by A. J. Downey
Table of Contents
Prologue
A Brother’s Secret
Publishing
Book Design
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Six weeks later
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Also by A.J. Downey
About the Author
SHMC
A Brother’s Secret
A.J. Downey
Contents
A Brother’s Secret
Publishing
Book Design
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Six weeks later
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Also by A.J. Downey
About the Author
SHMC
A Brother’s Secret
The Sacred Brotherhood Book V
by A. J. Downey
Second Circle Press
Published 2017 by Second Circle Press
Text Copyright © 2017 A.J. Downey
All Rights Reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by an electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner and are not to be construed as real except where noted and authorized. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or actual events are entirely coincidental. Any trademarks, service marks, product names, or names featured are assumed to be the property of their respective owner, and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if any of these terms are used.
The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
Edited by Barbara J. Bailey
Book design by Maggie Kern
Cover art by Dar Albert at Wicked Smart Designs
To Josh. You’re an inspiration. Thanks for not giving up.
Prologue
Data…
The sunlight coming through the treetops dappled the field but I was fixated on her… She was my best friend and I loved her from the very bottom of my seventeen-year-old heart. She laughed and I was struck by how it lit her whole being up from the inside out. The high, crystal sound drifted over the wavering green grass we were hiding from our responsibilities in.
I smiled; I couldn’t help it when she laughed like that. She rolled her head to look at me and her dark eyes sparkled where they were rimmed in kohl. The heavy eyeliner made them seem larger than life the way she did it, the smoky shadow and her black clothing out of sorts with the surrounding bright scenery.
“I can’t believe you sometimes,” she said, smiling. A wisp of her dark hair was stirred by the breeze and lashed her cheek. She reached up and chased it away with her fingertips, and I fought every screaming fiber of my being not to lean in and kiss her.
I was afraid.
Afraid things would change.
Afraid that if I gave in to my desire to make Amalia mine, that we would go on for a bit and then come crashing down. That our friendship would be ruined. That life would never be the same…
So I hadn’t in real life. I’d just committed every curve, every highlight given by the sun, every dappled shadow across her smooth, café au lait skin, to memory.
Except this wasn’t real life, this was a dream… and my dream-self gave into the urge, leaning forward, the moment drawn out, second by second, inch by excruciatingly-slow inch, like every movie you’d ever seen. The anticipation, holding your breath, wanting it to happen, the sweet, sweet ache of it as we each drew closer, eyes closing…
Just before our lips touched, the dream shattered as an alarm blared, but not the alarm I had set up to warn of danger to the club – no, this was a different alarm: the alarm. This alarm, I had been waiting to hear for seventeen years.
I sat bolt upright out of bed, the grating sound of a nuclear reactor in emergency meltdown painting the air with urgency even as the door to my room slammed open, crashing back against the wall as Trigger stood in the doorway yelling, “Data, what is it!? What’s going on?”
“Something!” I yelled back over the noise, and then I lied to my brother and it left a metallic tang of bitterness across my tongue. “I don’t know what, yet!”
That lie, that tiny white lie, was to protect my secret, a secret I’d held since before joining the club. I felt a hot rush of shame as I ducked past the big man and strode past Dragon, standing bleary-eyed outside his clubroom door. It was two in the morning by the digital display in my command room. I slid through the sliding glass door and flipped a switch and the noise cut out.
I dropped into my desk’s chair, swiped the mouse’s trackball and punched in the complicated sixteen letter, number, and symbol password to wake the banks of monitors up. There it was, larger than life on a subreddit forum. Buried in the deep web, where only my programs and proxies would find it…
Layd33_B0ner:
Does anyone remember Amalia Rose?
I read it over and over just to make sure I wasn’t seeing things. I could feel Trigger and Dragon both at my back and anxiety seized my heart, which was slamming itself against the inside of my ribs.
“I do, baby… now, where are you? I’m coming to get you…” I whispered to myself as I let my fingers do the walking. I slammed my way through virtual back doors, tracked electronic signatures like a fucking bloodhound and felt a grim determination take over when I realized I wasn’t back here looking for her alone.
