Page 6 of Always Yours

“What’s going on? Are you okay?” Bear asks quickly.

I listen as he gives whoever it is directions to the clubhouse. When he hangs up, I wait for him to tell me what’s going on.

“That was my brother. He’s on his way,” he says quietly.

I raise an eyebrow at him. “I didn’t know you had a brother,” I reply.

That is something I feel like I should know about my best friend.

He lets out a sigh. “I’ll give you a short version for now since he is on his way,” he mutters, and I nod my head for him to continue.

“My home life wasn’t the greatest and I had seen some things that would get me killed. After my mother found out what I had witnessed, she got me out of there when I was quite young. She knew someone who could keep me safe, and I did everything she said and followed her direction to disappear. I left a note for my brother to contact me if anything happened and he needed out. I gave him the name I would go under, the one my mother told me to use, and then I left. I hadn’t heard from my family in years and, honestly, I expected him not to call; but he just did. I know that whatever it took for him to leave has to be bad,” he tells me.

“Is your family that dangerous?” I ask because it is the first thing that comes to my mind.

“Yes,” he says, and looks me in the eye, so that I can tell how serious he is about this.

“Let’s see what they have to say. You know I’ve got your back, brother,” I tell him.

He nods his head, and we wait out by the gate for his brother. A vehicle pulls up with a man and a woman in it and we tell the prospect to let them in.

“Nikolai!” Bear says and, as soon as the man is out of the car, he pulls him into his arms.

I can tell just how much he missed his brother, and the similarities are quite obvious.

They both have brown hair and eyes, they are built, and around my height at six-foot-four. I look over to the other person. She gets out of the car and my breath catches.

Oh fuck. She’s hot as fuck, that’s for sure. I don’t know who this is but, damn, I would love to get to know her.

Bear pulls away and the woman walks into his arms “Arturo,” she says quietly with a hint of an accent in her voice.

“Liliana?” he gasps before pulling her to him. She cries softly into his chest. I don’t know if I should leave or not, but I decide to wait for Bear to decide what he wants me to do.

“Tell me everything,” he says when he pulls away. He keeps looking between them like he actually can’t believe they are here.

“Let’s head to your room. That way, we have privacy,” I tell him. He looks over at me and nods his head.

We all walk into the clubhouse and into his room. No one says anything until the door is shut and locked as we don’t want anyone walking in on this conversation.

Bear stays standing while his brother and the woman, Liliana, take a seat on the end of his bed.

“What’s going on?” Bear asks.

“I needed to get Liliana out of there. Her father was going to marry her off to Matteo DeLuca. I don’t know if you remember him or his family, but she would not have been safe and would have spent her life being beaten and broken until she was nothing but a shell of a woman. I couldn’t let her go through that, so we have been saving up for three years now and made the escape a couple weeks ago. We took many different routes to be sure we weren’t followed and changed our disguises over and over again,” Nikolai explains.

“DeLuca? What the fuck was your father thinking?” Bear shouts, causing Liliana to flinch.

“Sorry, darling. That makes no sense that he would do that; from what I can remember, he didn’t care for the DeLuca family,” Bear states, looking confused.

“I’m not sure. They don’t tell me anything like that. I’m just a woman,” she spits out at him with a glare.

I feel instant anger at her words. Just a woman? What kind of bullshit is that?

“Well, you aren’t in that world anymore. They won’t find you here. I made sure of it. Did you guys change your names yet? I go by Arthur or Art, but now my road name is Bear. So, none of that Arturo talk; he doesn’t exist anymore,” he says, and they nod their heads at him.

“I went with something close to our names, but nothing close to the last names; just so we don’t get mixed up. I don’t want it to be too different. So, I am Nicholas, and this is Lily. That way, we will still answer if people call us,” Nikolai says.

Bear looks at his brother proudly. “Good.”

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