He bared his teeth at me and it occurred to me that was something I would have done. We might have only been half-brothers, but the similarities between us were stronger than I’d remembered.
“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t mean it,” he grunted. “Why the fuck do you think I came?”
“I take your hand, it doesn’t mean we’re best friends,” I warned him. “It doesn’t mean we’re brothers in any way that counts.”
“No,” he agreed, cocking his head, the impression of a smile on his lips. “But you want to get there, we’ll get there.”
Without waiting for me, he snapped forward and grabbed one of my hands, enfolding it in his own. Before I could wrench away out of instinct, he was jerking me forward into a brutal hug. I slammed against his torso, shoulder aching, and his free hand gripped my neck, almost too tight. It was a claiming hug, almost the same way I’d hugged Bianca on the floor of her room at the Compound. As if I could absorb her, as if I could imprint all the words I didn’t know how to say from my skin to hers.
Automatically, I struggled to push away from him. I didn’t like to be caged and it was impossible not to feel trapped.
Lucian didn’t expect it, so I was able to push him off and clock him in the face, right in the mouth. He recoiled, neck twisting, but when he recovered, he did it calmly.
He faced me again, brought a thumb to the blood, and then, he laughed.
Bright, long and loud.
Laughing so hard, his eyes started to tear.
And it broke something inside me.
Something that needed breaking.
The idea that revenge always trumped forgiveness.
That violence ultimately won out over grace.
That everything Bryant had taught me––no––programmed in me was wrong.
It was all a fucking lie.
And this?
The laughter, the forgiveness of a bad blood between brothers, the coming together after so many years apart, that was exactly what Bryant wouldn’t want.
Because it felt good.
It felt good to feel an echo of Lucian’s laugh rumble through my chest. To hear it mimicked awkwardly at first and then louder in Carter and Leo. The Gentlemen didn’t laugh, this wasn’t their feud, their moment, but they smiled at us as if we were lunatics. As if they liked that we were lunatics.
“What a fucked-up family we are,” Carter said through his laughter, shaking his head and slinging an arm around Leo.
Leo stiffened, but his shoulders relaxed and he grinned again. “If those assholes are done beating each other up, let’s try being brothers again. I’m game if you are.”
“I’m game,” I said with a casual shrug, as if I wasn’t deeply and secretly relieved to have my brothers back the way I’d dreamed of since I was twelve years old with a fresh scar on my face.
Leo ducked out from Carter’s arm and stepped toward me, offering his hand to shake. I swallowed thickly as I gripped it.
He tugged hard, bringing me in to hug around our clasped hands as he thumped me on the back. When I tried to pull away after a moment, he surprised me by pressing his forehead to my skull to whisper in my ear, “I never would have left you, T. Never would have let him hurt you that way. I would never have gone on a fucking trip for school.” His voice was shattered as he spoke, aching with remorse I felt echoed in my own chest.
“Then where were you?”
“In the hospital.”
“For fucking what?”
“I’ll tell you another time. I wouldn’t have gone if I could avoid it. I didn’t have a choice.”
“Was it Bryant?”
“No.”
What the hell happened to him? Who else got to him? I guess now that we’re brothers again, there’s time to find out. I patted him on the back, slightly awkward, more than a little relieved that he hadn’t left us like that because he didn’t care. “I’m sorry to fucking hear that. I didn’t know.” I hesitated then asked, “You’re happy now?”
Leo pulled back, a small, private smile on his face. A smile meant for someone else. “Yes.”
Leo and Lucian left then, though Carter lingered, picking up a pair of gloves to spar with Henrik as if he did so every day.
I watched him spar and joke with my men as something broke free of the previous fallow soil in my soul and grew leaves. This was what I’d always wanted. My brothers back and hopefully, one day soon, my sisters, too. I wanted family and peace, an end to the tragedy and violence Bryant had forced on me my entire life.
I wouldn’t ask Lucian and Leo to help me strip Bryant of his lingering power over me. That was something I was prepared to do alone. But it meant the fucking world that they had my back all the same. Now, I wasn’t just putting Dad in his place for me, I was doing it for what he’d done to Leo, what he’d no doubt done to all my siblings. I’d face our tormentor and I’d take him down myself.