Because he wouldn’t stop looking at me like… like he knew who I was or what I’d done. It was impossible, of course, but that didn’t matter to my brain. All I saw was a guy capable of inflicting a lot of pain with little effort.

“I am,” Nolan said. “Have we met?”

I shook my head. “Um, no, my name’s Blaze.”

“No, it’s not,” Newt interrupted before I could continue. “It’s Isaac.”

I sighed and said, “Newt, remember what I told you? You’re the only one who gets to call me Isaac.”

“Sorry,” my brother said, though the response was an automated one. It wasn’t often that I truly got angry at Newt, so he knew the difference between my exasperated voice and my pissed-off voice.

I returned my attention to Nolan. “Yeah, um, so Blaze is kind of a stage name. I guess you can call me Isaac.” Fortunately, we wouldn’t be sticking around long enough that it would matter if these guys knew my real name. “Anyway, I have something that belongs to you.”

I ignored the urge to hug myself with my arms to ward off the cold and the fear and stepped around Newt and the wolf to go to the trunk of my car. As soon as I pulled the violin case out of the trunk, I heard Nolan gasp and I steeled myself for what was to come.

“It’s my violin. What are you doing with it?” Nolan asked as I handed him the case.

I could feel heat tinging my cold cheeks.

Before I could respond, Nolan said, “It’s you. You’re the one the cops saw on my apartment building’s surveillance video. You stole the Stradivarius.”

Chapter One

Maddox

The kid was a fucking thief.

No surprise there, considering he looked like a hooligan. I mentally shook my head–no, goth was the word they used to describe it. The dark eyeliner, lip piercing, gauges in his ears, painted fingernails–he spelled trouble with a capital T.

I braced myself in case I’d need to grab the kid before he tried to get away. He threw me what had to be his fifth look and I barely hid my smirk.

Yeah, he knew I was onto him.

“Yes and no,” Isaac said.

“Stealing’s bad,” the little boy piped in. “Isaac says so.” He dropped down into the snow to play with Loki.

“It is,” Isaac responded. “Stand up, buddy, your pants will get wet.”

“You said I could play in the snow.”

Isaac let out a tired sigh and I felt a sliver of pity go through me. I glanced at his car again and couldn’t help but wonder what was going on with the pair. No doubt, from all the shit in the back seat, that they likely had their entire lives packed in the little yellow sedan. “I know I did, but we have to get you some snow pants first, okay?”

He’d have to do more than that. Minnesota winters were brutal. And the kid needed to find himself some decent outerwear. I took in his purple shirt with a glittery logo on it. His black jeans were so tight they looked painted on. God, the kid was practically a stick figure.

“Okay,” Newt said, but didn’t get up.

I wondered if the little boy was Isaac’s kid, but Isaac seemed way too young. I put him at late teens at best.

“Look,” Isaac began, his eyes back on my brother’s boyfriend, Nolan. “I took it, but only because Trey said you wouldn’t give it back to him. Then I saw the news about you being accused of stealing it.”

I didn’t know who Trey was or what the two younger men were talking about. My eyes drifted to my brother, Dallas. As focused on the conversation as he was, I could tell he was tired and in pain. I’d learned only this morning that he’d had surgery on his vocal cords about a week earlier.

And I hadn’t even heard it from him.

No, I’d had to hear it from a mutual friend who’d asked me to come help out at Dallas’s animal sanctuary for the day while my brother was having a follow-up visit with his doctor in Minneapolis. Our friend, Sawyer, was a vet who’d been helping Dallas and Nolan with the sanctuary. But when he’d received an emergency call as part of his on-call veterinarian duties for the state, he’d called me to see if I could come and help out for the day. I’d readily agreed, though I’d known it would piss Dallas off.

Not that I could blame him.

He had a lot of reasons to be pissed at me.

And I deserved every single one.

“You’re friends with Trey?” Nolan asked.

“Friends, sure,” Isaac answered, his eyes shifting to Newt. “Let’s go with that.”

I saw Nolan pale and realized why when I understood what Isaac’s response meant. No, I still didn’t know who Trey was, but from Isaac’s answer and Nolan’s reaction, I figured Trey was someone Nolan had once been romantically involved with.

Tags: Sloane Kennedy Pelican Bay M-M Romance
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