Even though he’d never admit it, I knew he was scarred from it in ways I could never comprehend.
Ian’s eyes glinted, my brother rocking back in his massive chair like he owned the goddamned world. “No need to get all up in arms. Talking about myself, brother.”
Sighing, I scrubbed a palm at my face. “Don’t do that, Ian.”
“What, tell the truth? There’s no bullshit between us, remember? You, me, and Mack—we tell it straight, and I’m telling you right now that you’re getting yourself involved in something you aren’t going to be able to dig yourself out of.”
“She’s worth it.”
“Or maybe you’re worth it. Maybe it’s time you came back here where you belong.”
“You know better than that.”
“Do I? You were always different with her. Changing your tune, singing a different song from the one you’d been singing to me since I was a little kid.”
But that was the way it’d always been with Faith, hadn’t it? She’d always made me feel like I was two different people.
A fucking king in pauper’s clothes.
Like her touch could calm the beast that raged inside me. Quiet the storm that had roiled and thrashed and threatened to take us out.
Or maybe when I’d been around her, I’d become an entirely different person altogether.
A better person.
That was what had gotten us here to begin with. My dragging her into our sordid world when I’d known better all along.
After everything, there was no chance I could sit back in Atlanta, where I’d built something for myself, putting my brother through school.
The one thing he’d ever wanted was to be an attorney.
Watching him attain it had felt like my own victory.
After everything, seeing him survive was the only thing that had mattered.
Ian sat forward in his chair, both elbows on the desk, drink held between his fingers, swinging back and forth like a well bucket. The etched glass caught the glittering rays of light that filtered in through the window from over his shoulder.
“I know you want to take care of her, Jace, but we all know you’re asking for trouble.”
There had always been something about Faith that had set Ian on edge, like he was fearful of losing me if I gave myself to her.
In the end, I guessed it was a worry that hadn’t been that far off base.
Dark laughter rumbled free. “Haven’t I always asked for trouble?”
“Yeah. And every single time it was for the sake of someone else. You’ve always stepped into the middle of things to take care of some leech who didn’t appreciate you. Who didn’t have the first clue as to what you were actually sacrificing for them. When are you going to start watching out for yourself?”
My face pinched in anger. “You think Faith would actually take advantage of me?”
Ian sighed. “Not what I said, and you know it. Only leeches I was talking about were me and that piece of shit who has you in deep again. Asshole just keeps taking, even from the grave. How many times did you get yourself into hot water doing something for him? For me? And Faith is neck deep in that mess. You get any closer, and she’s going to drown you.”
His head angled to the side, like he actually thought he might be able to talk me into walking away from her.
From him.
Like I’d ever take back the things I’d sacrificed for both of them.
“I’m your older brother. You were mine to look out for.”
A hot puff of hatred spouted from his nose before he drained the rest of the whiskey from the glass. His voice was twisted in hostility as he slammed it back down onto the wood.
“No . . . that pathetic bitch who was supposed to be our mother was supposed to look out for me. For us. And instead of getting to be a kid, you basically had to spend your days wiping my nose and making sure I didn’t fucking starve.”
Uneasiness moved through me. That was the thing about Ian. He’d been pissed growing up.
Mean. Miserable. Nasty.
Lashing out at the cruelty of the world every chance he got.
He was still a vicious fucker. There was a darkness inside him that scared me sometimes. Made me worry that, one day, he would take his bitterness too far.
But with me? He didn’t hesitate to lay it out. Make himself vulnerable by admitting the position we’d been in.
“You think I regret taking care of you? You’re my brother. I love you. Simple as that.”
Concern blazed in the depths of his eyes just as a taunt slid off his tongue. “So, does that mean you still love her, then?”
Emotion gripped me in all the wrong places. My damned heart threatening to beat out of my chest. It made me want to do a little of that lashing out.
But I’d gotten him mixed up in this, I couldn’t very well get pissed that he had questions about my intentions.
“Would like to know the answer to that myself,” Mack added, fingers tugging at his jeans, directing all that pent-up, radiating fury at the fabric.
I was supposed to be able to handle coming back here.
I thought I had it all under control.
A plan.
But finding her standing on her porch in the middle of the night had made it hard to think of any other reason than her.
Loving her.
Holding her.
Protecting her.
The girl was so goddamned perfect, it had nearly made me forget why I was there in the first place.
Beauty.
That was what she was.
Soft and sweet. So pretty and fierce in her stoic, wistful way. Like she could take on an army just standing there with the wind whipping through her hair.
She was the one who’d filled me with the belief that I could change my world.
She’d made me believe in something bigger. In something better.
Hadn’t mattered what I’d started to believe. I’d ended up in the same place anyway.
Without her.
Fucking destroyed.
It’d been a tough lesson for a lovesick, teenaged kid to learn.
How to protect himself.
How to build up the steel bars necessary to make it through this tortuous life.
How to keep the assholes waiting around every corner from eating him alive.
But sometimes I wondered if I would have ever found the determination to build the empire I had without the memory of her words.
Without the way she’d looked at me like I was something different from what the rest of the world had seen.
I’d left here this wrecked, battered kid, crushed in a way I’d never expected, and somehow, I’d found the grit to push through and to take my little brother with me.
Like somewhere inside me, I knew how much it fucking mattered.
Maybe I’d just wanted to prove to all the pricks around here that they were wrong.
Or fuck . . . maybe I’d wanted to prove to her that she was right.
I took a steeling gulp of the liquid fire, eye trained on the floor in front of me, voice grating over the words. “Will always love her. Doesn’t change anything though, now, does it?”
“Seems to me that everything has changed,” Ian said, rocking back in his chair, eyeing me from across the expanse of his massive desk.
The guy was so intimidating and successful, that just sitting there, looking at how he oozed power, I couldn’t help but feel fucking proud.
Fucking proud that he’d made it. That we’d run it together and survived. Didn’t mean I didn’t still worry.
For his heart and his spirit.
The guy so damned cold I was wondering when he’d finally freeze everyone out.
“Won’t touch her, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“No?” Ian challenged.
“No way in hell.”
It didn’t matter how much I might want to.
Twisted humor snaked its way across Ian’s face. “What? You have some kind of moral dilemma now?”
“What . . . like her being our dead cousin’s widow? Is that the moral dilemma you’re talking about?” I bit out, anger and revulsion pulsing through my veins.
“Funny how Joseph didn’t have a problem climbing into her bed after you’d been there.”
I fisted my hand on my thigh, trying to keep my cool. Knowing this was just Ian’s way.