I Mistook a Blind Billionaire for My Brother's Dog

My brother had a man locked up in his apartment. I only found out because I was crashing there. Every single day I fed him, scared out of my head the whole time.

Then the guy licked my hand, and I couldn't hold it in anymore. I videocalled my brother to have it out with him. "Can you let the man you're keeping go? This is a crime!

You've driven him out of his mind!" My brother, out of town on a work trip, screamed. "Wait — I moved out a while ago.

Didn't I tell you?" "Sis, I think you broke into somebody else's house." Chapter 1 I graduated and came to Seattle for work.

To save on rent, I called my brother about crashing at his place. He was out of town on a work trip and told me to just walk in with my bags.

And to look after the dog while I was at it. "New black puppy. Skittish around strangers. He's tied up at home." "He's a little jerk.

Smack him if he doesn't listen." I got to the old apartment building. I'd been there once a few years back, so it didn't take me long to find the key hidden under the flowerpot.

This dump. They hadn't even bothered changing the lock. I let myself in, and the layout was the same as I remembered. I made a tchtch sound, calling for the dog.

Something moved in the bedroom, so I pushed the door open, grinning. "Who's the bad little puppy that wants Mama to pet him?" The curtains were half drawn and the room felt grim.

A man stood by the window in a thin dress shirt, a monitor band around his ankle. His eyes came toward me without focusing on anything.

Black hair fell across a pale face, and he was beautiful the way something in a store window is beautiful, and just as far out of reach. "Who are you?" he asked, his voice rough.

I shut the door. I pulled up my brother's messages again. New dog. Black. Tied up. Every detail lined up. It took me thirty seconds to accept that my brother was a lunatic.

He had a grown man locked in there. Blind, beautiful, breakable. But he was still my brother, and I'd just landed the Seattle offer, so leaving wasn't an option.

I figured I'd look after the poor guy for him. As the kidnapper's sister, I didn't dare say who I was, so I told him I was the new livein caregiver.

He heard me out and told me to get the hell out. Bad temper. Then again, if you'd been kidnapped and locked in here, how good would your temper be?

I called my brother to ask what our houseguest's name was, since I'd be the one taking care of him. "Are you out of your mind? Its name is Dog. You're treating it like a person now?

You say 'dog' and it comes right over wagging its tail. Dumb sis." I sucked in a breath. They'd taken his name away from him too? I couldn't understand it.

My brother had made it out of a small town and all the way into a big city, and this was what the place had done to his head? Is it that crushing out here?

The second he got back from his trip, I was dragging him to a therapist, no arguments, and he was going to turn himself around.

My voice cracked when I asked him. "Bro, he has dignity! How can we call him a dog?" He hung up on me. Told me to go feed the dog and quit losing my mind.

I couldn't bring myself to call a human being "puppy." So I went digging through the cabinets, and I actually turned up the man's driver's license.

The guy in the license photo had bright, focused eyes and an expensive kind of presence. So his name was Reid Halloway. By the issuing state and the address, he lived in New York.

And he'd been grabbed all the way out to Seattle? That's most of a country. My brother is brutal. Ever since I told him I was the caregiver, Reid hadn't asked me anything else.

He just sat in the bedroom for half a day at a stretch. Nothing alive in him at all. I wanted to cook, but the fridge was empty. Nothing in it but red wine.

No wonder he was so thin. Under the shirt every joint stood out, and his cheeks had gone hollow enough to show the bone.

Nothing like the man in that license photo with all the fire in him. I pulled my cap down, turned my collar up, and went to the store for supplies, keeping off camera the whole way.

Lucky for me it was an old building, with plenty of blind spots. Chapter 2 If my brother ever got picked up, at least I'd have somewhere to lie low.

I went home and made a real hot dinner, a proper one: a main and two sides. I asked Reid to come out and eat.

His face was dark, red pulsing across the band on his ankle, and the emotion readout said: [AGITATED] "Didn't they go over the rules with you? I didn't ask you to cook.

Out." "…They?" Reid's unfocused eyes drifted toward the corner of the room, and he said nothing, like the question was too stupid to answer. The plate shook in my hands.

My brother was part of a whole organization?

In the dim light I could see the marks on Reid's arms, too: old bruises from walking into table corners, and some cuts from something sharp. My brother is the worst.

Reid wasn't paying attention to me. His eyes were still fixed on nothing, though his nose seemed to catch the smell of the food. He swept his hand out and knocked the plate over.

His voice had no patience left in it. "Are you deaf? I told you to get out." Blind or not, Reid had presence, and when he snapped at me my shoulders jumped.

Brother's debt, sister pays. Thinking about all the times my brother had been good to me, I decided I'd try to earn him a lighter sentence. I kept my voice patient. "Eat a little.

