Page 86 of The Bad Brother

As soon as she’s gone, Cade turns toward the open doorway. Gives me the same look he gave me this morning when I opened the door to find him and his brother waiting for me on the front steps of the bar. Moving into the room, bat choked in his fist, Cade stands over me for just a moment, probably contemplating the finer points of laying it across my skull, before he finally finds his own chair and sits.

Like her spidey senses start tingling, Reese stops pacing and looks at him from across the room. “Hey, Cade.” Her gaze drops to the bat laying across his knees before it bounces back up to his face. “Batting practice?” she asks, her tone just pointed enough to tell him that his answer better beyes. Out of uniform or not, no matter who Cade’s brother is, she’s still a cop and he’s still a convicted murderer.

“Yes, ma’am.” Cade gives her a bland smile. “How’s your dad?”

“He’s hanging in there. They’re prepping him for surgery now.” In the corner, Billy lets out a watery hiccup. Reese shoots him a worried look before looking at me. “You don’t have to be here. I know you feel responsible but?—”

“Heisresponsible,” Cade cuts in bluntly. “It was his brother who stabbed your dad—my guess is because our boy here has been fucking his ex behind everyone’s back. Ain’t that right, Jen?”

Suddenly I understand that this isn’t just about mybrother and my refusal to put a stop to his escalating behavior. This is about Sloane and the danger I put her in.

Dividing a sharp, pointed look between the two of us, Reese moves across the room to snag her little brother by his shirt sleeve. “Come on, Billy,” she says, hauling him to his feet. “Let’s go get some coffee.” She gives us one lastyou better settle this shit before I get backlook before she drags him out the door.

“Did you tell Sloane?” I ask quietly, feeling like an asshole because with everything that’s happened over the last few hours, that’s the thing I’m worried about. Care most about. That I still have a chance to salvage things with her. Come clean before it all blows up in my face, even worse than it already has.

“DidItell Sloane?” Sitting forward in his chair, Cade barks out a laugh. “I’m not the one fucking her, you asshole. I’m not the one who?—”

“Did you tell her?” I bark back, in no mood for a lecture. I know what I did. I don’t need a recap.

“No.” Sitting back in seat, Cade glares at me. “And before you ask—for reasons I don’t understand, neither did Ethan.”

Cade might not understand but I do.

I know my brother.

He doesn’t shoot to kill.

He shoots to maim.

He’ll wait forjustthe right moment to drop that particular bomb.

“How do you know?” Another shitty question that shouldn’t matter but does. If Cade knows so does Sera. If Seraknows?—

“Everyone knows by now,” Cade tells me, confirming my worst fear. “One of our regulars works as a waiter at the Clearwater Club. He came in, telling everyone how the hot doctor that lives upstairs paid him fifty bucks to tell Ethan Pryce that she was sleeping with his black sheep older brother.”

“She doesn’t know,” I say, shaking my head. “She has no idea who I am.”

“Thanks, but I figured that one out on my own,” Cade says with another bland smile. “What I want to know is whenyoufigured it out.”

The back of my neck goes hot and tight. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“It means…” Leaning forward just a bit, Cade cocks his head on a sneer. “Did you figure it out before orafteryou started fucking her?”

“I didn’tfigure it out,” I tell him. “She told me—I mean, she told me withouttellingme.” I’m not making sense and it’s not helping either one of us. “She mentioned him by name and I?—”

“When?”

“Friday night—early Saturday morning. After we closed, I went up to the loft to check on her. I didn’t see her come in, so I got—” Because I’m not making sense again, I stop talking and sigh. “I thought I had time.” Looking around at where we are, I shake my head. “I never thought?—”

“We were doing good there, Jen—” Cade’s tone is softer. LessI want to kill youand morehow stupid are you, exactly?“Let’s not start tellin’ lies now. You know, better than anyone, exactly what your brother is capable of.”

He’s right.

I do.

“We were going to go to Austin—make a trip of it,” I tell him, though I’m not sure why exactly. “I was going to tell her then. I was gonna try to find a way to?—”

“Tell her that her asshole ex and your psychotic brother are one and the same?”

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