Page 30 of The Winslow Brothers

Shit.This is bad.

In a matter of minutes, my older brother has gone from being an excited groom, ready to marry his fiancée and build a life together, to a man who just found out his soon-to-be wife isn’t his soon-to-be anything, scraping at the bottom of the barrel of emotion.

Charlotte is gone, and all that’s left is a torn-to-shreds letter in her wake.

Winnie steps back, the unpredictable nature of Remy’s next move engaging her flight instinct so much that her back hits the door, her sad, drawn face mirroring the sentiment of the wholeroom.The wedding is off, and one of us—a part of the Winslow whole—is coming apart at the seams.

I meet her eyes, stupidly hopeful that maybe she knows something we don’t—that this is a misunderstanding and a clusterfuck, but at the end of the day, our eldest brother’s world will once again get made right. Charlotte will call. They’ll make up. It’ll be one of those stories that lives as a legend in their family for generations to come.

But when Winnie meets my eyes and shakes her head, I know.

We’re actually living this nightmare. It’s real. Charlotte isn’t going to appear by magic, and no simple fix is going to fill the hole in Remy’s heart. All I can do is think quickly and try to decrease the logistical ramifications of the catastrophic damage.

“Ty, go get Uncle Brad. Now,” I whisper discreetly to my side, and he doesn’t hesitate to follow orders. With one curt nod, he’s out the door of the groom’s suite and into the hall.

Remy paces near the large windows, running his hand through his hair. He’s like a caged lion, and all of us know him well enough to understand that we need to give him some space right now.

Jude wraps his arm around Winnie, who’s holding back tears, her hand inconspicuously moving up to her face and hurriedly brushing away any rogue emotion that manages to slip down her cheeks.

Fuck.

I know Charlotte didn’t leave me at the altar—or Winnie or Jude or Ty—but seeing Rem like this feels like a hundred daggersto my chest. And I’ve got to imagine it’s the same for the rest of my siblings. You don’t grow up together like we did, fatherless and going through life together as both one another’s greatest champions and enemies, and not feel a hurt this deep collectively.

Rem moves to sit down on the sofa, and his gaze shifts toward the wall, completely unfocused. It’s like he’s not even in the room right now, like he’s off somewhere else, and I can only fucking hope wherever it is feels kinder.

The space around us is so fucking quiet, eerily so, that when the door swings open and our uncle steps inside, I flinch. I can’t even recall a time when at least one of the Winslow children wasn’t talking, cackling, vibrating with energy.

“What’s going on?” our uncle asks, looking around the room with a furrowed brow. Obviously, after spending twenty-nine years helping raise us children—nineteen of which featured all five of us—he can spot the anomalies of the room’s vibe immediately. “Wedding is supposed to start in ten minutes. Why are you guys still in here, and why the hell do you all look like you do?”

“She’s not coming,” Remy mutters, the first words he’s spoken since the letter turned to dust on the floor.

Uncle Brad’s eyebrows pull together as he questions, “What?” and I shoot Ty a look of disgust.For God’s sake, could he not have fucking explained before they got in here?

“Charlotte isn’t coming!” Remy booms from his spot on the couch, his head still in his hands. “She left, and she’s not fucking coming back.”

Brad’s eyes go wide.“What?”Rife with concern, he shoots his attention to me, and I nod in confirmation.

“This is why I made you come back here,” Ty explains quietly, still standing beside him. I have to pinch my eyes closed and hold them, his timing is so painfully late.

“What do we do, Uncle B?” Winnie whispers, her voice tight with tears. “Should I go get Mom?”

“Shit,” Brad says on a sigh and briefly runs a hand through his pepper-gray hair—a motion that is so reminiscent of my eldest brother, it’s not even funny. Some characteristics are clearly the result of nurture, rather than nature.

But when Remy stands up from the couch unexpectedly and finds a third fucking vase from a side table to smash against the wall, Brad Robinson knows it’s time to act. I’m sure he’ll have tons of fucking questions later.Why? How? Are we sure? How much do hit men cost?But right now, the closest thing he has to a son is in the throes of destroying the Carlyle Hotel, one stupid vase at a time.

“No,” Uncle Brad answers Winnie with a shake of his head. “Leave your mother where she is for now. I’ll handle everything with the venue and reception and guests.” Briefly, Brad looks toward Remy, and his eyes soften with tenderness and pain. But he quickly snaps out of that and leans forward to whisper to me, “You guys get Rem out of here, okay?”

“You got it.”

Before he leaves the room, he walks over to Remy, who is standing at the window again, his back to the rest of us. Both arms wrapped around him, our uncle squeezes his eldestnephew in a tight hug and says something that’s only meant for his ears.

Then he’s off. Out of the groom’s suite and down the hall to deal with the wedding logistics.

I don’t hesitate to jump into action, pulling my phone out of my pocket and calling the driver of the wedding limo and telling him to leave his spot at the front curb and meet us at the less conspicuous side entrance. Remy and other people—especially wedding guests—don’t need to mix right now.

Ty, Jude, Winnie, and I form a circle around Remy and hustle him out of the room, down several branched halls, and out to Madison Avenue, the cloak of summer heat hitting us smack in the face like an old worn boxing glove. The radiant sunshine and cheery birds from our arrival seem cloying and suffocating now.

Thankfully, Donnie, our limo driver, is ready and waiting.

---