Page 83 of Lost Kingdom

“Because he has a gambling addiction?”

“No, because he’s disgusting and lazy. The gambling thing can be fixed. But his refusal to lift a toilet brush, I fear, never will be. Duane?” I knock on the hallway wall to give him time to dress if he needs to. To cover up, if he’s in bed and not decent. “Hey. Wake up.”

“Aubree—” Tim snags my sleeve, slowing me before I can get to his door. “Babe. You’re not being realistic right now, and I don’t want your heart to break when you step in there.”

“My heart is fine. Fractured,” I amend, gently pushing the bedroom door open and staring into almost darkness. “Because his inability to grow up hurts. But nothing is lost until a life is over.”

I catch a lump lying in the middle of the bed, then the sliver of light sneaking past the blinds, shielding the only window. So I cross to the latter and slowly wind the covering up.

“That’s what I’m trying to warn you about,” he groans. “Aubree, this isn’t a world you know, and you’re racing head-first into something you don’t?—”

“Duane?” I step to the bed and swing out fast, sibling to sibling, and slam my hammer-fist to the center of my brother’s solar plexus. “Wake up.”

Instantly, his lungs spasm and his body jolts. He wakes with a fright and shoves up in bed, heaving for fresh air and searching frantically for his intruder.

So I sit on the edge and smile as his aqua eyes swing my way.

“Good morning.”

“What the fuck, Aubree?” He chokes for oxygen and considers, if only for a beat, shoving me off his bed so I crash to the floor. But his better senses catch up and his eyes roll into the back of his head as he flops down again. “Why’d you hit me?”

“Because it’s nearly nine o’clock.”

“In the morning?” he snarls. “Aubree! Go away.”

“I won’t. And you’ll sit up and listen to me when I speak.” I grab his face, my fingers digging into his chin much the same way that guy’s did to me last night, then I wait for his eyes to open and focus. For his brain to fully wake, and then for him to swallow the nerves lodged dangerously in his throat. “You’ve created a mess, Duane. For yourself. For me. And for Tim.”

His eyes scan across the room for the first time and stop on my fierce bodyguard. My husband. Lord, my forever partner in crime.

“You know I know, Duane.” I drag his focus back. “And you have to know I’ve known since it all began.”

“Aubree—”

“But I left you to deal with your own drama. Because you’re young and silly and impulsiveness runs in the family. I knew Tim had stepped in and bailed you out of trouble a time or two, but I was allowing the universe to run the show how she wanted to.”

“Aub—”

“Don’t speak. Listen. Your self-centeredness is showing. Because you got into trouble with people you have no clue how to handle, and then that trouble spilled over to me. Now I have some ugly dude accosting me in the street. See how I’m holding you?” I squeeze his face tighter. “This isn’t comfortable, is it?”

He shakes his head as far as my fingers allow.

“Well, this is how your friend grabbed me last night. Because you owe him money, and you got comfortable treating Tim like a lapdog. You’ve lived a life where someone was always going to step in and save you, and though I’d bowed out, refusing to be that person for you anymore, I didn’t communicate my plans with him. So he stepped in, oblivious to the fact he was interfering in a lesson you’re due to learn.”

“I didn’t?—”

“Don’t speak,” I repeat. “Because you’re going to lie, and when I call you out on it, you’ll turn to manipulation and emotional pleas. That’s going to annoy me even more than the lies. Did Booth or anyone come looking for you overnight? Shake or nod. Did anyone visit you?”

He shakes his head.

“You haven’t heard from anyone about debts owed to Sarge’s club or Nathan Booth since early evening yesterday?”

Again, he shakes his head.

So I glance back and smile at Tim. “It was a trap, so I expect you to tell me, ‘You were right, Aubree.So I vow, for the rest of my life, to always listen to you.’” I draw my eyes back around, because Tim isn’t saying that out loud. Not here, anyway. “Do you owe Booth, or was that a lie?”

He nods.

“Yes, you owe? Or yes, it was a lie?”

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