holding the letter up to the light.

Dad’s writing was barely legible, written in intricate black ink.

“My final wish is for you to be together,” Will read out, his lips forming a smile.

He let out a relieved breath, and I dropped all pretence, that feral, almost animalistic urge in my bones bleeding away. “So,” Will continued, his voice breaking. His hands holding the letter began to tremble. 

“I have... organized a procedure to be conducted the second I take my last breath.” He dropped the letter, letting out a hiss. “What the FUCK?”

I snatched it up, scanning the rest. 

“Do not worry, I've tested it on animals, and then human subjects! The full merge of the four of you, your bodies and minds melded together. That is my last wish.”

Wen snatched the letter off of me and pulled out a lighter.

“This never fucking happened,” he hissed out, igniting the parchment under a dancing flame. “We never read it. The fucking thing never existed.” I watched Dad’s letter erupt into smoldering black.

A sickly looking Arabella nodded, grabbing my hand.

Then the door flew open. 

A suited man, a lancing flung over the top.

He smiled widely.

“The Devior siblings! Ah good, you're all here,” he said. 

He led in several people wearing surgical masks. The man pulled on light blue gloves, already stained scarlet, and held up a syringe, filling it with blue liquid. 

“I'm here to fulfill your father’s last wish.” 

He nodded at me, lips splitting into a grin. 

“Ruby! You will be the head.”