Page 31 of Break The Ice

“What’s wrong?” Callan asks.

“These fans or anti-fans get weirder every day. I just got a random message on a sticky note at practice. Into the bin for you, my weird little friend.”

It’s almost devastatingly adorable how cute Raider is when he’s relaxed. He’s the perfect combination of incredibly sexy man and delighted boy. That aura changes in a split second, though, and serious Raider emerges.

He pauses, glancing around, and leans in close to Callan. “Freddie got out of prison six months ago. I just rang my contacts. They tried to find us to let us know, but we must have forgotten to update them. Stupid, stupid mistake!”

Callan closes his eyes. “Nothing we can do about it now. We just need to keep him away from Kit. While I have you here, Raider. Are we going to talk about your mother’s request?”

Raider stiffens, and all the fun and joy that has started to return vanishes. “We are not.”

“What’s the request?” I ask curiously. Just watching these guys interact is doing more to bring down my walls than anything else. They are fascinating and clearly deeply in love with each other. They feel like a family.

“She would like him to meet his sister,” Callan says in a low voice.

“What’s so bad about that?”

“HALF SISTER! She’s not part of our lives. I don’t want to see her. Pass that on and stop trying to organise my life!” Raider explodes and storms out up the stairs.

We sit listening to his foot thuds in silence.

“So, um, that was successful.”

“Wasn’t it just?” Callan sighs. “I can’t really blame him. He was meant to take her as his omega, but she just vanished, instead leaving a twenty-one-year-old guy trying to hold the family up. And with Kelly already gone, they just stopped seeing him.”

I’m trying to follow what’s going on, but all I can hear is his omega. Raider had an omega?

Why is it so hard to breathe? I can take her, I know I can.

“I want to tell you to leave him alone and keep her far away.” I fold my arms over my chest and glower at the stairs. Protective? Jealous more likely. What are these guys doing to me?

“But Raider will never heal if he doesn’t forgive her and Kelly.”

“Who is Kelly?” I’m falling into the trap Callan is weaving. He’s using the pack to suck me in.

“Older brother. You’d probably know him. He’s a pro-surfer Kelly Raines.”

I choke.

Hard.

“Don’t tell me you know him?”

“Yeah, we’ve met in passing. I photographed one of the competitions one year.”

Callan sits back. “Small fucking world.”

“Isn’t it, though?”

“Kelly took off when he was twenty-four. He didn’t tell anyone where he was going. Didn’t leave a note. He just vanished. For years, no one could find him. Bethany pulled a similar stunt not long after. Raider’s family had been really close until then. But, now, Raider was suddenly responsible for all of it.”

“The hopes, the dreams, the failures, the disappointments, the good days and the bad. There were so many bad and on his good days, he had only Kit and you to share it with?”

Callan nods. “Yeah. Nothing he did could break through the grief. So he stepped away. And they didn’t notice.”

There’s something strange in his voice. “What else didn’t they notice?”

Callan purses his lips. “They didn’t notice us. In all the years, they never realised he wasn’t alone. Where they failed him, we kept him together. He is ours now.”

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