Page 84 of Overstaying His Welcome

“You didn’t do anything. When you showed up at the home, you were just a sad kid. No matter what anyone did, you ignored us in favor of being alone.”

“So now you want to hurt me? Maybe kill me for it?”

Pratt shook his head. “Not because of that. It didn’t really bother me at first. It doesn’t matter if you were a sad orphan. That made you like the rest of us. Except it didn’t.”

I was trying to keep up with his line of thinking. It wasn’t easy given he wasn’t really telling me anything useful. I knew all this already. Or at least my version of it.

“Your trauma was too fresh. The rest of us had years to deal with our grief. You hadn’t. The Linds treated you differently because of it. You became their pet project. The child they loved more than the rest. It was obvious to us all, though you acted like you didn’t care.”

What?!

This was what the basis of his anger was rooted in? Jealousy?

“I barely remembered to shower back then,” I admitted. “I had no clue I was some pet project as you say. I only wanted my mom back.”

If I’d been any less confused, I might have broken into tears at the admission. It was always hard thinking of her and the loss that came at my stepfather’s hands. The bastard deserved more than I gave him. He should have suffered for years rather than the short time I gave him.

Lune scoffed. “Doesn’t matter if you knew or not. The Linds ignored everyone else in order to focus on you.”

“And then you ran away.”

Pratt’s words brought a wave of grief with them. I’d heard basically the same thing from the older couple not that long ago.They’d told me what it was like to find out I’d left. They’d told me of their search for me and how they didn’t want to give up hope.

Now I saw it wasn’t only them my choices affected.

“What happened after I left?” I asked Pratt, curious to see what he’d say.

His expression turned dark. He looked at me, though I suspected he no longer saw me at all. His mind was somewhere else completely.

“They focused on trying to find you. Everything was centered around Bruno-this and Bruno-that. They’d forget to pick us up from school or to have dinner ready because they were too busy talking to the cops or chasing down a lead. It was as if the rest of us didn’t exist.”

“I’m sorry you had to deal with that.”

“DON’T FUCKING TELL ME YOU’RE SORRY!” Spittle covered my face from his screaming.

Lune’s hand grabbed Pratt’s shoulder to pull the other man back. “Easy, brother.”

After waiting a beat, I asked the question I still didn’t have answers for. “And how did you two reconnect? You’re brothers by blood, right? Were you both in the system?”

The questions were tricky. I needed them to keep talking until one of my team members woke up or someone else came to find us. But I also didn’t want to rile them up too much or else they could go on a shooting spree and end things too soon.

“I found him as soon as I could,” Lune said softly.

“On my sixteenth birthday, I got a letter from him stating he wanted to meet me. He said we were family and that he’d have my back no matter what.”

Pratty spoke with such pride in his voice. I wondered if the hero worship there was what fueled his delusion.

There was no way they’d get out of this alive. Not if I knew my men at all.

Though, admittedly, I might not either.

The odds were stacked against me.

“In his letter, Lune told me about how we’d been born of the same parents and how we’d been split up when they both died in an accident. He spent years looking for me, even going so far as to hook up with a criminal organization to find me.”

Lune smiled softly. “I did. And then my sweet brother decided to protect me in his own way by becoming a man of the law. He’s kept an eye on my business ever since, and I’ve ensured he has no connection to me anywhere that matters.”

The pieces clicked into place.

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