Page 213 of His Pretty Little Duet

Tears fall from my eyes, watching them unleash the decades-old lies. They always loved each other, but they were torn apart by the actions of a woman who didn’t love any of them.

Clay pulls from their huddle and rounds the chair, heading straight for Max.

“Don’t do that,” Max warns.

Clay ignores him, kneeling at his brother’s side. Max stiffens at the closeness, and my breaths become shallow as my lungs war with whether to breathe relief or surge from my body with panic.

So when Clay presses his forehead to Max’s and squeezes his eyes shut with words and pain moving them below his eyelids, I nearly whimper at the rawness.

Max lifts his arms to shove him away—No.

He doesn’t.

Instead, he tenses on the act of defensiveness but…stopshimself.God.My spine steels, and I sense everyone in the alfresco—Bronson, Xander, Cassidy—collectively freeze in case the smallest change in energy, the beat of a butterfly’s wings, jolts Max from accepting this moment.

Max lets Clay stay close. Still stiff and looking like a dog cornered. A pained groan leaves Max’s throat as his big brother holds their foreheads together.

A sob breaks from my lips.

“I understand, brother.” Clay’s strong timbre is guttural and angry and sorrowful—a raw symphony of all those sounds combined. “I understand.”

My heart is exhausted, overthrown by too many emotions, experiencing all of Clay’s as plainly as I feel my own.

I stare at Bronson and Xander, watching them smile at Clay and Max, at Cassidy, who sobs silent tears with her hand over her mouth. There is so much love here. Even when it is stretched thin, under extreme pressure, through tests and betrayals, they never give up on family. I hold my stomach, thinking about never leaving her/him alone in a caravan…

Thinking about the kind of love displayed in front of me between the most powerful men in the city. Thinking about irrefutable loyalties, not giving up on one another—family. And I realise my fairy-tale—an orphan’s fairy-tale—is coming true.

And there it is; my third good thing.

Clay Butcher: Number one.

His heir: Number two.

Family: Number three.

Fawn

He hasn’t saida word to me since we left Max and Cassidy’s house. He gazes at our joined hands in his lap, at his thumb as it trails over my knuckles so softly it’s barely a feather touching the wind.

He’s disappeared into his eyes, and my heart drops under the weight of all the truth set free today.

The energy in the car is thick, smothering me with his melancholy and regret. It’s not his fault. Or… did he suspect all along? I wonder whether he knew—deep down, whether he saw the signs that his mother used to abuse his younger brothers but just like with the little girl in the hospital, he didn’t ask questions.

The Cosa Nostra was infallible.

The Cosa Nostra was his moon.

And his mother is a part of that.

“Can I take you somewhere, Sir?” I turn my body to face his and pull our connected hands to my thighs. His arm is heavy and lifeless until he refocuses and lifts his gaze to meet mine.

“Hey,” I say softly, seeing him dark, consumed, lost within his own blue eyes. “Can I take you somewhere, Sir?” I leantowards him and touch his warm cheek; his jawline is coarse with the start of new hairs. As I hold his face, he closes his eyes and sighs roughly, forcing my heart to twist.

“It’s okay, Sir.”

Desperate to be closer, I twist to unbuckle my belt, needing to crawl onto his lap, hold him, and tell him it’s not his fault, he couldn’t have known, but he stops me by covering my hand with his.

“No.” He shakes his head once and lightly squeezes my fingers over the buckle. “Your belt stays on, sweet girl.”

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