Page 5 of Coach
Coach
“How’d it go?” Slash asked as Raff came swaggering in through the front door. He was wrinkled and road-weary, but there was a bright look in his eye.
“Found him,” he said, coming into the kitchen, and making a beeline for the coffee pot.
“Found him and brought him, or found him and he refused to come?” Slash asked as Raff added an ungodly amount of cream and sugar to his coffee.
In answer, Raff nodded his chin toward the front door just a second before it opened and a man walked in.
“Did you tell him to wait outside and count to a hundred or something?” Slash asked with a snort.
“Two, actually,” the man said from the doorway.
He didn’t look like I’d been expecting, given his brother that we’d met a few weeks before.
Saint Courtland had been tall and intimidating, with that certain air about him that you found in men used to being in a position of power.
Slash had that same vibe. So did Cillian Murphy and Konstantin Novikoff. Hell, even Nyx’s ex Czar and his current business partner Erion—they all had it.
And while this guy in the doorway was clearly related to Saint—the same strong facial structure, brooding brows, dark hair, and light green eyes—he didn’t have his older brother’s commanding presence. Though part of that might have been because he was significantly younger than Saint.
When I heard that Saint copped to a crime he didn’t commit to save his brother from prison time, I guess I’d assumed that the brother was close in age to Saint.
He was a solid decade younger.
No wonder Saint wanted to go away for him. He’d have been a kid when he got locked up. And I knew too well what happened to young men locked up with hardened, predatory criminals.
“Guys, meet Syn. Syn, this is Boss Man Slash and Coach.”
“The yoga guy, right?”
“There are worse things to be known as,” I said, shrugging.
Syn was on the thin side and dressed in an oversized hoodie and baggy jeans—despite the warm weather outside. He had a raggedy backpack slung over one arm, the strap reinforced with duct tape.
He had the look of someone who had been through the wringer.
We had a lot of questions about what happened to the younger Courtland brother when his brother went to prison. Did he take over the organization? It would have explained why Rook hadn’t been able to track down any digital footprints of him.
But judging by the man standing in front of us, Syn had not been living large on the riches of his family’s hard work. Clearly, something had gone down.
“I gave him a quick rundown about the club,” Raff explained. He set his mug down to slap at the fresh tattoo on his forearm. “Nothing too in-depth.”
Slash nodded, focusing his attention back on Syn.
“Where’s my brother?”
“Not here,” Slash said.
Syn’s gaze sliced to Raff. “You said he was here.”
“I said he was in town. I didn’t say he was here.”
“Then why amIhere?”
“Alright. Relax,” Slash said when Syn started to tense up. “I’ll call your brother. He’ll be here in a couple of minutes.”
Syn’s shoulders slackened as Slash walked away, bringing his phone up to his ear.
