by Tijan
Aspen said, “Blaise already beat him up once.”
Cross frowned, his eyebrows dipping. “Blaise asked to have first crack at Harper.”
Aspen’s mouth turned inwards. “Yeah. I think he really enjoyed it. He’d like to justify a second go.”
Channing chuckled from his end. “Jesus, that kid. Okay. Listen to me again. This isn’t the first time I’ve dealt with shit like this. Girl, stop putting yourself in the path. You’re just messing yourself up and hurting people who care about you. Harper, Sr. might have held off because of his kid, but I think you know that it’s not a long-term solution. I guarantee he’s probably waiting until at least Thanksgiving before delivering another threat anyway.”
Cross asked, “How can you guess that?”
“He’s using weaknesses. Thanksgiving is the next time his kid will be home. My guess is he’ll threaten Tabatha the week before, say he needs the money or he’ll have something happen to the girl. The wife threat will still be there, obviously, but he’ll just double down.”
“Oh, God.” Tabatha reached out, grabbing onto my arm. She just held onto me.
I turned, locking eyes with her. “He won’t touch you.”
“No.” Channing’s voice filled the room, firm and assertive. “He won’t. I’ve got guys and I’ve got connections. We’ll send teams out to start watching Harper’s goons. There’s only one team of guys he uses for jobs like this. We won’t let anything happen to you or your mom. You can hang up there, do whatever college kids do, and don’t get my sister in trouble. You hear me, Cross? That last one is for you. Bren doesn’t get arrested. It’s my rule. She goes to jail and I’m hunting your head.”
Cross flashed me a grin. “I got it.”
“Good. Okay. Bren, I’ll call later. You all just steer clear of Harper and wait until I let you know what’s happening on the adult end. Got me?”
Zellman asked, “Can we still hurt Junior?”
Cross shot him a look.
Zellman shrugged. “You know Jordan will go at him anyway.”
“I’m going to pretend I wasn’t asked that because I can never condone violence, not if I’m going to continue being an upstanding moral leader for my sister, who I don’t want arrested ever again.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Cross leaned forward to my phone, picking it up. “We got you.” He ended the call and looked at me. “We’re going to find Harper tonight. Put an end to that shit from our end.”
I could feel Tabatha trembling, still holding onto me, and a darkness was moving inside of me.
It was the old Bren. The one I stuffed down, the one I thought had gone away. She was still there, but it was as if she’d been sleeping all this time. Now she was waking, and she was smiling, stretching.
She was getting ready.
I smiled at my boyfriend. “Sounds good to me.”
BREN
I was sitting outside at the patio table, alone.
Everyone left. Jordan took Tabatha for a drive, but I was assuming both would be back to stay the night here. Zellman got a call from someone and took off for their house. He was now resorting to quick text updates with a random name like this last one.
Zellman: Headed to Biff’s. Back later.
Me: Who the hell is Biff?
Zellman never answered. Neither did Jordan, because Zellman’s text was to the whole crew. The back door opened a minute later. Cross came out, carrying his phone in one hand and a drink in the other. He paused as the door closed behind him and looked up from his phone and then at me.
“Who’s Biff?”
I sighed, slumping down in my chair. “Fuck’s sake. How are we supposed to go and get him if we don’t know who Biff is?”
Cross shrugged, coming over to put his drink down. His phone went into his back pocket. “You want a drink?”
Did I? “God, yes.” I was suddenly parched.
“Be right back.”
“Where’s your brother?”
He didn’t look back, just motioned toward the street. “He and Aspen took off when you came out here.”
Huh.
My phone rang.
Channing calling.
I hit accept. “Hey.”
“Do I need to be worried about you over there in Cain?”
There would’ve been a time I would’ve hated hearing those words from him, would’ve felt he hadn’t earned that right to be worried about me. Now I accepted them, welcomed them, cherished them. Warmth spread through me, and I smiled. “I’m good.”
