Page 57 of Thanking Her Brother's Best Friends

My heart felt as sharp as a knife sharpened on a honing rod. I dialed Reynolds's number.

"It's four in the morning."

"What does that matter when you're not doing your job?"

Momentary pause. "Tell me what's happened."

"Someone sent me a video. It's me, showering."

I listened to Reynolds bark out instructions. After that, I rounded up the bodyguards and told them to do a thorough perimeter check.

After all of it, I climbed upstairs and opened the door to Ollie's bedroom. My boy was sleeping, all scrunched up in a fetal position.

His hair, curly and abundantly red, shone softly as the moonlight fell on it. I climbed up beside him and curled my body around his. "Mom?" he asked sleepily. "You okay?"

I wasn't. I'd just straight up told the three men I'd felt a connection with to leave me the fuck alone. I was being stalked.

Dave was back, and I knew he was connected to this massive shitshow.

But I smelled the baby shampoo in Ollie's hair and the precious innocence of his love and held him close to me. "I'm fine, baby. I got you."

18

DOM

Niall let out a frustrated groan. I heard it but did not know how to respond.

"You know, I've seen a documentary of beluga whales making the exact same noise. Time for a habitat change?" Aiden's voice remarked from the living room of his high-rise apartment.

After last night's debacle, which I could not even characterize as aconventionaldebacle, the three of us decided to fuck off to his place.

Fan Pier was a waterfront development of clustered, luxe residential buildings with views of the Boston Harbor and the city skyline.

Aiden loved it for the modern architecture, high-end amenities, and proximity to upscale dining and the local farmer's market.

He also loved it because he was within an arm's throw of an entire street of strip clubs and bars.

I half-expected him to roll off into one of them after Selene tossed us out. But he just said he wanted to go home and wash the day off him.

"Seriously, Aiden, not the time," Niall muttered as Aiden appeared in our line of sight wearing nothing but a half-open shirt and boxers. "I'm pretty cut up."

He set two cups in front of us. "I'm not feeling too hot myself, but what can we do about it?"

"It just..." Niall shrugged and took a long sip. "It felt like something bothered her. She was fine before that call came, and then she clammed up on us."

"Maybe we shouldn't read too much into it." Aiden turned his back to us and walked over to the table. He shuffled through the papers, frowned at some of the headlines, rolled his eyes at some others, and then punctuated the air with an "Eh."

"Doesn't it bother you, though?" I asked him as delicately as I could. "I mean, you seemed pretty invested in her."

The energies in the room experienced a subtle shift. Aiden didn't respond verbally at first, but I saw him square his shoulders.

"What d'you mean? I'm no pussy."

Niall and I exchanged a long glance.

At one point in time, Aiden had been the mooniest lover boy.

He'd gone the whole nine yards, including attending a Taylor Swift concert, writing crappy poems that still made me cringe, and drowning his sorrows in copious amounts of alcohol.

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