Page 30 of Five Brothers

“The difference is …” I walk up to her, lowering my voice. “We would marry you.”

Her chest caves a little.

“If we loved you,” I tell her. “I’d be so fucking proud if you were mine. Any of us would be. Would you show me off to your friends? Jump at the chance to live over here in the gutter with us?”

A lump moves down her throat, but her stern expression doesn’t waver. “If Ieverloved any of you, then maybe.”

Dallas snickers behind me, but she doesn’t fight me further. Ripping off the apron around her waist, she grabs the little girl, who I can only assume is one of her siblings, and rushes out of the restaurant.

“No! I don’t want to go!” the little girl screams. Her sketchbook falls from her hands, her crayons still on the table.

“I’m sorry,” Krisjen chokes out. “It’s okay.”

“What did I do?”

“Nothing, honey. I’ve got you.”

Trace sweeps up the sketchbook, and we all walk after her, down the steps of the restaurant.

“Trace will deliver your Rover when it’s done,” I tell her.

“I’m taking it now.”

“It’s not drivable.”

She whips around. “Like I give a shit!”

Army quietly laughs, and I follow as she heads to her Rover, which is still parked in front of our house. She leaves her dad’s Benz at Mariette’s. Is she actually going to take her little sister home in a car that’s unsafe?

“You’re stubborn,” I taunt. “I always liked that. But no one can ever accuse you girls of being smart. That’s for sure.”

She puts her sister into her back seat, closes the door, and turns to face me. “See this?” She grabs herself between her legs. “I was born with all the tools I need to make as many sons as it takes to see this shithole burned to the ground.”

“Ohhhh.” Trace laughs.

Army snorts. “Damn.”

“Shut up,” I growl at them. That isn’t funny.

I face Krisjen. “He smacked you around? Milo? He hit you, right? More than once?”

Fire lights up in her eyes. She knows I was at the lighthouse party last spring and saw. We let Milo have it that night, not that it did much good.

I get in her face, backing her into the car. “You know what he tried to do to my sister last spring. And if you would’ve spoken up before that—about what he was like—maybe he wouldn’t have had a chance to try anything.”

“Spoken up to who?” she shouts. “The police who are hired by the city council his mother sits on?”

I glare down at her.

“Or my grandfather, who is grooming Milo’s cousin to replace him as district judge?” she says next, water pooling in her eyes. “Or maybe the school administration that accepts his family’s donations? Or my classmates who never would’ve taken my side over his? Who?”

A beautiful blush crosses her cheeks, and I can almost feel the heat of her breath as she holds the tears at bay.

“Maybe I’m stupid.” Her chin trembles, but she looks determined. “Because maybe he said all the right things one night when I thought he was all I had and I felt sorry for him.” She laughs at her own dumb thinking. “Or maybe I wanted to believe he cared about me. Maybe I was naïve and I had lofty ideas about love and thought that his having violence in him didn’t make him a bad person and the struggle would make it worth it.”

Her words wind through me.I have violence in me.I’m not bad, though. I’m nothing like him …

“Or maybe I liked it.” She smiles bitterly. “Because nothing felt good, so when it felt really fucking awful, the blood made mefeel like I was surviving something. And that made me feel powerful.”

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