He was silent a second. “Fuck. I’m still going to worry.” He groaned on his end. “Anyway, I am assuming one of those dipshits is going to move on Harper’s kid. Don’t confirm or deny. I don’t want to know, but I’m letting you know that I’m assuming it. We’ll plan for it.”
He was doing what he did, taking care of people. It wasn’t a role Channing asked for, but somehow he took it on, and now it was just his to own. Everyone in Roussou knew it, too.
He sighed into the phone. “We’re going to watch Harper here as much as we can, so get the word out to our usual people. If he dispatches his team and they’re heading to Cain, you might need to owe a favor to your team there.” He kept going, “I don’t know your team that well up there. Brock has a good rep. He’s solid. Was military. Hawk’s known, too. Gramps and Bonnie have been around forever, so their rep is nationally known.”
Right. Not my usual crew, but my job crew.
He continued, “They’re known as tight-knit. Mostly a family group. Gramps and Bonnie hooked up later in their lives, but still, they’ve been together probably twenty years. Bonbon is nuts, so stay away from her if you can. She’s Bonnie’s daughter, and rumor is that she’s obsessed with Shetland. You’re staying away from Shetland, right?”
“As much as I can.” He and I hadn’t discussed any of them, not to this length, at least.
The door opened again, and Cross came out. Blaise was behind him, a cocky smirk on his face, as usual.
Cross frowned at the phone, but placed my drink in front of me, taking the seat next to me. Blaise pulled out the chair on the far side, sitting down and immediately lounging back, throwing one arm over the back corner of his chair.
I noticed he didn’t have a drink, and there was a restless edge to him. He was staring at the phone, too.
‘Taking stock.’ That’s what Cross said his brother did, and I was seeing it now. The cocky smirk was a mask, but there was a serious air to him. His eyes flashed to mine, and for a second, he looked like he knew he was caught. Then his smirk came on full force and he didn’t move. He didn’t say a word, but I sensed him transforming. He was pulling back, the mask being pulled more firm, more set, and then it was only mask.
Huh.
“—they’re a family-type unit, but I’ll call Gramps. I need to come up, meet Brock face to face. He’s their leader. They can step in if we need it.” A beat passes. “Bren? You still there?”
“Yeah. Cross and his brother joined a minute ago.”
Another beat of silence, this one more pregnant. “Okay. I’ll call once I know more. Love you.”
“Love you.” I reached forward. Channing ended the call, but I tucked my phone into my pocket and lifted my chin toward Blaise. “Thought you left?”
“I did. Took Aspen home. Now I’m back.” He made a show of looking around. “It’s just the two of you?”
Cross narrowed his eyes, watching his brother with me.
Blaise’s gaze skirted between us before glancing to the driveway. “I’m noting a certain someone’s truck is gone.”
Cross and I shared a look.
Blaise was here for a reason.
Cross indicated him with his glass. “I wasn’t lying when I said I’d call you when we went to get Harper.”
“Bullshit.” It came out low and smooth, and Blaise didn’t lose an inch of his smirk. But he was calling his brother out.
Cross didn’t move. He was just like his brother, both were tense, both watc
hing the other warily, as if waiting for a mortal adversary to make the first move before launching the all-out attack. The air started sweltering around us. My own chest felt like it was deflating from the pressure.
Blaise moved, but only to sweep a hand around the area. “Your boy is gone. Your other boy is gone, too. I highly doubt both are off doing their own thing.”
“You’re insulting us.”
“And your boys aren’t including you because they don’t want me in the mix.”
“Jordan and Tabatha—”
“I got a call, too. Sweets was dropped off at her sorority house ten minutes ago—”
We jumped up.
Curses were said.
Keys were grabbed.
Yeah. We knew what that meant.
Jordan and Zellman were going after Harper without us, and they were probably doing it to ‘protect’ us.
“Fuck!” Cross only said that much as we were both running for his truck.
