Page 16 of Love Thy Brother
“Yet. What if they try? What if they light the place on fire with you inside it?”
Hot damn, I wasn’t expecting that blow from Nash. The one that sucked the air from the room and turned Cam’s skin grey. Even Alexei looked sick. “They’re not going to do that. They just want to scare me enough that I bite their hands off when they low-ball a cash offer in a few months’ time.”
“You don’t know that. Regardless, even if they’re just chancers trying to be cool, the garage is still a club business—”
“It’smine.”
“And you’re a King, River. To everyone except your fucking self.”
Whoa, Nash. I’d underestimated him. Maybe I should’ve gone for Saint, but when I looked at him, I got nothing.
Cam stood and came to the window. He knew better than to touch me, but he got up in my face, crowding me against the glass. “This isn’t just about you. But let’s say it was. You’re my brother. Myfamily. If some cunt had threatened Orla, they’d already be dead.”
“Because she’d kill them herself. What’s your point?”
“River.”
“No.” I put my hands on Cam’s chest and shoved him away from me. “You don’t get to do this. I fought you for that business five years ago and you wouldn’t let me have it. And now you want to be my fucking hero? You’re a fuckingjoker, Cam. How can you spit this shit with a straight face?”
Cam was a bigger man than me. Not a giant like Rubi, but taller. Heavier. Stronger in so many ways. But I knew how to hurt him, and it was a sick thing that I craved the stricken pain that clouded his face. That I needed that twisted flex to hold myself together.
Fuck, I wanted him tohitme. I wanted his knuckles to crunch bone until I was in pieces on the floor and the devil inside me was dead.
Rubi stepped between us. “This ain’t getting us nowhere.”
Cam snorted. “It was never going to. I fucking told you this was a waste of time.”
A growl rumbled from Rubi’s broad chest. “And I fucking toldyouwhat would happen if you did what you wanted to.”
They’d been friends longer than I’d been alive. No one called them on their shit better than each other. But I was missing something here, and it took me a minute to catch up.
Oh fuck, no.“Let me guess. You were gonna play fixer behind my back, right? Neutralise my enemies as if I wouldn’t notice they’d disappeared overnight?”
There was no guilt in Cam’s face as he death-glared me. “Yeah. I was. And maybe I still will.”
I surged forward.
Saint moved like a viper and restrained me, his vice-like grip draining any love or respect I had for him every second he held me.
Struggling, I faced Cam. “Fuck you. If you interfere in my life, we’re done. For good. I’ll give that land to the fucking Crows and walk out of your life forever.”
“There are no Crows,” Cam snapped. “Alexei already told you.”
“Alexei isn’t my brother.”
“Neither am I if I ignore this.”
I sneered. “You’re not fuckinglisteningto me.”
“I am.” Cam’s aggression faded. “I’ve been listening to you all along. It’s you that’s not hearing what I’m saying. I want more than anything for you to be happy, but I can’t let this happen and do nothing about it. It hurts more than you, do you understand?” He dragged a hand through his hair. “It leaves brothers on the road hauling ourlegitimatecargo vulnerable to everything we’re trying to escape because we can’t face losing the people we love.”
“You’re not trying to escape it, though, are you? If you were, you’d have left the day you methim.” I jabbed a thumb at Saint behind me. “But you stayed, soeveryonehad to, and look where we are. Everyone’s fucked and it’s all your fault.”
I regretted the words as soon as they left my mouth. But it was too late. The hammer blow KO’d my big brother. I thought he’d lost colour before, but it had nothing on the deathly pallor that descended on him now. The haunted glaze that shuttered his eyes.
Fix it.
But I couldn’t. I was a shit human and I didn’t belong here.
