Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 74005 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 370(@200wpm)___ 296(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74005 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 370(@200wpm)___ 296(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
And I always resented it. But no longer. “I did what I could.”
“Are you mad?” he asks.
“No.” I don’t let myself think about all the reasons I could be. “I’m mad at them.”
“Them.” His eyes go darker. “You think it was…”
“I think someone wanted to send us a message,” I say. “I just wish I knew who. It’s a wild goose chase so far.”
He swallows. “I know you won’t do anything stupid. You’re the one we can count on to keep a level head and do…what’s right.”
His words hit like a punch to my fucking balls.
Right. The family fixer.
Not any more.
Too late, I almost say. Reyes is tied up in a barn. My knuckles split open on a safe. Some sex offender is dead, and then there’s Daniela…
“I’ll do what needs to be done,” I say. “I’ll keep it clean.”
Does he see the lie in my eyes? Or does he see Hawk the family fixer? The one who has cleaned up all his messes?
“Okay,” he says finally.
He’s fading again. I see it in the way his eyes go unfocused and the lines around his mouth soften.
“Rest.” I adjust the blanket. It’s a stupid gesture, but it makes me feel like I’m doing something. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Liar,” he mumbles. The smallest smile. “You always…go somewhere.”
I huff out a breath that might be a laugh. “I’ll be just outside.”
He tries to nod. Doesn’t quite make it. His eyes close.
Injected.
By force.
The words ricochet around my skull and hit everything they should. Haynes. Dead days before the card with his DNA. Reyes. A safe that won’t open. The chocolate. The grenade. Someone who wants us to feel helpless. Someone who likes control.
I want a name. I want a face. I want a throat under my hand and I want to squeeze the fucking life out of it.
But I sit. I breathe. I make myself look at my brother instead of the space past him where rage gathers like a storm inside me.
The door opens without a knock. Falcon steps in. He stops when he sees Eagle sleeping. Looks at me. A question without words.
“He talked,” I say. “He wanted me first.”
Falcon’s mouth does that thing like he’s swallowing a handful of nails. “He good?”
“Better.” I glance at the IV. The dressing. “He didn’t relapse.”
Falcon blinks. “What?”
“It wasn’t voluntary,” I say. The words taste like poison on my tongue. “Someone injected him.”
“Who?” Falcon grits out.
“He doesn’t know. Two, maybe three guys in a black van. He couldn’t tell me much else except it was after he left my place. A garage. All he remembers is the smell of cheap aftershave.”
Falcon’s eyes go dark. “You think—”
“I think I’m going to find them.” I look back at Eagle. He’s sleeping. He’s breathing. He’s here. “And I think I’m going to make them regret touching our brother.”
“Hawk,” Falcon says, “I don’t like what this is doing to you. You’re the good son.”
I shake my head. Why is this damned family so caught up in labels?
“You be careful.”
“I will,” I lie.
Falcon exhales hard. “I’ll call Mom.”
“Tell her he wants her,” I say. “He does. He can’t help it. But he also doesn’t want her to see him like this.”
He scrunches his eyebrows. “She’s already seen him like this.”
“I know. But give him a minute to rest.” I sigh. “Let him think what he needs to think. He needs that much, at least.”
“Yeah.”
Falcon steps back into the hall to make the call.
I turn back to my brother. He twitches in his sleep, and the line on the monitor bumps and then smooths.
Injected. By force.
The words keep rolling over and over in my mind, whirling every which way as I try to make sense of them.
Reyes can wait. The safe can wait. Everything can wait because this changes the game. This isn’t a relapse. This is an attack. On my little brother, the one I strove for years to keep safe.
My phone vibrates in my pocket. I don’t pull it out. Not yet. Not while he’s asleep and I’m finally exactly where I should have been two nights ago.
I settle deeper in the chair and let the hate simmer under my ribs where it belongs, low and controlled. Plenty of time to let it boil.
For now, I count each breath Eagle takes.
One. Two. Three.
I’m here, little brother.
I’m here.
42
DANIELA
Raven’s on one phone. Vinnie’s on another.
Same clipped tone. Same questions. Same hold music bleeding through the house like static.
I can’t listen.
I can’t breathe.
I stare at the paper in my hands.
Belinda’s note.
It’s clearly from her printer. But the voice on this page? It’s not hers.
I’m sorry. Thank you for everything, but I have to go.
Maybe she was trying to sound older. Serious. Grown.
Except dinner plays back in my head in bright, stupid color.
Cheese-ball stories. Gwen’s slide. Glitter nails. That is not a kid plotting an escape. That’s a kid planning her next sleepover.