Page 84 of A Brother's Secret

He chuckled and said, “You don’t seem to fully understand what this brotherhood is about, now doyou?”

“I guess I don’t,” I said softly.

He drew in a long breath and let it out slow, scanning my face as if fishing for just where to begin.

“This here is a family, honey. Not like your daddy, either. This is what all those families out there in the citizen world pretend they are but aren’t. We don’t hurt each other. We don’t fuck each other over for love or money. One of us says we’re gonna do something, we do it. You belong to Data.” He raised a hand and waved me off before I could protest.

“Now, now! You do. Not like any piece of citizen property, like a cage or a house. That’s just stuff. You’re property in the MC sense of the word, which means that any man here would defend you to the last, just as if he were Data himself, for Data, simply because you belong to Data. Now I want you to sit there and think about that before,” and he reached into the other side of his cut, “I give youthis.”

He held up another envelope, my eyes following it as he set it down with its pretty rose wax seal on the table in front of him. He kept his two blunt fingertips on it for an extended few seconds before he went for his cigarette and ashed it again.

“Where is this all supposed to lead me?” I asked.

“Well, Sweetheart, I do believe that’s up toyou…”

The choice was indeed mine. Be open to the possibilities here, or walk away. I could do either… but Kyle had gone to all of this trouble for a reason. He had never done anything in all the time I had known him – even when we were kids – that wasn’t deliberately thoughtout.

He was tryingto show me something using a language as old as time that he knew I would listen to. Dragon searched my face and nodded after several moments of silence between us, and slid the card across the table.

I picked up the envelope, feeling the weight of what lay inside and knowing that this one would be different. I cracked the seal and withdrew the universal card for change… Death.

Not of the physical self, but of situations. It signified endings and new beginnings. When death occurred it was typically a time for reflection and a time to embrace the change it brought. I turned it over, and on the back was another address.

“As much as that means change, I want you to know – whatever form that takes, we’rehere.”

I raised my eyes from the card in my fingers and nodded slowly.

“Thanks, I think…”

“Don’t mention it. Go on, now. You’re keeping them waiting.”

I went back out and with shaking fingers, plugged in the next address. Back to town… great. I thought about it as I drove and wondered just what Kyle was playing at. I ordered my phone to call him and it went to voicemail. The outgoing message made me smile.

“Ah, ah, ah, baby… That’s cheating.”

“Smartass,” I said after the beep, but I didn’t try again.

To be honest, this scavenger hunt was actually kind of fun, for all the fractured ache I was feeling. I didn’t know where this was going to lead, or if I would like it, but he was taking me somewhere and I trustedhim.

The next destination was Soul Fuel, which, at this hour should have been closed, and was, but the old ladies from the club were all inside and comfortable, laughing and chatting over coffee and wine… without a single one of their kids in sight. Weird but okay, let’s do this, Mali.

I got out of the SUV and chirped the alarm as Everett came to the door. She unlocked it for me and immediately handed me another envelope. I opened it and slipped Temperance out ofit.

The Temperance card typically represented the needs in life that arise when going through a monumental change. At least, I believed that was the case here. Kyle was trying to tell me to incorporate these new things into my life as I was going through this new growth. Of course, for me, this time of growth had been exceedingly painful, so I had been doing what I always did when I was hurt. I hid and licked my wounds.

He was asking me to do something here, he was asking me to give these women a try. One of the other things that Temperance stood for? Patience, moderation… obviously, and balance. Temperance was about control and I took this as a none-too-gentle reminder that mine had been slipping. Of course, I knew that. It was the main reason I felt like I was going crazy.

“Come on in, I’ll make you some coffee,” Everett said when I finally pulled myself out of my thoughts long enough to look up from thecard.

“Thanks. Coffee is the blood, is thelife…”

She laughed and said, “Don’t I knowit?”

I went over and took a free chair and sank into it. All of them were smiling, but it was Shelly who broke the brittle tension in the air by asking, “What up, girlfriend?”

“Uh, I got a job at the guys’ tattoo shop and now my boyfriend has me going around on some whacked-out scavenger hunt… All right, after spending the last seventeen years on the run from some crazy Irish asshole crime boss figure for killing his son before the doucheweasel popped my Pops…” I swallowed hard. No one said a word, I mean, you could hear a pin drop, but they were all being politely attentive, so I tried, which was what Kyle was asking me todo.

As much as I hated admitting to a weakness out loud, I steeled myself and said the truth, “I don’t think I’m dealing or adjusting very well, or whatever.”

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