Chapter 21
When in doubt, look intelligent.
— Keely to Copper
KEELY
I was tired of sitting on my ass.
Or my ass was tired of me sitting on it.
Either way, I got up and stretched, hating the way that my power suit felt like it was suffocating me.
“ Where are you going?” Copper asked in amusement.
I looked over at him and elaborated, “ I was going to see if there was anything to eat in the breakroom.”
“ The only food in the breakroom is other people’s,” he pointed out.
“ So …” I trailed off.
He grinned and stood up. “ Come on, let’s go to the hospital.”
“ What ?” I asked.
He threw his arm around my shoulder and replied, “ Chevy’s at work today, and I know there’s a pretty good little coffee shop in there that has excellent pastries. And it’s only a few blocks away.”
It was true.
Castanon Enterprises was fairly centrally located.
It was fifteen minutes away from the lake where my brothers lived. A five-minute walk from the hospital. A ten-minute walk to my—now Copper’s —apartment. And a two-minute walk to the Krispy Kreme on the corner.
Originally , they’d found this building because I was supposed to be working at the hospital with Chevy , and it was closer to everyone. But then I’d quit and went to work at the sleep center that was well over twenty-five minutes away.
“ You just want to see the cute patient care tech that Chevy was talking about yesterday.” I laughed.
“ I want to see her because she intrigues him,” Copper pointed out. “ Chevy doesn’t get intrigued often, you know.”
That was true.
It took a lot to get Chevy’s attention.
But that was likely his genius coming out.
Chevy was the hardest brother I had.
Not because he was a bad brother, but because he was just so smart that it was hard to relate to him sometimes. Plus , he couldn’t understand when you didn’t get something that he could. It was highly frustrating to him that we weren’t on his level, and sometimes he couldn’t see past the gap in our intelligences.
Chevy was a great brother.
Truly , he was.
But Chevy was also socially challenged on top of everything else.
Needless to say, Chevy even mentioning this girl was enough to intrigue all of us.
I couldn’t blame Copper for wanting to go visit.
“ Sounds like a plan,” I said as I grabbed my purse and phone.
I glanced at the phone, frowning slightly when I realized that it’d been a while since I’d gotten a text from Dima .
He’d said he wasn’t too busy today and would catch up with me around lunch.
Granted , it was only ten, but I would’ve thought I’d hear from him by now…
“ You’re a little bit obsessed,” Copper teased as we got into the elevator.
I shrugged. “ Is that a bad thing?”
He shook his head. “ No .”
We rode down the elevator in silence, and I couldn’t stop myself from pulling my phone out and sending a text.
Me :
Hey , what are you doing?
Since I wasn’t expecting an immediate reply, I shoved my phone back into my purse.
When we rounded the building, I asked, “ How are you doing really, Copper ?”
He looked down at me, then back ahead before saying, “ Are you asking me how I’m coping not being in a prison?”
“ Yes ,” I answered. “ Though , I wasn’t trying to announce to the whole world you were in prison.”
He shrugged. “ I was.”
“ Copper …” I grumbled.
His lips tipped up. “ Surprisingly well.”
I bumped him, which caused him to laugh.
“ I’m doing good, sister,” he said softly. “ I thought it would be harder than it was, but I think that it’s because I have y’all as a support system.” He hesitated. “ I don’t think that I ever expected to get out and have money, though.”
I rolled my eyes. “ What , you thought we’d all spend our money while you were in there and not have your back?”
“ I wouldn’t blame you,” he admitted.
I pulled him to a stop with a hand to his sleeve and yanked his shirt at the collar, causing him to bend toward me.
“ I don’t blame you for anything,” I whispered harshly. “ I blame myself.”
His eyes widened. “ What ? Why ?”
“ Because what he was doing to me was the reason you had to go to prison in the first place,” I pointed out. “ If he hadn’t been hurting me, you wouldn’t have reacted like you did. And I wouldn’t have stolen fifteen years of your life!”
He wrapped me up in his arms so tightly that I couldn’t breathe and lifted me off my feet.
