Chapter Eleven
Jude
I waited until she was back inside the cabin before I moved away and pulled out my phone.
“What’s wrong?” my brother asked.
“Did you know Irene was here?”
“What? No, I didn’t.” He paused, and I waited. He was working something out in his head, and if I interrupted him, I’d never hear the end of it. “How long has she been here?”
“Since she disappeared from the hospital.”
“Did you talk to her?” he growled.
“I fucking had to. She was running,” I explained. “She’s in a cabin on a ranch with Banshee.”
The asshole didn’t deserve her. He’d had his chance, and he didn’t take it.
“She needs to stay there.”
“I know; I told her that.”
“Will she stay?”
I looked back at the cabin. The light was on, which meant Banshee was awake. “I’ll make sure she stays.”
“Will she tell him?” my brother asked.
“No. She understands the need to stay quiet.”
I’d talked to her before I sent her back inside.
“How are you here? You died.”
“Nah, just let them think they got me. It’ll take more than that to take me out. What are you doing out here?”
Her eyes dropped to the ground. “I need to leave. I can’t keep putting people in danger.”
“You can’t run, Irene.”
“It’s Aspen now. Irene is dead.”
“Aspen. That’s pretty.” I stepped closer and brought my hand up to her face. “Hey, you’re safe here.”
“Do they know?” she asked.
She stepped back, and I let my hand fall. I should have stepped up. I should have offered to marry her when the asshole inside the cabin said no.
“No. No one knows. And you can’t tell them.”
“Are you in danger?”
“Not as long as I stay dead.”
“Must be nice,” she muttered.
“Your death would start a war, babe.”
She looked up at me, her eyes filled with defeat. “I know. It’s why I wouldn’t let the people who helped me escape from the hospital, fake my death. I’d thought about it though. I couldn’t do that to my mother.”
“You’re not selfish.” I looked over my shoulder. “Not like that asshole in there.”
“He’s not an asshole.”
That was when I heard it. The wistful tone of her voice, the tiny sparkle in her eye that shone like a star in the sky. She was in love with him. I wondered if she always had been.
“I need you to stay here. Stay hidden just a little longer.”
She huffed out a sigh, and I smiled. She’d always been so full of sass. Then one day it was just gone. Then she was gone.
“Please.”
“If he finds me—”
“I won’t let him find you.” I put a finger under her chin and lifted her face. I stepped closer and dipped my head to look into her eyes. God, I wanted to kiss her. But she wasn’t mine. She never would be.
Dead men didn’t get their happy ever after.
“Go back inside before he comes out looking for you.”
She wrapped her arms around my waist and hugged me. I took advantage of having her in my arms just this once and kissed the top of her head.
“I’m glad you’re not dead,” she whispered and then disappeared inside.
“Hey, jackass, are you listening to me?”
“No, I tune you out when you drone on. I know what the fuck I’m doing. She’ll stay put; you don’t have to worry about that. And she won’t tell anyone. Not even the asshole she’s shacked up with.”
My brother was quiet. He knew how I felt about the Silver Shadows. Knew I didn’t trust them.
“Did you find her yet?” I asked, changing the subject.
“No, but I’m close. I just need a little more time.”
“Don’t trust that son of a bitch who’s helping you.”
“You worried about me, baby brother?”
“You died once already, asshole. Don’t want you dying again.”
“Back at you, baby brother.”
The world should have known by now that it wasn’t easy to kill the bastard sons of a cult leader.
We might not have God on our side... but then again, maybe we did.
We’d both almost died. It was a miracle we both survived.
Maybe that was a gift from God, because neither Justin nor I ever gave in to the shit our father spewed.
A true man of God wouldn’t be spreading his seed all over the country. There was no telling how many other children our father might have spawned. The only reason Justin and I knew each other was because our mothers were sisters.
I smiled in the darkness; he’d always called me baby brother. When we were kids, it was little brother. Until I grew bigger than him. He wasn’t a slouch by any means, but he spent more time behind a computer than he did in the gym.
“Just be careful and take everything he says with a grain of salt.”
“Listen, Sinclair’s an asshole, no doubt about that. But he’s got his reasons.”
“Fuck his reasons. He doesn’t get to be a dick because he’s looking for his kid. You gonna give that bitch a pass because her kids were stolen from her?”
“It’s not the same fucking thing, Jude.”
Now it was Jude. He only ever called me Jude when he was mad. “I’m just saying, losing a kid doesn’t give you the right to play with people’s lives. If he’d spoken up back then, we wouldn’t be dealing with this shit.”
“I know,” he sighed. “But we can’t change the past.”
He was right. We couldn’t change the past. If we could... I looked back in the direction of the cabin. The horizon was dark, the cabin no longer in sight. If I could change the past, I’d go back and claim Irene.
Stop her from being hurt. By her father, by Banshee, and by the motherfucker who beat the shit out of her.
His day was coming.
“I have to go.”
“Don’t do it.”
I hated that he was still able to read my mind. He knew me better than anyone else. Justin wasn’t just my brother. He was my best fucking friend. The only person in this world I trusted completely.
“I’m just going to look around.”
“You get caught, and you’re on your own. I have too much shit to do to come rescue your ass.”
“Bullshit. You’d drop everything if I needed you.”
He blew out a breath rather than respond because he knew I was right. Just as I would drop everything for him. And I did the day Reaper sunk his blades into his chest. It’d taken months for him to heal, and months before he was back to his old self.
“Don’t worry, big brother. They haven’t caught me yet.”