Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 72969 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72969 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
I’ve been my younger brother’s keeper for the last eight years. Ever since Falcon went to prison, it fell to me. I’m the one who saw that he went through rehab, and I’ve done everything I can to keep him clean since then, even spending several sleepless nights with him when he was afraid he was going to relapse.
And then the times when he did relapse…
I’m so damned tired.
Every time I turn around, he’s there—half-broken, bloodied, or lying through his teeth about how this time he’s got it under control. And every time, like clockwork, I’m the one picking up the pieces.
Again.
My parents don’t know. My brother and sisters don’t know.
Falcon’s been through enough, with prison.
Raven’s been through enough, with cancer.
And Robin? I’ve thought of confiding in her, asking her to help with Eagle.
But in the end, I never do.
After all, I’m the one Eagle calls. He’s my cross to bear.
I used to tell myself it was just a phase. That he’d grow out of it. That he’d hit rock bottom, bounce, and finally get it together. But rock bottom keeps shifting for him. It’s like he’s found a way to make it a home.
And I’m the one who gets the late-night phone calls. I’m the one who shows up to the bars, the alleys, the holding cells. I’m the one who lies to our mom about where he is. About why he didn’t call on her birthday.
I have my own life. Or at least, I did. Before my brother’s chaos bled into every corner of mine. Relationships? Shot to hell. Work? I’m running on fumes. Sleep? A distant memory. I wake up half the time expecting disaster, and the other half already bracing for it.
And the worst part?
He looks at me like I owe him this.
Like being his brother makes me his savior.
I’m not. I can’t be. Not anymore.
I love him. God help me, I do. But love isn’t supposed to feel like drowning with someone else’s weight tied around your neck.
Sometimes, when the phone buzzes and I see his name, I stare at it. Let it ring. I just sit there. Breathing.
Hoping it will stop.
But it doesn’t.
I answer, and I take care of everything.
But lately I’m realizing something.
Being his brother doesn’t mean I have to die saving him.
I can’t be on call twenty-four hours a day. I have my own work, my own duties to the ranch. My own life.
Raven is on the phone, presumably talking to Daniela.
Daniela is Vinnie’s wife.
And yes, Raven’s his girlfriend.
Vinnie married Daniela Agudelo when she was only seventeen to get her out of Colombia and her engagement to some older guy in the mafia.
She’s fucking gorgeous. She came as Vinnie’s date to Raven’s gala several months ago, and I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
Until I found out she was only seventeen.
Still…
Grace the nurse is pretty. She’s closer to my own age. Has a stable life, no past traumas that I know of.
But Daniela? Fucking beautiful. Magnificent. The perfect hourglass figure, hair like black silk, and eyes even darker than my mother’s.
My heart races at the thought of her coming here.
Of seeing her.
Even though she’s only eighteen. And married to my sister’s boyfriend.
God, we’re a fucking Jerry Springer segment.
I check my watch. Raven and Vinnie’s place is about a half-hour drive away.
Daniela will probably need some time to get ready, so she’ll get here in forty minutes or so.
And I’m betting she will get here before Eagle does.
4
DANIELA
Belinda has switched to Debussy now, her fingers drifting over the keys like smoke curling through the air. The notes spill out of her, soft and aching, like a whispered confession.
She’s playing “Clair de Lune,” but slower than I’ve ever heard it—haunted, almost hollow. She plays like someone remembering something they wish they could forget.
How apropos for Belinda.
And for me.
I lean against the doorframe, arms crossed, heart tightening with every pause, every suspended chord. I sneak a peek around the entryway. Belinda’s hair falls into her face as she bends forward, lost in the music, and for a second, she looks so fragile I forget to breathe.
She doesn’t know I’m here.
And I don’t move.
Because something about the way she plays—broken, bleeding, beautiful—tells me she’s not just performing.
She’s surviving.
The sweet strains drift through the room like a lullaby from a life I barely remember—gentle and sad and impossibly far away. And just like that, I’m not here anymore. I’m eleven again, curled up on the cold kitchen tiles in the middle of the night.
Everyone else is asleep. Or pretending to be.
I press an old cookbook to my chest like it’s a fairytale, tracing the faded pictures of pastries. The pages smell like flour and yeast.
Cooking was never just cooking for me. It was a promise that things could be different. That ingredients could be broken down and turned into something beautiful.