“ I would go to prison for life to stop him from hurting you ever again,” he whispered fiercely. “ I love you.”
Tears burned my eyes and I closed them to keep them from falling.
I swallowed hard past the lump in my throat and said, “ I never wanted you to go, though. I needed you with me.”
He smoothed a hand over my hair and said, “ It’s okay now.”
It wasn’t, but if he wanted to pretend, I would, too.
I let my head fall onto his solid shoulder and said, “ I’m sorry I wouldn’t visit you for the last few years.”
“ I’m sorry that I didn’t take that guy out with a shiv so that you could visit me again,” he drawled.
I snickered into his neck. “ I’m glad you’re home, Copper .”
He set me on my feet and curled a crazy curl around his finger. “ I’m glad that I am, too. Even more glad that you’re helping me whip CE into shape.”
I grimaced, which caused him to laugh.
He threw his arm over my shoulder and started guiding me toward the hospital.
“ What do you think about Cutter’s wife?” he asked conversationally. “ She seems solid.”
Gah , my brother the protector. Oh , how I’d missed him.
I caught his arm with mine, something I used to do all the time when I was younger, and practically hugged it to my body. It forced him to move closer to me, but he didn’t ask me to stop. Which I was grateful for, because I’d missed being affectionate with Copper .
Hugging him in prison was a no-no, and though I’d tried almost every time I’d gone to see him, a guard always stopped me.
“ She’s a good woman,” I admitted. “ I like her a whole lot.”
We talked about nothing and everything as we made our way up to the hospital floor that we knew Chevy to be on, based on the location of his phone.
When we arrived on the surgical floor, I turned the phone that had his location pulled up and said, “ That way.”
We walked until the ping location ran into a closed and locked door that said ‘physician sleeping quarters.’
I sighed and turned around, looking for a friendly face.
I found her at the back of the nurses’ station that was almost directly across from where we were standing.
“ Be right back,” I said as I crossed to the woman.
Val , one of my friends I’d made while a student nurse, was studying a computer screen in front of her.
Her husband was also a doctor at this hospital, and both of them were so nice that I adored them.
Years ago, Val’s husband, Felix , had been stabbed in the hospital corridor right outside the emergency room, and a shit storm of epic proportions had ensued.
I’d been a nursing student at the time and had been scared out of my mind that day because Val had asked me to help her save a man’s life that’d just been complicit in stabbing her husband in the chest. An injured man that was later found out to be one of Maven’s brothers-in-law, an undercover cop.
Needless to say, Val and I had formed a trauma bond together.
That day was also the day that I’d decided that I didn’t want to ever be a nurse.
I’d been six months out from my graduation to get my bachelor’s degree in nursing when I’d made the decision.
I’d practically forced myself to finish school, and Val had helped me cope along the way.
“ Val !” I called out happily.
I didn’t see her very often because she was so dang busy. She had a plethora of kids all in sports, and worked full-time as a doctor. She didn’t have the time to hang out, and I hated coming to the hospital. So we barely ever saw each other.
But we’d never forget that particular day that I’d helped her save a police officer’s life.
Val turned and a smile lit up her face. “ Rose !”
I giggled.
When I’d first gone to nursing school, I’d been determined to never, ever let anyone know my real name. Announcing that it was ‘ Tequila ’ always raised questions and I detested my name.
When my parents had decided on a name for all of us, I had no clue what they’d been thinking.
Mom had a love for the rodeo, and when she’d been pregnant, she’d watched 8 Seconds on repeat because she adored Lane Frost and everything he represented. That’d led her down a rabbit hole. Per my parents’ agreement, Mom named all the boys, and Dad got to name the girl.
Mom gave all the boys pretty cool names, albeit a little bit odd since we were so far removed from anything resembling a rodeo life. Meanwhile , when Dad got to name me, Mom and Dad had been in a very bad place.
According to my brothers, Dad had hated Mom by that point, and the only reason he still ‘tolerated’ her was because if they divorced, half the company would go to her.
