Beautiful Brute (Court University 3)

It was one of the things I admired about him.

Constantly in the trenches, Dad fought policies and the men and women above them to make things better for so many people over the years. And that’d been only in the years since he’d married my mom. The pair may have met in politics, but he’d worked as an active player in government long before my mom and I came along. He’d been the saving grace for our family. The rock for both my mom and me. We’d had some trying times before he’d come along.

Heartbreak.

Struggle.

And he’d been there for the aftermath, still fighting but with a different struggle. He picked up the pieces of a shattered family broken by pain and suffering. He’d mended us and put me completely back together with my mom. I honestly didn’t remember life before Rick Fairchild came into our lives.

At least, I tried not to.

Dad waved me in around his stacks of papers, probably in here since after breakfast. He grinned. “Come. Come. I’ll make room for you.”

He’d always said that, could make room however tight. It only made the reason I came to him that much harder.

But I needed the strength.

His son was crazy, point-blank. I didn’t want to come in here, bust everything up but I felt like I had no choice. What Jaxen had done last night and today was completely unacceptable. He’d been cruel, evil and malicious. People got locked up for lesser things they’d done.

And he did it right in my adoptive father’s house.

Jax was a guest in this house and he hurt me, my strides quiet into my dad’s study. Dad had his MacBook open, but closed it after striking a few keys.

He sat back with laced fingers. “What’s up? Missed you at breakfast this morning.” His eyebrows drew in deeply. “Mom said you were having feminine worries.”

As awesome as my dad was he was still a guy at the end of the day. I rolled my eyes. “It’s called a period, Dad.”

“Yes, er, um, period.” Rick Fairchild’s cheeks colored, a man who gave speeches in front of hundreds, thousands. He patted his desk. “Anyway, you doing all right?”

I took him up on the seat he offered, lounging back against his desk. I shook my head. “Not exactly. I wanted to talk to you about that.”

His brow jumped. “Your, um…” A neck scratch. “Period, honey? I have to say, I think your mom is better suited.”

Dear God.

“No, not the period.”

Appearing relieved, he chuckled. “Then what then?”

How could I say his son was a freak? How could I tell him the son he was trying to reconnect with, unite our families together with, was crazy and had it out for me? This house was well aware of my dad and Jaxen’s history.

There was a reason I’d never met my stepbrother before.

My mom, Rick, and I were a family built on pain, struggle. The three of us came from divided households, from heartache, and through the ashes, we’d been able to find each

other. We healed but that couldn’t deny what each of us had come from.

Dad had his own woes back in the Midwest, his own mangled history. That past divided his previous family, and though I didn’t quite know the details, I did know not once had it’d ever been in the cards for me or Mom to meet Jaxen. Every time I’d bring it up, I was given words like “it’s complicated” or “it just can’t happen.” Jaxen, I guessed, had been adamant about staying with his mom after the divorce, and it had to have destroyed my father inside.

I knew because of how he was with me.

I’d gotten so much love from this man that I called father. He’d been my father, and we weren’t even related. If something had divided him from his family, a messy divorce or whatever, it would have broken him.

Even if he never showed it.

He’d been strong, but I caught him more than once looking at photos. Pictures of Jaxen and the ones of him as a little kid. He had so many, stopping at age eleven, the age I guess when they’d been separated.

Thinking about all that now, I had nothing but a lack of words. What I had to say would literally break my dad’s heart.