“No, never, I swear to God.”
Ian nodded and looked over at Drake. “Tell me what happened.”
“Well, we were at a party Marcello was having, and then this guy came in to buy drugs, and Marcello says he was never a dealer and basically said everything he just told you, but then Cabot looked at the guy and says he knows him, and I was all ‘Where do you know him from?’ and then,” Drake said as he looked at Ian, “Cabot says that he’s your brother.”
Both Ian and I turned to Cabot, who was standing there, bleeding from his lip.
“It’s your turn,” Ian prodded.
“Well, last Thanksgiving when we were here, your stepmother, she showed me a picture of your stepbrother on her phone, and I was surprised because he kinda looks like you.”
I myself had never seen any similarity between Ian and Lorcan Doyle. Ian was all chiseled perfection with his sharp-angled bone structure, while Lorcan was softer, blunt-featured, without any of Ian’s innate beauty.
“So when I saw him tonight, I said to Josue, I think that’s Ian’s brother,” Cabot said.
“And was it?” I asked.
Cabot nodded. “When I interrupted and said that I knew him, he kinda freaked out.”
“No, no, no, that was not kinda,” Drake assured him. “He attacked you.”
Cabot nodded, leaning into Drake, clunking his head on his chest. “Thank you for saving me, as usual.”
“Always.” Drake smiled, even with his own split lip.
Ian groaned. “So then what happened?”
“Then all hell broke loose, and suddenly there were DEA agents everywhere and… it was a mess,” Cabot said shakily.
“How did you guys get outta there?”
“I dunno,” Drake answered, looking at me like maybe he needed a hug too.
“Okay, everybody into the kitchen so we can wash faces and make sure nothing’s broken.”
It was a ridiculous thing to say—they were all over twenty-one, men, not boys—but they still moved fast, even Marcello.
When I tried to go after them, Ian grabbed hold of my bicep and turned me to face him, hands on my sides, possessive but gentle in a way that spoke volumes. No one had ever held me the way Ian did, like I was precious and his at the same time. It was a rush that he did it instinctively because I belonged to him. “You clean ’em up. I’m calling the office to make sure we already know everything we need to know about McKenna,” Ian grumbled, clearly not pleased at having his relaxing evening broken up.
“I know that we totally vetted him when they started dating. We just never see him, which is why neither of us can remember what the hell he looks like.”
“Well, I’ll remember now that he’s in trouble,” Ian finished, still holding on to me.
“Ian?”
He was thinking, and his gaze met mine.
“I gotta check on the boys.”
His grunt was cute as I leaned in to kiss him, and took a nibble of his bottom lip. His soft moan made me smile against his mouth.
“I just wanted you to fall asleep next to me.”
The simple things that made him happy were a revelation to me. “Still doable,” I promised. “Lemme check on the boys.”
They were all banged up—apparently the DEA guys got rough in the thick of things when more people than just the four guys in my kitchen tried to get away—but nothing was broken. Once I had cuts closed with the wide array of bandages under our bathroom sink, Drake was just standing there, and I eased him close and hugged him. He had been big when he was just eighteen and had added muscle over the years. Now when he hugged me, we were close to the same size, and to have his weight, to feel him lean, was nice. It showed trust, and as I glanced over at Ian and saw him shake his head and roll his eyes, I understood that he got it. Whether he wanted to call it what it was or not, we were foster parents, and we had three boys—maybe four now—who looked to us for guidance, safety, and love.
Ian nuked the spaghetti again, and even though Josue and Marcello were concerned about the sauce—“Is it supposed to stick to the spoon like that?” Josue asked—they all started scarfing it down along with more garlic bread, faster than I had ever seen people eat in my life. No one was interested in salad.
Chickie let out a loud booming bark while the boys were having chocolate mousse I had bought a few days before and forgotten about. The pounding on the door a second later was not a surprise.
Ian went to the door, ID in hand, opened it, and yelled in that thunderous way he had. I looked out the front window. Interesting. A SWAT team was parked on our street, and regular CPD officers and DEA agents lined our sidewalk. The best part, though, was the guy standing on my tiny postage stamp of a porch at the top of the stoop, and I moved up behind Ian so I could smile at him.