Inked in Lies (The Fallen Men 5)

And was still struggling even now.

It made me weep more than I was proud of to see Dane sit at family dinners like a mute automaton, no more alive in spirit than he had been as a ghost at our table for all the years he was missing. He didn’t want to hang out with Nova or me, he didn’t want to explore Entrance or meet the new people in our lives. He just wanted to sleep or lay on the couch catching up on years of TV he hadn’t seen.

He didn’t want to talk about what happened, his time as a POW, or how he’d enlisted to help take down the sex trafficking ring with ties to the city he’d been held hostage in. We didn’t know much more than what his superior officer had told us when he’d arrived to drop Dane off one day.

But at least he was home.

He said he didn’t want help, but I didn’t really care anymore what he wanted. It had been two months since the incident at the port, and I was desperate to have my brother back.

So I enlisted the only two people I knew might help.

Bat arrived at the Booths’ house looking handsome and grim, clad all in black, his lips like a pale, twisted scar between his cheeks. He greeted with me with a kiss on the cheek then didn’t pull back immediately.

I looked up into his eyes, so dark they seemed purely black, and blinked.

“It’s not the kinda thing takes an hour chat with a fellow ex-vet to fix,” he murmured, squeezing my bicep gently. “But however long you need me, you got me. I’m here for him ’cause I’m here for you and Nova.”

Ah, that biker magic.

I smiled tremulously at him and moved aside to let him enter my old greenhouse where we’d set up Dane upon his return.

Zeus didn’t say a word when he pulled up on his Harley, tucked his helmet under his arm, and came at me. He just scooped me half into the air in a one-armed hug then set me down, jerking his chin up at me as he ducked into the little door of the house.

I badly wanted to sit with them as they talked to Dane, but I knew it was better to give him space, so I turned back to the task at hand. Molly had kept up most of the garden after I moved out, but she couldn’t control the weeds in my wildflower garden at the side of the greenhouse, so I was on my knees in the dirt, arms filthy up to my elbows.

“He’s going to be okay someday,” Ares called from the back porch.

I shielded my eyes from the sun to look over at him as he walked down the steps along the path to my side and sat in the dirt. His handsome face had filled out in the two years he’d lived with The Fallen, his frame finally getting bigger, broad so it seemed he might grow into a tall man after all.

“Oh, yeah?” I asked, smiling at him even though I wanted a hug because I knew he didn’t like to be touched. “I admire your faith.”

“It’s not faith,” he argued with that strange intensity a preteen boy shouldn’t possess. “I know it because I lived it. The memories never go away, but sometimes, if we’re lucky enough, we can bury them six feet down with new ones, better ones.”

I blinked at him. “You clearly spent too much time with King.”

He grinned broadly, and it transformed his somber features into something utterly charming. “Yeah, I know. Can I help you dig?”

“Do you know what you’re doing?”

“No.” He shrugged then smiled a small, impish smile that reminded me he was only ten. “But how hard can it be? Even squirrels do it.”

I laughed as we settled in, shoulder to shoulder sometimes, the deliberate press of his body into mine his silent way of offering me comfort while I waited to see how the meeting with Dane went.

I didn’t expect it, but I wasn’t surprised when it came sometime later.

The crash of something breaking against a wall.

I froze as shouts echoed through the house, unsure if I should stay where I was or go help.

There was another fierce cry, and I flew into the house, dirt kicking up behind me as I careened through the front door and stopped just inside the living room.

A vase lay broken at the base of the wall by the TV, wet flowers glistening in the debris. The crate coffee table was overturned and broken in pieces on one side where Bat sat amid the splinters, a cut in the cheek facing me.

He was holding my brother.

And Dane?

He was crying.

No, sobbing. Great, heaving sobs that wracked his massive frame so violently, he shuddered.