Page 13 of Love Thy Brother
Rubi pushed off the wall and crossed the room in two long strides, bearing down on the ornate table that was older than him and me put together. Bearing down onme, before Saint rose and intercepted him, talking him down without words.
Cam watched their interaction with tortured eyes. Then he swivelled that nuclear gaze to me. “Alexei can play this game all day long, but I don’t have time to talk in circles. We know who it is, and we know they’ve been up your arse for as long as Alexei’s been watching. What I don’t know is what they want from you and why the ever-loving fuck you didn’t tell me.”
There it was. The parental, big-brother routine that brought out the worst in me. I faced him, Nash, and Alexei, while Saint and Rubi stood off to the side, and my hands itched to upturn the table. To hurl my chair across the room like the stupid,weakchild they believed me to be.
Only proving them wrong kept me in my seat. That, and my MDMA-laced pulse pounding so hard I wasn’t sure I’d stay conscious if I jumped up too fast.
Should’ve eaten. Shoulda done a lot of things. Mainly ignored my fucking phone.
Cam was still waiting for an answer. The itch in my hands crawled under my skin, infiltrating the mess a night of no sleep and too much powder had left me in. Alone in the garage, my fucking kingdom, I’d felt invincible. Dragged in front of these men like a naughty teenager, I wanted the earth to swallow me whole.
“You’re just like your ma, kid.”
No, I wasn’t. How could I be when I was still alive and kicking in the last place on earth I wanted to be?
“I didn’t tell you,” I ground out, “because it’s none of your business. It’smybusiness, remember? If some idiot wants to fight me for it, I can handle it myself.”
“That is what they want?” Alexei answered for Cam. “The garage?”
I spared him a brief glance. “The land it sits on. A plot like that is prime real estate in a seaside town.”
Alexei rotated his laptop again and tapped a few keys. “Your father bought it for sixty thousand. If you sold it today, you would make ten times that.”
“I’m not selling it, though, am I?”
“Because?”
“Because it’s fuckingmine. It took me years to buy out Cam and Orla. Why would I sell it now?”
“I did not say you should.”
This dude, man. “What are you saying then?”
Alexei shut his laptop, glancing at Cam, before his full attention returned to lucky old me. “I am saying we should look at the facts. It is Timmersons Ltd that is fronting the harassment against you. They make their money buying land from people who do not know its worth and redeveloping it, yes?”
“If you say so.”
“Facts say so.” Alexei took a cigarette from Nash’s box. Lit it and passed it to Cam. “But that is all I have. This company is ten years old with clean records and no connection to anyone the MC has encountered in the past. This is concerning.”
“Why?”
“It is obvious, little brother. Either they do not know your familial connections, which is a problem for you. Or they do know and they don’t care, which is a problem for us all.”
Alexei’s voice was a weird mix of stern and legit fucking musical. His Russian accent dipped in and out, and his disarming stare dissected me, pinning me in place when I wanted to run.
Rubi.
I fucking needed him, but I looked for my brother instead. “It’s no one’s problem but mine. I’m handling it.”
Cam shifted in his seat, so like my dad with his broad shoulders and soft gaze. Sometimes I forgot how tough he was. How tough he’dhadto be to survive.
You couldn’t live his life.
Fuck, I could barely live mine.
“Tell me the truth,” Cam said. “How hard are they coming at you?”
“Why does that matter?”
