Page 127 of When the Storm Breaks
He would have been eight and a half at the time. He had to have known. How could he not have? Nothing made any sense.
And in that moment, I knew there was no coming back from this. We were over.
I lifted my chin and looked into the eyes of a murderer’s son. “I never want to see your face again. It’s just a reminder of everything me and Landry lost.” My voice sounded so cold, so unlike me that for a moment I wasn’t even sure those words had come out of my mouth. But they had.
His eyes drifted shut and then he nodded. I turned my back to him as he walked away. My brother pulled me into his arms and held me, the two of us hanging onto each other, a reminder that all we had in this world was each other. We were family. Nothing would ever change that. My brother had been there for me when Maw Maw died. Had tried his best to look after me when we were kids.
All I wanted was to get back to the way it used to be when we were close, and he was the big brother I looked up to and adored.
A few minutes later, I heard the door close behind Brody. Sobs wracked my body, and I could barely breathe. This time he hadn’t even put up a fight. He did as I asked, leaving me in an all-white ocean suite in Miami, my tears soaking my brother’s shirt, a gaping hole in my heart that used to be filled by Brody.
“If you need anything, I’ll be right down the hall,” Marcus said on his way out. I’d forgotten he was even here.
“Thank you,” I said. But Marcus couldn’t give me what I needed. Nobody could.
Chapter Forty
Brody
Ridge wrestledthe bottle of whiskey out of my hand.
“Give it back.” I stood up from my chair and lunged at him. He darted out of the way and I lunged for him again. Fuck. My hand reached for the banister to hold myself up. It slipped out of my grasp. I tumbled down the porch steps and landed on the ground. I didn’t feel a goddamn thing.
I started laughing. I was laughing so hard tears sprang to my eyes. Then I rolled onto my back and stared up at the dark sky, trying to bring the stars into focus. Everything was blurry. The world was spinning.
“Come on, bro. Let’s get you inside.” He tried to lift me, but I smacked his hands away.
“Leave me the fuck alone,” I mumbled.
He crouched next to me and peered into my face. “You can’t keep doing this to yourself.”
“Wanna bet?” I closed one eye, trying to bring him into focus. He had a black eye and a split lip. “I’ll do whatever the fuck I want. You shouldn’t have gotten in that fight.”
“Nobody is gonna talk shit about my brother and get away with it.”
“My honor’s not worth fighting for. I don’t have any. I’m the son of a monster. I have his blood running through my veins. Same DNA.”
“You’re not him. You didn’t kill Shiloh’s mom.”
“Might as well have pulled the trigger…” My eyes drifted shut. I wanted to sleep on the ground. Maybe when I woke up tomorrow, I’d realize this had all been a bad dream.
Ten days. That was how long it had been since I’d last seen Shiloh. Ten days since she told me she never wanted to see my face again. Couldn’t blame her. If I were here, I would have felt the same way.
* * *
When I woke up,I flinched at the light. Too bright. I closed my eyes again. My head felt like there was a jackhammer working inside it and my mouth was so dry I could barely swallow.
“Morning, sunshine.”
I groaned. Just what I needed. My smug cousin. “What are you doing here?”
“Someone needed to haul your ass off the back lawn last night. Drink this water and take these aspirin. Doctor’s orders.”
I forced my eyes open, knowing damn well that nothing I said would make Jude leave, so I sat up. I was on the living room sofa, fully dressed except for my boots, a blanket covering me. I took the aspirin from his hand and washed them down with water. I felt like a fucking baby.
“This needs to stop,” he said. “Drinking your sorrows away never works. Take it from me, the dumb shit who tried to do it for an entire year. You’ll only make things worse.”
I huffed out a laugh and winced at the pain that shot through my head. “Really can’t see how it could possibly get worse. Might as well be drunk while I sit back and watch my whole fucking world fall apart.”
