Page 48 of A Brother's Secret

Still, having them arrested was only part of the equation. The Italian crime bosses had proved, time and time again, it was just as easy to run a crime syndicate from prison as it was from anywhere else. Kyle assured me they were working on it, and to be patient. Meanwhile, I sat here and grew more and more frustrated with the whole damn situation. I was still hiding, I still wasn’t safe, but hey, at least I knew what I’d done to incur this life sentence. Apparently, the kid I’d shot had been Danny Boyle’s onlyson.

I dove under the water and swam deep until my lungs burned and I was forced to return to the surface. I’d been able to stay down longer and longer, which I was happy with; my endurance was improving. I kind of felt like I needed to stay on top of that still. Like I was going to have to make a run for it any minute. It was one of the reasons I still kept my messenger bag always packed. One, I didn’t know if I was going to have to run again but more importantly, I never knew when I was going to need it to fucking go home… Wherever that was, anymore.

Where it is, is with Kyle and wherever he is… my traitorous brain whispered.

“Hey, Mali!” the masculine voice was faint, drifting out over the water, and I bobbed, treading the waves and turned back towards shore. Cutter stood on the edge where sand met the sea, waving his arm above his head. I gave him a chin lift, realized he probably couldn’t see it and made strong, sure, strokes towards shore.

I got my feet under me and marched the rest of the way out of the low waves calling out, “I thought dinner was in anhour.”

“Dinner’s in about a half an hour now, Darlin’, but I figured you were gonna wanna see this.” He held out a towel to me with one hand and an iPad in the other. I scowled and took the towel, my fingers itching for the news. I wrapped my body, and tucked the end under one arm and snatched the device as soon as I felt I wouldn’t get it allwet.

Danny Boyle Dead!I blinked and looked up to Cutter.

“As in the head of the Boyle crime family?”

“That would be the one,” he declared grinning.

I scowled and let my eyes tread over every word in the article, which wasn’t much. He was shanked in the middle of a prison cafeteria riot, died of his injuries before anyone could get help. I swallowed hard and let my eyes rove over the image of a shrewd old man in a suit, eyes glowering from beneath substantial white brows as he leaned in at his last court appearance to hear what his lawyer had tosay.

I handed the iPad back and looked up to Cutter’s beaming smile and warm, smiling browneyes.

“I need a beer,” I declared.

“All right! Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about!” he declared and I walked side by side with him up the beach. He bent and scooped up my wrap and sandals and held the things out with an arched brow, silently asking if I wantedthem.

“No, I’m good,” I said, but I wasn’t. At least not really. So much was going through my mind at once and I couldn’t put any of it into words if I’d wanted to. In the end, I had to shrug… so he was dead… in the grand scheme of things, it didn’t make a difference. I was still here, Kyle was still there, and I still felt like I was on the run. I mean, I guess it just wasn’t realyet.

“Got a lot going on up in that head of yers, ain’t yah?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I agreed, but I didn’t expand on it. One of the things that was nice about Cutter and his crew is they didn’t try too hard to make me. At least most of them. Cutter was particularly good at letting itgo.

“Go on and wash up, supper should be on the table by the time you getdone.”

I nodded and took my unhappy ass upstairs. I grabbed a few things out of my bag and shut myself into the bathroom. A hot shower was made to order to rinse all the sand away and the seawater out of my hair. I’d dyed my ends again, a deep, sea-blue fading into a teal-green. I wondered if Kyle would like it the next time we video chatted. Then I wondered if he would even be able to see it. Most of our chats happened at night, typically in the dark, just the blue-white light of whatever screen illuminatingus.

I rested my forehead against the cool tile, the steam rising around me, and sucked in a few deep breaths, letting them out slowly. I was not going to lose my shit. I was not going to cry… but of course, the second I thought that was the second I felt my face crumble and the hot rush of tears. Of course, this was the only safe place to let it out so I sat my ass down in the bottom of the tub and choking down on making too much noise, I let fly. If I didn’t, I was going to lose my shit, completely, and I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. My father hadn’t raised a weak little girl, but he’d sure left one behind, buried deep inside.

I hated that about myself. It was one of my deepest, darkest secrets and the one I hadn’t even let Kyle in on. I didn’t know if I would ever let that one out to see the light ofday.

A knock fell at the door, a man’s voice, sounded like Marlin, calling out, “Mali?”

“Yeah!” I called back, voice strong, no hint of the tears I turned my face into the spray to rinse off, letting it at all go down the drain. I was fine. I was hard, solid, a force to be reckonedwith.

“Yeah, dinner’s on the table. Come and getit.”

“Cool, thanks!” I calledback.

I got my ass out of the shower, dried off, pulled on the short-shorts I’d had donated to my woefully inadequate wardrobe and threw on one of the loose tank tops that Kyle had bought me. This one was black with silver writing on it that said ‘Believe’ with a couple of stars around it, the ones made from intersecting lines with one central focal point, not the five-pointedkind.

I whipped a brush through my hair, snarling at my reflection when it caught and pulled but I wasn’t trying to waste everyone’s time, either. I whipped it into a braid over my shoulder, tying it off as I descended the last couple of stairs into the dining room and kitchen. Looked like dinner was outside tonight, on the stone porch through the back slidingdoor.

I went out, the patio lit by citronella tiki torches and froze. I had to blink several times to make sure I was seeing things right. I mean, his back was to me, the patches of his cut faded and dirty, but the vest and jacket they rode on was well taken care of. His hair had been cut, which was a good idea, I mean, it was hot downhere.

Nervous chuckles went around the table and he turned around, and of course, as it had ever been between us, I blurted out the first thing that came tomind.

“You son of a bitch!” Kyle grinned at me, joy filling his warm brown eyes, and I declared, “I missedyou.”

Couldn’t stop these tears, they came out of nowhere, blurring my vision as he closed the gap between us and crushed me against him. I shuddered, an irritating broken little sob escaping into his shoulder as I wrapped my arms around him and held him so tight I didn’t care if ithurt.

“Awww,” Hope, Faith, and Charity chorused and there was some feel-good masculine laughter.

“I missed you, too, baby…” he pressed his lips to my damp hair and cradled my body with one arm, his other hand pressing my face into his shoulder to help hide me from the onlookers. Goddammit, he knew me sowell.

“Guys, give us a minute?” he asked gently and chairs scraped against the stone, the slider opened and the tread of booted feet moved past us while I shook in his arms. The door slid shut, and I managed to hold my shit together for a few heartbeats more but then I lostit.

It was real. I was free. I washome.

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