Wrath started at me for a long second, brows cocked, tatted arms flexed as he stroked his short beard.
“Comin’ into your own,” he said finally. “See what they say about you bein’ a smart motherfucker.”
I shrugged, but my grin was wicked with arrogance. “Thanks for givin’ us the heads-up. Make it convincin’ when you see me, yeah? If this goes off without a hitch, I’ll finally get patched in.”
“And when you do, you’ll nominate me to patch over,” he reminded me of the deal we’d struck over a year ago when we’d first started shootin’ the shit because Kylie and I’d made friends in our psychology and business seminar at UBC.
“Yeah, brother,” I agreed, steppin’ forward to clasp his hand and bring him in for a hug punctuated by a thump on the back. “I got you.”
“Got you, brother,” Wrath promised before steppin’ back. “See ya tomorrow night.”
I flicked my fingers at him in goodbye and rounded on Sander. “So, what brings you here in the dead of fuckin’ night? Cress is sleepin’.”
“I figured.”
He looked up at the window to our bedroom and sighed in a way I felt in my gut. He might not have been the best brother in the world, but we all made mistakes, and I got that more than most. I hadn’t been there to protect Harleigh Rose from her abusive, piece of shit boyfriend, and Sander hadn’t been there for Cress for most of her trials because of his own failings. Didn’t mean he didn’t wish it was different.
“Heard she was hauled into the police station today. I just wanted to check in with you, see if she was all good, and if I could do anythin’ to help.”
“Sander…” I blew out an exasperated breath and tugged my hands through my knotted curls. “Listen, man, you know I’m happy to let you know how she is when you drop in or give me a call, but you can’t just show up like this. She’ll reach out when she’s fuckin’ ready.”
He kicked the toe of his motorcycle boot against a loose stone and watched it pitch off the deck into the night. Despite being born into the same middle class, conservative family as Cress, Lysander had started down a different path a long fuckin’ time ago. Now, that wild lifestyle played out in the wrinkles beside his eyes from squintin’ and the brackets around his mouth. He’d played the part of a biker back when the Nightstalkers were still in town, but he hadn’t dropped the style, and he still wore a leather jacket and shit kickers as if he was just waitin’ for a club to reach out and take him on.
I wanted to hate the man for the ways he’d fucked up with Cress, but it was hard to hate the how when you understood the why of something. And I got why he’d fucked up. Parents like theirs who didn’t give a shit about them would turn anyone into a less than wholesome version of themselves.
“She means everythin’ to me,” he said quietly in his hoarse voice. “Can’t tell you how many nights I can’t sleep just thinkin’ about if she’s doin’ okay.”
“She’s with me,” I said. “Of course, she’s fuckin’ okay.”
“Yeah.” He nodded curtly, but the moonlight highlighted the way he grimaced. “Know you do a better job of protectin’ her than I ever could. Doesn’t mean I don’t wish I still had a part to play.”
“Fuck…Listen, I’ll talk to her, but I’m not makin’ any promises. I’ve tried before, and she’s had none of it. Hate to break it to you, but she’s got a whole club full’a brothers who would die for her in a heartbeat. Not so sure she’ll forgive you just because she misses havin’ a sibling.”
Sander nodded, still looking off over the railin’ into the ocean wet and black as spilled ink under the silver moon. His knuckles were white as he gripped the wood, and I knew he was sufferin’.
“Appreciate it, man.” He had masses of hair just like my woman and the same honeyed kinda brown. I watched as he tucked it behind his ear the same way Cress woulda and felt pity pang through my chest.
Never known a man so alone in the world and so wishin’ he wasn’t.
“Only bein’ I loved my whole,” he admitted quietly. “My princess since I first held her, and she was just this tiny little thing, but every part’a that was so perfect it made my chest so tight, honest to Christ, I couldn’t breathe.”
Which was why this happened, the late-night break-ins to get updates about Cress, because he was the kinda man who revolved like the earth around the sun that was his family. A man like me.
Only Lysander Irons didn’t have a kickass dad and a wicked sister, a group of men like uncles and brothers and a fuckuva best friend like Mute.