"Did you just use an explosive device in here?"
Wolf shrugged, his blue eyes alight with amusement. "Just a little one."
"You're out of your mind." Hudson was hardly about to admit it had been effective. The room was littered with unconscious and dead Therians.
Wolf winked at Hudson before taking off. Only he never made it to the door. Dex slammed a fist into Wolf's face. He staggered back, and before he could get his bearings, Dex tackled him to the floor.
"Dex, wait!" Hudson scrambled to his feet. "He saved Seb's life!"
Dex and Wolf tussled, and Dex snagged a hold of Wolf's mask and tugged it off. He straddled Wolf and raised a fist to punch him, but Hudson caught his arm.
"Hudson, what the hell--"
Hudson imagined it was the look on his face that froze Dex. And that's what Hudson felt was happening to the world around him. In a room strewn with bodies, men who'd come to kidnap him and kill Seb, nothing shook Hudson like the sight before him.
"Alfie?"
The air was sucked out of the room as Alfie smiled warmly at him.
"Hello, little brother."
Chapter 12
DEX LOOKED from Hudson to the man they knew as Wolf, then back to Hudson.
"Please tell me I didn't hear what I thought I did." Dex quickly got up and grabbed Hudson's arm. "Hudson, buddy? You gotta say something."
"Lou and Bradley." Hudson was almost afraid to ask.
"Are fine. Taking a little nap in the broom closet. They would have been killed when those Makhai goons showed up." Wolf--Alfie stood and brushed off his suit. He was bigger than Hudson remembered. Stronger. More... muscular. His jaw was still clean-shaven and chiseled, his hair and thick eyebrows as pitch-black as Hudson's. He looked as ruggedly handsome and elegant as always. His suit undoubtedly expensive. Alfie's blue eyes filled with remorse, and Hudson took a tentative step toward him. He hesitantly reached out, unable to believe his brother was there, in front of him, in the flesh. Alive.
"Oh fuck," Dex groaned. "You know what? I see it now. The resemblance. The thought had crossed my mind when you were talking about your brother that night in Dekatria, but you said Alfie was dead."
"He is--was," Hudson murmured softly. "How?" He blinked back his tears, his head and heart in turmoil. "You... you're alive."
"I am," Alfie replied quietly.
Disbelief gave way to anger, and it erupted. "You're alive?" Hudson punched his brother across his stupidly square jaw. Dex threw his arms around Hudson before he could hit Alfie again. "You fucking wanker! You've been alive all this time? How could you do this to me? I thought I was losing my bloody mind, catching your scent in Dex's house, then everywhere else, and it's because you were there. You've been there the whole pissing time!"
Alfie rubbed his jaw. "Just, let me explain, little brother."
"Please do, Alfie," Hudson spat out. "Tell me how I saw your corpse on that slab of steel. How you let me mourn your loss for years, let me live with the guilt, let me think I was going crazy."
"First of all," Alfie stated calmly, "don't call me Alfie. It doesn't really strike fear into the hearts of my enemies."
"Piss off!"
Alfie pursed his lips. "Fair enough. Actually, I don't use my name because of you."
"So you could carry on the deception?" Hudson shrugged off Dex's hold and crossed his arms over his chest, his narrowed eyes on his brother. "And if you've been around me as long as TIN says, why could I only smell you some of the time?"
"I needed to protect you. I have many enemies." Alfie cringed. "Perhaps slightly more than many."
Dex let out a snort. "You don't say."
Alfie ignored him. "If they discovered I had a brother, or family, they would have come after you. As for my scent, well, I have this nifty little device that masks my scent with any scent I choose. It's quite
extraordinary. The only one of its kind available on the black market. However, it is rather temperamental, and the scent cartridge is not perpetual, at least not yet. Anyway, the blasted thing isn't as stable as it should be. The cartridge has a habit of running dry at the most inopportune moments, which is why you caught my scent. I can hardly stop in the middle of a physical altercation to fiddle with it."