“And who might you be?” I asked no one in particular.
It became a race, I couldn’t shut the other seeker down and neither could he shut me out. It was a question of tracking the IP of that lone message faster than the other and shutting it t
he fuck down before the next guy got it. It was ugly, but I got it – the problem was I couldn’t tell if the other guy had gotten it, too.
Still, there it was:
Lexi Duran
14820 SW 51st St
Unit A
Indigo City, MD 21601
“I have to go,” I said and turned around to look Dragon in the eye. “It’s important.”
“Slow down, now. What’s going on?” he asked.
“Can I tell you while I pack?”
“Sure.”
I nodded and got up, and started explaining while on the move. The guys didn’t interrupt. They just listened, and I needed that. I really did.
My mouth moved, telling them what they needed to hear, filling them in about the situation all the while my brain kept repeating the solemn vow, “I’m coming to get you, Mali. I’ve finally found you, and I’m coming to get you.”
1
Amalia…
I knew what I’d done by posting that. I also knew that the message had been received when it disappeared. It was deleted from the thread almost as soon as I had posted it. Now, a day later, I was waiting for them.
I stared at my dad’s shiny, nickel-plated revolver on my crappy 70’s mint-green Formica table and wished he were still here. My heart ached. He’d passed last week from liver failure. He’d been pickling himself in alcohol since the night his seventeen-year-old daughter had turned into a killer to save him. The guilt of it was an overwhelming thing, even though it hadn’t changed him one bit. He’d been a grifter and a cheat his whole life, even right up until the bitter end.
After that night, we’d gone into hiding immediately, leaving everyone and everything we’d ever held dear behind… well, that I had ever held dear. He didn’t give a fuck about anybody but himself, as was evidenced by the fact that I still didn’t know the why of any of it. Now my dad was gone, my old life was long gone, and I just didn’t have the will to do any of it anymore. So I’d posted, and now I waited. The Colt .45 on the table was there because even though I’d given up, it didn’t mean I was ready to go down without some kind of a fight.
It wasn’t in the cards. That had never been in the cards.
I closed my eyes and tried to decide if I were really as in tune with dying as I thought I was. I mean, I knew I was leading them right here, but if I were so ready to die, why did I have a messenger bag slung across my back with my most prized possessions? All my sketchbooks, my tarot cards, and a few of my other favorite things. It was heavy, but not awfully so, but it seriously made me wonder… why sit here loaded for bear? What made me think me and six shots could stand a chance against the men coming for me?
The answer was, I didn’t. The answer was that I knew I’d sealed my fate and that it was only a matter of time, but the answer also was that I was angry, and fuck them, and I would go down swinging because that was the daughter my father had raised me to be. It was probably the only good quality I’d picked up from him.
He’d fought hard his whole life, in his own way, and had died broken, and I couldn’t say I would ever forgive him for that. Mostly because I was tired of the life and left with no one who knew or understood, and it just sucked so hard. This wasn’t the first time I had been impulsive and changed the trajectory of my life so suddenly and so drastically, but it was a more than fifty-fifty shot that this would be the last time I would do it.
I watched the rain streak the kitchen window of the old brownstone and a shadow move past it. I swallowed hard, and put my hand on the Colt, thumbing back the hammer even though I didn’t need to. My fingers curled around the grip, index slipping inside the trigger guard to caress the trigger itself as I slowly pushed back from the table.
The men that should be coming weren’t exactly in the habit of knocking. Still, I couldn’t tell if this was a ruse to lull me into a false sense of security or something else entirely. I got up and let my Doc Martens carry me across the cracked and chipped linoleum floor that was probably older than the shitty table I’d been sitting at.
I yanked open the door and leveled the gun at the man’s face. His hands went up along with his eyebrows and without any preamble, he said, “Mali, get your shit, we have to go.”
I blinked, my jaw dropping open as I squeaked out in disbelief, “Kyle?”
“Mali, I mean it – we have to go,” he said stepping past me into the kitchen. He went to the table and closed the lid on my laptop, yanking the cord from the wall and winding it around his fist.
I’d shut the door and went down the impressive line of locks flipping toggles and sliding chains demanding, “Where the fuck did you come from?”
