Dirty Ties

When I woke this morning, I made the sudden decision to meet him for the first time in my birthday suit, just to see his reaction, to find out how much he knew. Though wrong on so many levels, it proved one thing. He hadn’t known we were brothers.

Which meant Kaci’s faith in him might not have been misguided. Maybe his parents really hadn’t involved him in their shit.

Two hours later, she finished walking him through everything we knew, including all the secrets she’d kept from him over the years, as well as my connection with the underground races. She used the flash drive I’d brought to show him digital copies of the evidence on her laptop. His family’s crimes, my mother’s death, the proof of our blood relation.

He responded with a whiplash of emotions. Shock that Kaci had kept so much from him. Denial that his family could commit such crimes. Disgust when he saw the evidence. And now he seemed to be settled on anger. Maybe we had more in common than just DNA.

He pushed his half-eaten plate of French toast across the kitchen table and stared at it with a clouded expression. “We need to kill them.”

I coughed behind my hand to hide my smile. Wasn’t he full of surprises? But Kaci wasn’t amused. She glared at him, at me, back at him. Sitting at the table beside me, her hair a cascade of gold to her waist, she pulled her feet onto the chair seat and wrapped her arms around her bent legs.

I couldn’t stop my gaze from roaming over her tight jeans where they stretched around her ass. That earned me another shriveling look from Kaci. Damn. Definitely still pissed about my naked walk in the bedroom.

“Okay, fine.” She leaned back, hugging her knees and staring at the vaulted ceiling. “We kill them, then what? What happens to your show? Your career?” She leveled him with a glower that was tinged with exhaustion. “You would be a fugitive. And what about money? We have enough to survive for a while, but when it runs out, are you going to wait tables with me in Shitknob, Mexico?”

From there, they launched into the pros and cons of murder. I left them to it, content with watching their interactions as I cleared the table and loaded the dishwasher. I had a solution for her financial concerns, but it wouldn’t placate what was really bothering her.

She slid into my vacated seat to sit closer to Collin, her hand reaching out, fingers lacing with his. The touch was familiar, the kind found in the intimacy of a lifelong friendship.

Seeing them together was reassuring in a way that defied explanation. A reassurance that had me trusting him within two hours of meeting him. His devotion and loyalty shone in his eyes. Eyes that followed my every movement when I was near her. If anything happened to her because of me, he would feed me my own dick.

Fuck, I respected that. I’d been alone my entire life, with the exception of Benny. To be here eating French toast—that my brother cooked—and plotting the future of Trenchant was fucking surreal. I wanted Collin in her life, in our lives.

With their fingers entwined, her other hand traced the ridiculously squared edges of his jaw and pinched the indention in his chin. “You’re not a murderer. You’re not them. And Jesus, Collin, we’re talking about our parents. Our family. You don’t just order their deaths and walk away from that without it playing over and over in your mind for the rest of your life.”

His eyes flew to mine. I’d told him about the murders I’d committed, but by then, he was already overwhelmed with the barrage of his family’s crimes. As he studied me now, it wasn’t with judgment. Curiosity, maybe?

Were the lives I’d taken etched in my face? Shadowed in my eyes? Was he wondering if the same would happen to him? If the spilled blood of his family would creep inside him and haunt places he couldn’t reach?

I justified every life I’d taken, but could Collin do the same?

I’d known about my brother’s existence since I was thirteen, since the night my mother was killed and I read her diary. But I didn’t know him. So for two hours, I watched him the way he did me, sizing him up and looking for similarities.

He took after his mother, her Italian heritage blatant in his black hair and olive complexion. His sharp cheekbones and slender face were rather aristocratic. His blunt jaw might’ve resembled mine, but his features as a whole—the refined way he carried himself, his charisma, his fancy shirt and slacks—all of it was made for the camera. Not for murder.

“She’s right, Collin.” I grabbed the coffee pot and brought it to the table. “You don’t have calluses inside you, hardened tissues that will never heal. You didn’t watch your mother’s murder at thirteen.” And hide under a bed doing nothing to stop it. I refilled their mugs, stifling the tremor in my hand, and set the pot on the table. “Killing isn’t a part of who you are. I would gladly do the job myself, but your consent to that is the same thing as doing it yourself.”