Page 30 of Brother's Keeper

When I told him as much, grunting through gritted teeth, he nodded.

“If I die, you will still be in the company of my daughter,” he said. “Giving you perspective is the surestway to save her from a gruesome fate.”

I shook myself. Pitting logic against emotion was a fight I always seemed to lose. For someone who drew so much power from his brain, my heart ruled me more often than not.

“Why would I hurt Holland?” I asked.

“You’re hurting her now,” Maximus replied. “Leaving her orphaned and alone in the world. I needn’t ask if you knowthatfeeling.”

The sense of panic eased, and in its stead came a seeping sort of misery. It was the same vacancy I’d felt in Thorngate’s isolation cell. A shade darker than the loneliness I experienced most nights staring up at the ceiling while Donovan dozed in the bed across from me.

“I wouldn’t do that,” I insisted. “She’s my…”

WhatwasHolland to me? An old friend? My first love? One of the few people who remembered who I had been before Grimm molded me into his murder puppet? Or maybe she was a coworker. My boss. I’d been trained to fall in line behind those who could be considered my superiors.

I didn’t finish the statement, doubting my relationship with the legalistic investigator as much as I suddenly doubted everything.

Maximus’s level tone cut through the tension. “Something the matter, Mister Farrow?”

I didn’t have to do this; I had options. Shitty, half-conceived plans that I couldn’t carry out on my own, but they would buy me time to think. To work up my nerve. To decide once and for all which master I was going to serve.

Turning, I pointed toward the Bronco parked a few dozen feet away. “Get in the car,” I commanded.

Maximus flushed with concern that momentarily bled onto me.

“You can move your ass, or I’ll do it for you,” I told him.

“Where are you taking me?” he asked.

Not a shitty storage unit. I could do better than that. Also, not anywhere Grimm would find out. Donovan, either. My brother had shown his true colors, and I couldn’t trust him with this. Then who?

At length, I replied in a low voice. “It’s a surprise.”

It would be a surprise, all right. To both of us.

I felt guilty burdening Nash with the care of my long-term captive. Guiltier still for realizing he only had time to do so since his business had tanked, also due to me.

I should have felt guilty about the state in which I found Maximus now after I’d failed to check in since dropping him off here almost a month ago. But I had a hard time drumming up sympathy for someone who ordered my death.

“Mister Farrow.” Maximus greeted me with a weary smile. “I was beginning to think I’d seen the last of you. Your friend is a decent fellow, though. Is he a criminal, as well?”

Does he talk to you about me, too?

That thought was squashed assoon as it occurred.

“Who knows?” I shrugged. “He’s just some guy I paid to look after you. Seems like he’s doing an okay job.”

The absence of pizza boxes or even a whiff of a shit bucket were proof of that. If Maximus was getting Nash’s cooking while I subsisted on potato chips and cereal, I might have envied him a bit.

Pulling the cigarettes out of my pocket, I put one between my lips, then tipped the pack toward Maximus in a wordless offer.

He shook his head. “Those things will kill you.”

I produced my lighter next, holding it to the end of the cig and setting it ablaze. The breath I sucked through it caused the ash end to flare. “Guess I’ll die, then.”

Broaching the topic of death must have worried the old man because he asked, “How is Holland?”

It felt malicious to tell him she hadn’t noticed him missing or mentioned him acting strangely since being replaced by Grimm, so I kept my answer succinct. “I told you I wouldn’t hurt her.”

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