Page 123 of Red Queen (Red Thorns Crew 3)

“Just take it, Max. It’s not much, but it’ll--”

I grabbed his wrist. “John, listen to me. We don’t have a lot of time.”

“Which is why you need to take the damn money.”

I shook my head. “You passed the control of Dad’s estate to me, remember?”

“Yeah. We went through all of that last week. So what?”

“So what? Now that Dad no longer has control of any of his things--including his bank accounts--the police don’t see a reason to freeze the majority of his assets. He can’t access them anyway.”

His eyebrows rose. “Wait, what?”

I slipped my hand into my jeans. “Though I do want you to have this.”

I handed him the new debit card as his jaw fell open.

“Are you serious right now?” he asked.

I nodded. “As a heart attack. I moved some money around and made you an account. That card is hooked to one of Dad’s old investment accounts. Half of it is still invested. The other half is yours to access immediately as you need.”

“How much money is in that account, Max?”

I smiled. “Why don’t you just try spending some money and see if you can drain it? Because I bet you ten thousand dollars you can’t.”

I’d only ever seen my brother cry once. When he was in the hospital, and the morphine wasn’t doing shit for his pain. But right there, in the foyer of our house, a tear rushed down his cheek. He wrapped me up in a massive hug, clapping my back hard. So hard it made me grunt. And when he released me, I nodded.

“Take care of yourself until we get back. Because we will be back, John.”

He sighed. “Take care of her, Max.”

Dani snickered. “More like I need to take care of him, the reckless asshole.”

I chuckled. “You’ll get away with calling me that once. And you just wasted your chance.”

“It’s funny that you think that.”

John patted my shoulder. “Thank you. For everything.”

I held my hand out. “Brothers ‘til the very end.”

He clasped my hand, our wrists bent. “‘Til death take us away.”

With one more round of hugs, Dani and I headed for my bike. We packed our things into my saddle bags before we slipped on as John watched us from the porch. I didn’t know what kind of adventure awaited us, but I knew one thing. So long as I had Dani on the back of my bike, nothing could hold me back.

John yelled from the porch. “Be safe out there, you two!”

I lifted my hand. “And you be safe here. Keep those boys in line while we’re gone. Because I sure as hell don’t want to come back to any messes we gotta clean up!”

He barked with laughter. “I promise nothing, but I think Rupert’s got it until you guys get back!”

I drew in a deep breath as I passed Dani’s helmet back to her. We slid them over our heads, buckling them in unison before her legs locked against me. Her arms threaded around my waist, clutching me as I struck up my bike.

“You ready?” I called back to her.

I felt her nod against my back, and it settled my smile into a grin.

With the revving of my engine, Dani’s laughter took over our space. The absolute best sound in the world to me, and I’d get to listen to it for the rest of my life. If she’d have me. One step at a time, though.

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