The black gate, with its swirling knots and spiked-top, swung open seconds after he spoke into the security box. Jai Bitar took a deep breath, pressed his foot to the gas, and drove leisurely down the smooth driveway. The gates swung shut behind him. Jai wished he was in his condo in Hollywood instead of where he was. In fact, he’d rather be anywhere than back home in the Palisades, home to his family, to his father, to his boss. When his dad had a job for him, he usually asked him into their office Downtown. That his father wanted to discuss this new job here… Jai sucked in a breath. Something big was going down. He parked the car at the bottom of the wide steps that led up to his parents’ massive home. It was a burnished clay color, more Spanish estate than the Moroccan architecture Jai favored, but his stepmother loved the design, so who was he to argue.
Finally. Where have you been? I called you three hours ago.
Used to his father contacting him telepathically without so much as a warning, Jai didn’t even flinch as he got out of the car.
I was in the middle of something. I got here as fast as I could.
Christ, the old man couldn’t even wait two minutes for him to climb those damn stairs to berate him.
If I call you with an emergency, you drop what you’re doing and get your ass here. End of story. Why is the concept lost on you when your brothers understand it perfectly?
Jai glared up at the house, refusing to answer. His dad could talk to him when he got in the house. Correction. Rail at him unfairly. As usual. To stem off a tirade about how long it had taken him to climb the stairs, Jai envisioned the sterile entrance hall of his parents’ home with its high ceiling and black-and-white checkered flooring. There was a vile abstract painting of his stepmother, Nicki, hanging on the main wall. As soon as he had it locked in mind, Jai relaxed, allowing the flutter of wind to brush against his skin. The blur of color and slightly dizzying sensation of using the peripatos lasted merely a second, and Jai stood before the ugly abstract.
“Where have you been?” a snide voice asked from behind him.
Keeping his expression neutral, Jai turned to face his eldest half-brother, David. His black eyes bore into Jai’s with their usual disdain and not for the first time Jai noted they looked nothing alike. They could be strangers for all anyone knew. The Bitar’s blood was mixed. Two hundred years ago, their Moroccan tribe departed for London to escape a blood feud with another Ginnaye tribe. From there, they’d moved to the East Coast of America until migrating to the West. In that time they’d intermarried with other immigrant Ginnaye who had emigrated to Europe centuries before. Nicki was Celtic Ginnaye. His father, Luca, had met her on assignment in Ireland. Thus, the Bitar boys had a mixture of Irish and Moroccan heritage in their features. Jai was different. His features were more refined, his skin olive-toned, his eyes green. He wondered often where his own mother had hailed from to give him such unusual coloring.
Jai shrugged at his half-brother. “At my condo. Some of us live in our own apartments like big boys in big boy pants.”
David narrowed his eyes. “Hilarious. But then I guess I’d need a sense of humor too if I were the only son Luca Bitar can’t stand to live with.”
They both knew the truth of that statement, but Jai refused to give David the satisfaction of reacting. Instead, he shrugged and strode toward him. “You still using the pool house to get laid behind Nicki and Luca’s back? How is that working out for you, big bro? Bet it impresses the ladies; a thirty-year-old who lives in his parents’ pool house.”
“At least I get laid.”
“As do I.”
“Yeah, but I use my natural charm. I don’t have your mommy’s evil succubus side to lure them in, asshole.”
Despite the comment igniting Jai’s blood with rage, he was a master of deception. He threw David an insouciant look as they entered his father’s office. “I didn’t inherit that part of her genetics, David. I get laid because fortunately you and I look nothing alike.”
“Morning to you too,” Luca Bitar’s voice cut right through him.
Jai stopped before his father’s desk, his hands behind his back at the ready, his expression serious. He and his father may not get along, but Jai was one of his father’s best guardians. Luca Bitar knew that. Even if he didn’t want to admit it. “Good morning, sir.”
Luca nodded stiffly, his gaze flicking to David. “Where’s your mother?”
David slouched against his father’s liquor cabinet, his arms crossed over his chest as he eyed Jai with a twisted smile. “You know she doesn’t like to be here when the spawn is around.”