“Home, which is right back where we’re going, we can talk about all this later – we have three minutes. Turn around.” I stared at him and he barked insistently, “Turn around!” which was quite the departure from the adorable nerd boy I knew in high school. So shocked, so startled by the fact that Kyle Cochran, my best friend from over seventeen years ago was really here, I swiftly turned around. He ripped open the sturdy Velcro holding my thick, vinyl messenger bag closed and shoved the laptop and cord into its gaping maw alongside the neatly stashed sketchbooks and graphite drawing pencils.
We both froze at the heavy footfalls on the wooden steps. My kitchen was at the back of the brownstone. A set of wooden steps leading to a small deck. Kyle and I exchanged a look. His liquid brown eyes which had once been so warm were cool and appraising as they whipped over my face. I could see the calculations going on behind his gaze and he produced a black gun from the back of his waistband, a long, slender finger from his opposite hand pressing to his lips. He ushered me behind him and told me, “Head for the basement.”
“Are you serious?” I whispered harshly.
“Mali…” his voice was low, concentrated, and bordering on impatient. I scoffed and tugged on the hem of his black leather biker jacket, which worked for him as much now as it had when we were teens, by the way.
He stepped back, amazingly silent on his heavy black motorcycle boots. I opened up the door leading down to the divided basement and laundry room and he waved at me to go down before him. I heard the crash of glass and the hollow rattling roll of a can. A hissing filled my kitchen and he leaped onto the steps and slammed the door behind him.
“Down, down, down! Go, go, go!” His words were cried insistently but he still managed to keep his voice low. I went down the steps lightly in my knee-high laced Doc Marten’s and he clattered down the rough wood risers right behind me as windows and doors crashed in above us. He pulled me over to a wall with an old bookcase against it and said, “Help me move this!”
“What?”
“Move it, Mali! Move it now!” I helped. The thing was massive, old, and the planks thick. We shoved and pulled and it moved grudgingly across the cracked cement floor.
“How did you know this was here?” I demanded at the sight of the door hidden behind it.
“Downloaded the place’s blueprints and schematics from the city assessor’s office. Go.”
I went, having to force myself through the narrow gap we’d made, my messenger bag sticking. I managed to unstick myself and push through and Kyle was right on my heels as the basement door from my brownstone’s side of things exploded inward. Kyle shoved me aside and went straight across the basement to a grate in the floor.
“Come on!” It was already moved aside and I lifted my messenger bag over my head and dropped it in, leaping down after it. He fired off two shots above my head and I clapped my hands over my ears. He dropped down beside me and pulled the grate back over our heads, dropping it into place. He shoved me ahead of him and I went, lifting my bag back over my head.
“Should have packed lighter,” he grunted and led me down a twist in the low tunnel.
“Yeah, well, you know I’m a girl – vag and all. How did you find this?”
“I have my ways. Figured you knew about it, that it was why you picked this place. Knew you were running, sorry it took so long fo
r me to catch up.”
“My dad picked this place and I think he took this secret to the grave like so many others, damn him.”
“Shit. Sorry he’s gone,” he grunted and went for a ladder and climbed it. He threw open a trap door and stuck his head through and checked. Satisfied, he leaned down with a hand out and lifted my bag. I let him take it. He shoved it through.
“I’m not,” I said, after snorting derisively. He looked at me with surprise so I added, “Suppose you want an explanation.”
“Later, right now I want us alive and out of the city. We need to go to ground and find a place to regroup.”
He heaved himself out of the trap door and reached down for me and lifted me cleanly through. Kyle wasn’t the sixteen-year-old lean and wimpy kid I remembered. He’d filled out by quite a bit in the last seventeen years.
I helped him shut the trap door and to move several heavy crates of what looked like liquor over it to hold it down.
“What now?” I asked, taking my bag and lifting it back over my head, settling its weight on my shoulder and guiding the thick padded strap between my breasts. The adrenaline was still surging through my veins and I could feel every throb of my heartbeat in my head and the side of my neck. Kyle held his gun low against the side of his leg and thrust his chin at mine in my hand.