“No.” Blaise was right with us. “My Wagon is faster.”
Fuck, fuck, fuck, because he was right. His was faster.
Cursing, Cross darted in front of me.
Blaise went to the driver’s side. Cross was in the front passenger seat. I climbed into the back. We were peeling out of there in the next second. Blaise was grim, pushing buttons on his dashboard, and a second later, ringing sounded through the vehicle.
“Yo! My dude! Tell me you’re coming over. We’ve got some—”
Blaise swung a tight left.
I had to throw a hand out, catching myself.
Cross didn’t move a muscle.
“Zeke,” Blaise cut his best friend off.
“What?” The party mood was gone in an instant. There was sound on his end, conversations, laughter, music and it was fading fast. He was moving away from it. “What’s going on?”
Blaise took another right, this time his side wheels going over the pavement. But watching him, he was calm, deadly calm. So was his voice. “You need to tell me where Harper is, and you need to not tell anyone else that you told me. You hear me?”
Zeke was quiet a second, then cursed. “You shitting me?”
“Zeke.”
“He’s here.”
I waited, expecting Allen to ask why his best friend was asking for Harper’s whereabouts. He didn’t.
He did ask, “You need me to get him somewhere?”
It was slow, and I couldn’t see the full transformation from my seat, but I saw Blaise smile, and it was calculating, mixed with a certain amount of pride. “Yes, I do.”
“Zeke,” Cross spoke up.
“What the fuck?! Your fucking brother is there with you?” A pause. “Who else? His bitch, too?”
“Hey!” I surged forward.
Cross was ahead of me, clipping out, “You goddamn say one more word about Bren like that and you will find me standing over you in bed one night. It won’t be now. It won’t be tomorrow, but one night when you’re having a good time, when you’ve forgotten about this threat, you’ll go to sleep. You’ll wake up to go piss and I’ll be there. And I will make it so that you’ll be pissing through a bag for an entire month, if not longer.”
Shit.
A shiver went down my spine.
Cross leaned forward, closer to the dashboard, his voice dropping low. “Do you hear me?”
I loved my man, a whole lot right about now.
But Blaise was half-watching the road, half-watching his brother from the side of his eye, too. His hands were steady, hanging loosely on the steering wheel. I had a feeling he wasn’t loose at all. That’s when I knew that one day Blaise and I would have words. Cross was protecting me from Zeke. I would be protecting Cross from his brother.
As if sensing my thoughts, he stopped the car at a stoplight and glanced to where I was sitting. Seeing me studying him, he did a double take, then realization slid over him, and his eyes narrowed on me.
This whole thing was tricky. This thing being the different alliances, loyalties, relationships, those forced and those earned. Yeah. Tricky.
“Blaise.” From Zeke.
The light was still red, so Blaise’s eyes were still on me. “Yeah?”
“What. The. Fuck?”
Blaise’s eyes remained narrowed. “Pitts and Greenly are heading your way. My guess is that they’ll use Tabatha’s phone to get Harper out of there. Don’t let him leave.”
“What am I supposed to do? He hates me because of you.”
“Zeke!” Blaise whipped back to the front. The light turned green and he shot forward. “You will want us to get to Harper first, not them. Trust me.”
There was another beat of quiet before the call dropped.
Cross said, “He won’t help us.”
Blaise almost sounded bored, saying, “He’ll help us.” He flipped his turn signal on and took another sharp turn. He was driving fast, but not reckless. He was safe, and he was also driving roads I didn’t know about. Cross didn’t say anything, but he seemed in tune with his brother’s driving. Not me. I was holding on to keep from falling or slamming into the door.
Cross and Blaise sat almost like one person.
It would’ve been unsettling if I hadn’t been more amazed at it, but then we were going down a back alley. I recognized Zeke’s fraternity house. It was lit up. There was a fence, but you could see people walking around the backyard. The second floor had lights strung around the bannister. Almost every room was lit up as well, but when Blaise parked next to a back shed, he said, “Ironically, this is their study night.”