Otherwise you won't have the strength to run later." Reid's ankle band showed his health numbers bottomed out. The emotion field was glowing red. [AGITATED.

DISGUST…] I was out of ideas, so I went out and asked my brother. He was going to be gone a month.

If I couldn't take care of things and his little pet died in front of me, then what? I told him: the dog won't eat, he's nervous around new people.

My brother yelled at me. "Pry his mouth open and feed him! When I'm home he leans against my leg and wags his tail like a sweetheart.

Why is he so nasty to you?" "That bad dog picks his targets." "That's an expensive breed. Don't you go letting him get skinny on me.

Or I'll string the both of you up and beat you!" I warmed the food back up and brought it to Reid again. He raised his hand to knock it away. That made six times.

Reid was so hungry he had nothing left in him, his skin was going an unhealthy bluegray, and it looked like he meant to starve himself to death. I lost my temper.

I grabbed his hand and locked it down. My voice came out mean. "Eat, or I'll smack you!" Reid lifted his eyes.

They couldn't see a thing, and he still didn't have to raise his voice to make you feel it. He laughed, low. "You're talking to me like that?

Who exactly do you think you are?" Standing there holding the plate, I laughed too, out of pure anger. My brother said he was sweet. Said he wagged his tail.

So he really did pick his targets, locked up in here and still running his mouth? I pinched Reid's chin and forced his jaw open. "Puppy isn't being good.

Punishment." Nobody had ever handled him like that, apparently, because Reid froze, and I actually got a few bites into him.

His throat worked. "You—" I brought him a glass of water and patted his back, coaxing him. "Eat up. Nobody's being mean to you. I'm not like them.

I'm one of the good ones." The food and water from the fight were smeared all down the front of his dark shirt, and it had pulled open enough to show skin. Reid was blind.

He couldn't see what a state he was in. That beautiful face was nothing but shock and lost control. I let him know. "You're filthy. Go wash up." Pet fed.

I went to the guest room to unpack and spent a while going over the material on my new company. It was a branch of Halloway Group. Halloway.

Same last name as the license in the cabinet. …There have to be a million Americans named Halloway.

I'd interviewed with one department, and I only bothered learning who my manager was. Anything above that, I skipped. It's not like I'd ever be in a room with people at that level.

I stretched, then called my brother with a report. "The bad dog just knocked his food over. I sent him off to wash himself." My brother shouted: Chapter 3 "Are you insane?

He can't wash himself! He's scared of water!" "The dumb dog will drown. Go fish him out!" That was when I noticed there was no sound at all coming from Reid's room.

The room had its own bathroom. I ran in, shoved the door open, and there was a shape curled in the tub. His eyes were shut and he'd gone under. He looked dead. My job! My life!

My brother! I bolted for him, my feet went out from under me, and the whole thing turned into a flailing disaster before I finally plowed into the tub and landed square in his lap.

I hauled Reid's head up out of the water. "Please don't die!" Yanked up by the head, Reid came upright, choked, and started coughing hard, his chest heaving.

A pair of eyes full of water fog stared straight at me. Thank God. My whole life was still intact. I wasn't about to worry over what was appropriate between a man and a woman.

I got my arms around him to haul him out of the tub. "Good boy. From now on, we shower standing up." But he was slippery all over.

I couldn't get a grip anywhere, so I just grabbed at whatever my hand found in the water. Springy? Reid threw me off.

His cheeks had gone red, and his voice came out hoarse. "Get out! I'm fine." He almost drowned and he's fine?

I didn't buy it, so I stayed put in the tub and waited him out, until I was the one who sneezed first.

Reid pulled in a long breath, braced himself against the wall in a fury, felt his way around my legs and my hands, and stepped out.

He stood in the middle of the bathroom breathing deep, trying to level himself out. "I don't know who sent you here. Leave. Now—" The cold air moved over him.

His hand went down, and that's when he remembered there wasn't any fabric anywhere on him. Reid went rigid and asked: "…Your eyes.

Can you actually see?" I looked over, calm as anything. "Don't be so dramatic. I've been seeing these since I was a kid. It's not like yours is copyrighted." "Good boy.

Wash up properly.

I'll supervise from here." His ankle band threw an emotion alert, red light strobing like mad. [RAGE!] [HUMILIATION!] [EMBARRASSMENT!] The words flipped over one another as fast as they could load.

I played dumb, right up until Reid grabbed a towel and felt his way back to the bedroom.

There was real anger in his voice on the way out. "I'm going to have them throw you out of here." Except I'd hidden his phone. And cut the internet. My brother's an idiot.

He locks up a pet and forgets to cut him off from the outside world. Good thing I caught it. Damage control.

