Recluse (Wolfes of Manhattan 2)

“I’m willing to slow down.”

No, you’re not. You’re looking for second wife. I know your story.

Of course those words didn’t leave the back of my throat.

Because it didn’t matter. Not now.

“I’m sorry. I’ve met someone else.”

He wrinkled his forehead. “So soon?”

“Blaine, you went out with Alice Engle two days after we broke up.”

“That? I was mentoring her.”

This time I let my eyeroll through. “Not buying it. Sorry.”

“I’m serious. She’s a law clerk. You know that.”

“She’s also my age. And gorgeous. And smart. Just your type.”

He opened his mouth, but I gestured him to stop.

“Please, Blaine. I can’t date you anymore. I hope that doesn’t keep you from giving me whatever information you have that you think I need.”26RoyIf nausea had an image, it would be the one in my mind right now.

My baby sister, six years old, my sick father hovering over her, touching her.

Hurting her.

Rock, my brother I hardly knew—the man with the hardest exterior I’d ever seen—had been reduced to a few tears while telling the story.

He’d gone out of his head at fourteen, when testosterone was raging through his body, urging him to take risks, when his brain didn’t let him see past tomorrow.

He’d gone after the bastard with a knife.

I didn’t know whether to be frightened of my brother or to applaud him.

In reality, I felt both.

But that had been adolescent Rock. The Rock of today, other than an arrest for a biker brawl he hadn’t started, had kept his nose clean.

He didn’t speak highly of Buffington Academy, the military school our father had sent him to. I could only imagine what he’d gone through there. Of course, it was probably better than juvenile hall, where he would have gone if my parents had pressed charges.

All those years…

Reid and I locked gazes.

“God. Riley,” Reid said, his eyes glassy. “We always thought she was his favorite.”

“He took her on all those special trips.” I gulped back the breakfast that threatened to emerge on the table in front of me.

“My room was next to hers,” Rock said absently. “There was no way either of you could know.”

“Still,” I said. “How could we have been so blind? So envious of everything he lavished on her?”

“We need to find her,” Reid said. “Get her the help she needs.”

“Except she doesn’t want to be found,” Rock said. “The two of you have told me that more than once.”

“But she needs—”

“Look,” Rock continued, “I’m not in her shoes, but I do know what it’s like to be thrust into a situation over which you have no control. I’m not going to lie to you and say I’m completely over all of it, but I tell you. The big sky of Montana did a lot to heal me. I had to let it go and accept that I couldn’t save her. I’d tried, but I couldn’t. He would never let me. Being away from all this dysfunction did a lot to heal me. Why do you think I was so damned angry when the bastard made me come back here to run his company? And if I didn’t, all of you would pay? What the fuck kind of thing is that to do to your kid?” He shook his head.

“We were all surprised by it,” Reid said, “and frankly, now I’m even more confused. If you truly tried to do him in—”

“I was fourteen. I was hotheaded. I never would have been successful, in retrospect. But damn, there are times I still wish I had been. All of you could have been spared what you went through.”

“We didn’t go through what Riley went through,” I said.

“No,” Reid agreed, “we didn’t. He didn’t touch us sexually. But we did go through a lot. You, not as much, Roy, because you kept to yourself. But he used me for a punching bag on a regular basis. I was the target once you left, Rock.”

“I’m sorry,” Rock said.

“You were fourteen, like you said. You didn’t think it through. But that was the end result.”

“I got whaled on my fair share,” I said. “I won’t pretend he was as hard on me as he was on you, Reid, but it’s not like I got off scot-free.”

I well remembered taking the insufferable beatings from my father.

“How long did the physical abuse go on?” Rock asked.

“Until we were big enough to stop it,” Reid replied.

Silence.

For the first time in my life, sitting here with Rock and Reid, I truly felt like we were brothers. Brothers that went beyond DNA. Brothers who understood each other. Brothers of the soul.

We were all completely different people, but we were connected by more than our blood.

“It’s pretty clear,” Reid said, “why Riley disappears every now and again.”

“Most interesting is that she did the disappearing act before our father was murdered,” Rock said. “Was he around when she wasn’t?”