Page 74 of Full Throttle

“Nothing you don’t know,” I replied, flicking my seatbelt open before going over to Ivan. He’d rolled over during takeoff. With my brother watching, I dragged Ivan over to one of the seats, lifting and strapping him in. I looked over my shoulder. “Got any duct tape?”

Wordlessly, he walked over to the plane wall, unzipping a bag hanging from it.

He tossed the roll to me over the BMW, and I muttered a thanks before slapping a thick piece over Ivan’s mouth. I didn’t have the patience to hear the bastard scream and bitch when he came to.

“You okay?” Xander asked after clearing his throat.

A suppressed a chuckle as I turned to him, tossing the tape back. “You don’t have to do this shit.”

He knew what I was referring to. My older brother was many things, but a dumbass wasn’t one of them. “You and I have never been close,” he stated, the cars between us, thought it could’ve been millions of miles. I wouldn’t be able to tell the fucking difference.

I nodded, cocking my head to the side. “Growing up in hell will do that to brothers.”

“That doesn’t mean I never cared,” he said, his voice hard.

I stared at him. “This isn’t a therapy session, Xander,” I snapped. “This was a fucking job.”

It was his turn to stare, his mouth thinning. I knew that look, the one he used to get right before he fucking exploded, the one he’d give our mother’s back as she walked away from us.

“You don’t owe me a damn thing,” I reminded him, my tone even.

His chest rose and fell slowly. “What you did—for me—”

Anger surged through me suddenly, like a bolt of lightning and I took a careful step forward. “You’re my blood, Xander. I had no other fucking choice,” I pushed out through my teeth. This was the last thing I wanted to talk about.

I wanted to sit in silence. I wanted him to go back into the cockpit with Collin’s pilot. I wanted to get a fucking nap in.

I wanted to get home.

I wanted to check on my fucking clover.

I did not want to sit here with my fucking brother and open old wounds.

“You’re my blood too, Cain,” he said, his voice soft. I flinched at the emotion I’d heard within it. “You were my blood—my little brother—when I left you with that bitch.”

My throat clogged and my chest heaved as I tried to shove it back down. The memories of him packing his bags as I watched from across the hall, him tossing it over his shoulder before closing his bedroom door and looking at me over his shoulder. The fucker didn’t even tell me goodbye.

“What I did was horrible, but what you did—what you sacrificed—"

Blood pounded in my ears. “Enough!” I barked.

He didn’t stop. “It’s my fault,” he snapped back, arguing with me as if I didn’t know that.

It was his fault.

Everything in my life that had been fucked was his fucking fault.

I stepped forward again. “You’re right,” I seethed, my jaw aching as I watched his mouth close. “Everything—everything I’ve suffered after you left, the time I lost, the fucking people I lost—is your damn fault, Xander.” My feet moved then, carrying me through the plane, around the stolen cars, stopping just a few feet in front of him. “I had a fucking plan too, you selfish son of a bitch,” I growled.

He stood his ground, watching me as I struggled to contain it. The anger. The pain.

I was seeing red. There was no stopping it now. In a flash, I had my gun out—pointed to his chest. “You fucking left me.”

Xander’s throat worked, but other than that, he remained completely still. “I know.” The emotion was gone from his voice.

“Our mother was a monster, and you left me there,” I roared.

“I know she was,” he said, a muscle jumping underneath his stubble.

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