With no phone to find and too many carbs in him, Reid sat on the bed and started getting sleepy. He glared at nothing and lectured me. I sang him the puppy bedtime song.

My brother taught it to me. He said the little pet at home had insomnia.

My lullaby got him to the end of what he could take, and Reid pulled the covers over his head and went to sleep.

Then my brother told me the dog was stupid and had stopped breathing in the night once before.

So I ended up sleeping on the sly in Reid's room, on the deep window seat, wide enough to sit or lie down on. I didn't let myself sleep until his breathing evened out.

First thing in the morning, rushing to get to work, I yanked the curtains open, and the sun came down across Reid, lying there on the bed with a face like a storm.

He was staring at the ceiling. The corners of his eyes were red. When he heard the sound he turned his face toward me and frowned, a little lost. I said, "Morning, good boy.

Get some sun." Reid's expression locked up and his hand went quickly to hold down the front of his pants.

His face was doing several things at once. "…You've been sleeping in my room this whole time?

Is something wrong with you?" He felt around next to him for something sharp to throw at me.

But I'd already wrapped every table corner in soft foam and gotten rid of anything with an edge on it. He's just a fragile, blind man. He needs looking after.

Reid kept feeling around for a while. Chapter 4 What he found was a soft dog toy. He squeezed it. An eggplant.

His face went cold by degrees. "What is this?" I said, encouraging, "It's a toy for you. Do you like it?

Whatever love they didn't give you, I'll make up for it." Reid twisted the toy in half.

His whole face turned to thunder, and he got up and came at me. "You are going to leave my house. Right now, this second—" "This is our home. We're both living off somebody else.

We're both homeless." I rubbed his cheek, helpless about it. My alarm for work went off. I ducked out from under his arm and reminded him: "I put in a camera.

You be good and don't go peeing anywhere you shouldn't. Or I'll come home and string you up and beat you." Red kept flashing on Reid's ankle band. He looked like he might go over.

All through my shift I kept an eye on what was happening on camera. I'd bought a $9.99 rolling camera ball off Temu that could crawl around the apartment on its own.

On the screen, Reid was very well behaved. He only punched a pillow a few times. He ran out of strength quickly and sat in the bedroom, staring at nothing.

I drove the little robot over and bumped it into his foot. "Lunchtime. Heat it up yourself." "If you don't eat I'm going to make a scene." "Good boy? Hm?

Be good." I kept talking, and I kept stepping on his foot with the robot. He seemed to get sick of the noise. Reid stood up and felt his way along the wall.

He got through making lunch, stumbling the whole way, and took his first bite. I let out a burst of applause loud enough to blow out the speaker. "You can feed yourself!

That is incredible!" Reid answered in a flat voice. "Could you shut up?" A full belly turns a man's thoughts to other things. He felt his way toward the bathroom again.

My brother had told me the little pet had only just learned to go in the right place and needed encouragement from me.

I sent the little robot into the bathroom after him and reminded Reid. "Aim. Hold steady.

You mess up that bathroom and I'm kicking you when I get home." Reid: "…" Two more weeks until my brother came home.

With me feeding him every day, the flesh was coming back into Reid's cheeks, and the health index on the ankle band kept climbing.

As for the emotion light, apart from the times I watched him shower or use the bathroom, when it would jump to red, it stayed calm.

I couldn't resist bragging to my brother. "The little pet's temper is way better. He was just starving before.

I've got him up to a hundred and fiftyfive pounds now." "?" "Sis, are you turning my dog into a pig? How is he that fat!" "If I come home to a fat pig!

You are dead!" My brother screamed at me to put the dog on a diet. So it turns out there's body management involved with this too.

I went and dug out the muzzle I'd bought, took it into the bedroom, and fastened it on Reid's face. He lifted his head, lost.

It was the middle of the night, which made it the right time. I said, "Orders from your owner. I'm taking you out for a walk." "Who gave you orders?" I didn't say my brother's name.

I just pulled Reid out of the room. I wasn't about to embarrass us in the courtyard downstairs, so I took him to the stairwell instead. Reid started to get angry.

I gave the leash a tug. "Don't make me hit you." The building is eighteen floors. We did two full laps up and down and we were both winded. Back inside, Reid stalked off to shower.

He didn't make a sound. He seemed angry.

He'd had two weeks of practice with showering and the bathroom by then, so I wasn't worried about him drowning, and this time I didn't go supervise.

I was so tired I fell asleep leaning against the couch. Somewhere in the haze, my fingers itched. I opened my eyes a crack.

Reid had just finished his shower and was crouched down beside me. The ends of his hair were dripping, and those unfocused eyes, fogged over, had come to rest on my leg.

Chapter 5 Reid