Then he was crossing the alley and going to an opening in the fence.
Cross stayed back, turning to me. “You stay here.” “What?”
He touched my stomach, holding me back. “I mean it. I’ll be safer going in with Blaise.”
“You’re drunk. That’s why you’re saying this.”
“No. If Jordan and Zellman show up, tell them to hang back.”
“You know they’ll be pissed, knowing we figured out they came here without us.”
“Cross!” A hiss from just inside the fence.
He began backing away from me, heading for Blaise. “Tell them. We’ll deal with that later.”
This wasn’t the first or second or even sixth time that I’d been kept out of the action lately. I was starting to get annoyed. The old Bren was getting annoyed, too, and that wasn’t good for anyone.
CROSS
“I swear to God, Blaise. If you—”
He glanced back, hissing. “Shut up.” A savage wave with the back of his hand and he was leading the way. He moved by the back of the fence, making his way to the house as if he’d done this a few times. He was keeping low and remaining cautious, but still moving at a good pace.
I’d forgotten how big their backyard was. For a frat, it was huge.
No one was back here.
Blaise stepped up on the back porch, but he didn’t go for the main door. He headed, instead, in the opposite direction. Suddenly, a big window popped open and Blaise hauled himself inside. I climbed through, noting afterwards that it was their back bathroom.
The door was open leading to another room, and I heard more hissing.
“This is not cool. You…I’ll do this shit for you. Your brother, no way. No the fuck way.”
“Calm down.” Blaise was placating Zeke.
“I mean it, Blaise.”
“Dude. You knew this night would come. What’s your issue?”
“My issue is that this flew with the house once and you had them by the balls. This time, it ain’t the same. Nothing’s the same. You’re going to ruin this for me.”
“Harper’s ruining this for you.”
“Me or him. Choose.”
I froze, just in the bathroom.
Blaise laughed that off. “You or Harper? That’s not even a question.”
There was movement, then more movement. I heard clothes being ruffled and a low, almost panting hoarse sound from Zeke, “You k
now who I’m talking about. Me or your brother.”
“Don’t.”
I held still.
The argument turned serious in the other room.
My brother continued in the same tense voice, “You put that shit on me. Fuck you. You’re choosing him over me. That’s the real fight here. You knew. You knew, Zeke! I told you this night would come. You asked me about it.”
“That was a month ago.”
“Tough shit. Who cares? This guy is bad for your entire house.”
“He’s a legacy. His dad. His grandfather. His uncles. Some cousins. I can’t kick him out.”
“Then you’re choosing. Me, I have no problem doing this alone. Look the other way, Zeke. Better yet, take off. Spend the night with some chick. She can vouch for you, say you were there all night.”
I waited.
There was no response.
A floor creaked.
The door opened silently, and in the dark, I could just make out my brother’s eyes.
Zeke was behind him, his head down, his hands on his hips.
He looked up, saw me, and cursed. His entire face twisted. “Fine. Fuck. Fuuuck, man.” He was cursing, but he was being quiet about it.
“Go. I know what room he’s in.”
Another glare at me, then Zeke grabbed his keys, wallet, phone, and he shouldered past me. He slipped out exactly how we’d come in. Blaise nodded toward the door. “We need to wait a little. You think Bren can hold off the other two while we’re in here?”
Of course, he heard me.
I wasn’t even pretending otherwise by now. I nodded. “Yeah. She’ll hold them off.” I eyed him. “You’ve done this before?”
I caught a flash of his teeth in the room. “Let’s just say I really hate this guy. And I’m hoping this permanently scars him.”
Another alarm sounded through me.
My brother was one scary guy. I was starting to wonder if I was better off as his brother, or worse off? Time would tell.
“Come on.” He started for the door, but it swung open.