Needless to say, when I came along, Dad had named me after something that he felt would be a big ‘fuck you’ to our mother.
Mom had rolled with it, and she’d been the one to start calling me Keely .
“ Keely ,” I reminded her.
She winked. “ I know. But to me, you’ll always be my Rose .”
I’d gone by the name Rose for four years, so I’d still answer to it, even though I’d grown up a little bit since that day we’d trauma bonded together.
From then on, I’d never gone by Rose again, and my nursing friends had gone with it.
Val , however, was the lone holdout.
“ I was wondering if you could open the doctor’s sleeping lounge for me. I wanted to go scare the shit out of my brother,” I teased.
Her eyes twinkled as she got up and walked to the door.
Val smiled at Copper , who nodded back at her in greeting.
“ Just don’t tell him I’m the one that let y’all in,” she whispered as she ran her badge to open the door.
Copper caught the door and quietly pushed it open.
And , as if we were on the same page like we were when we were teens, Copper and I both took a running start toward the bed that was in the corner of the room.
A masculine curse, followed by a panicked squeak of surprise from a female throat, had both Copper and I pulling back.
A light switched on, and suddenly I was losing all the color in my face.
“ Chevy ,” I breathed. “ What the fuck are you thinking?”
Copper didn’t say anything to the woman that he was straddling, most likely because he couldn’t form words.
“ Shit ,” Chevy said. “ Copper …”
But Copper was up and moving out of the room in the next breath.
Chevy cursed and pulled away, practically throwing me to the floor in his haste to get to our brother.
I stood up on shaky legs when I saw Reign Lake staring at me with shocked eyes.
Her eyes were bloodshot, and her face was ashen.
“ Was that Copper ?” she asked breathily.
I swallowed hard. “ Yep .”
“ Fuck ,” she breathed as she scrambled up.
I noticed that she was in hospital scrubs that were two sizes too small for her, as she made her way to her shoes in the corner of the room.
Her shoes, however, were what caught my attention.
They were covered in what looked like rusty red…
“ Is that blood?” I asked.
Reign’s shoulders drooped. “ Yeah .”
“ What’s going on, Reign ?” I pushed.
She swallowed hard and stared at her shoes for a long moment before she said, “ I was in a car accident.”
“ What happened?” I asked just as the door to the lounge opened back up and Chevy came back inside.
I looked from Chevy to Reign , back to Chevy .
“ Explain ,” I snapped at the two of them.
I didn’t care that Reign was in an accident. What I cared about was how my brother was looking at the woman that I would’ve sworn on my life would’ve ended up with Copper .
“ Shit .” Chevy ran his hands over his face. “ It’s …”
“ Complicated ,” Reign finished.
I looked from her to Chevy and said, “ We just got him back, Chevy .”
Chevy looked sick. “ I know.”
“ Fix it,” I said. Then I turned to Reign and said, “ Copper officially just moved into your building.”
Oh , and you’re about to start working for us…
She deflated. “ Fuck .”
I turned to Chevy .
“ Don’t be stupid, Chevy . If this is what you want, fine. But don’t be fuckin’ stupid.” I gathered my shoe that’d fallen off, slipped it onto my foot, and walked out.
I walked straight to the place we’d been intending to go eat at and purchased some pastries, then I made my way back to the office.
I found Copper in his office, staring at the wall.
“ I loved her with my whole heart,” he said. “ Still do…”
I placed the pastries on the desk in front of him and said, “ You need to talk to Chevy .”
“ If I talk to Chevy right now, I might hurt him, and he doesn’t deserve that,” he confessed.
“ Then what are you going to do?” I asked.
“ I don’t know.”
I left him alone after that, reaching for my phone the minute I left his office.
I called Dima since I still hadn’t heard from him, and a strange man answered the phone.
“ Hello ?” the older man answered.
I frowned, then immediately got defensive. “ Um , what’s going on? This is my husband’s phone.”
“ Do you mean boyfriend?” He chuckled. “ So it went like this…”