Chapter 24
N ash
Blake and Theo’s mom, Ella, was talking so fast that I couldn’t even keep up with what she was signing, but Theo seemed to understand.
Ethan laid his hand on his wife’s shoulder.
May I? He signed.
She made a growl noise at us before throwing her hands in the air. “Yes, but I am not done.
It took a lot for Ella to get angry and this was the most furious I’d ever seen her. She marched across the room and sat down.
“Start at the beginning,” Ethan said.
Theo spoke and signed at the same time. “We found out a few days after school started that Blake was using, and we confronted him. I told him that I was going to tell both of you, but he begged me not to and said he wouldn’t touch anything again ever again.”
And you believed him?
“Mom, I didn’t want to break his trust, and you know that he’s always so hard on himself. I genuinely thought he would quit,” Theo said.
Where did that get us? Your brother almost died, and… . Ella covered her mouth as tears filled her eyes.
“This is my fault,” I said and stood up from the chair. “I should’ve insisted that the two of you were looped in.” I stepped forward ready for whatever punishment they wanted to dole out. “If you’re going to blame anyone, then blame me.”
“No one is trying to place blame, Nash. But this is our son, and we need to know what’s going on with him.
” Ethan looked frazzled as he ran his hand through his hair, which didn’t match his usually neat demeanor.
“I just can’t believe we didn’t notice anything, that I didn’t know my son was drifting so far away from us.
I didn’t suspect anything when Blake was home. ”
I shrugged. “I wish I had answers, but I don’t really know anything. He refused to talk to me,” I said.
“I know,” Myles said, and we all looked at him.
“Some of it, anyway. He opened up to me and said he started using last year because his anxiety had gotten bad. That he’d been struggling before that but was able to keep it in check.
That he only intended to use as needed but that turned into daily.
He also mentioned not feeling like he could ever stack up to ya, Theo.
” Myles rubbed at his eyes. “I shoulda seen this comin’. ”
“He doesn’t need to compete against me. I don’t get it,” Theo said. Liam laid his hand on his shoulder. It was rare to see them show any affection in public. Even now, Liam looked more like he was supporting a friend than a lover, but we all knew that they’d been casually dating for over a year.
Ethan grabbed the decanter off the cart in the corner and poured himself something to drink before returning to us. “Where did he get the coke?”
“Tonight?”
“No. Initially….” I swallowed and looked at the other guys. I could either trust Ethan or continue to lie to him. The only choice was to listen to my gut.
“Will this conversation stay inside these walls?”
“Yes.”
“My father and Owen can never hear about this or we will end up with a bullet in our heads,” I said, and Ethan’s brows furrowed as he stared at me. It was a moment of truth.
“Yes, I agree. This is a safe space,” Ethan said and took a sip of his drink.
Fuck.
“It was ours. We’ve been undercutting The Order and stealing the customers.”
Ethan rubbed at his chin. “So, you’re the ones causing our sales to dip?”
“Yeah.”
“And where are you getting it from?”
I rubbed the back of my neck. “The Order.”
Ethan snorted. “Stealing from us and undercutting us with our product? Smart, but your father will catch on. He has three private investigators hired and has Morrison doing double duty to find the culprits.”
“I guess that means he doesn’t suspect me yet and I’ve been able to stay in front of him,” I said, feeling like I needed to defend us.
“For now. Look, I’m not an idiot. I know you want to find a way to usurp your father, and don’t kid yourself.
He knows it, too. Lawrence is a complicated man.
On the one hand, he sees your independence and backbone as a sign of strength.
He admires that in his son, but he’s also ready with a stake to shove through your heart if you get out of line. ”
I swallowed hard. Didn’t that sum up my life in a fucking nutshell? Ethan sat down and looked around the room. “I’ll assume that you’re all in on this?”
“Yeah, we are,” Theo answered, and Ethan nodded.
“I don’t like that you kept this from us. We are not your enemy.” Theo looked down, and I regretted not telling Ethan sooner.
It could still blow up in our faces, but maybe his help would’ve put us further ahead. I couldn’t go back in time, but it made me wonder about Liam’s father, Emmet, and if he should be the next to be read in.
“I’ll be honest. I’d prefer it if you were running things, Nash. But you need more experience in all areas. From the boardroom, right down to the streets because right now, all you are doing is using a pin to prick the ass of a grizzly.”
I sucked in a deep breath as my ego took a left jab and a right hook. “Then what should we be doing?”
“That is a conversation I will happily have with you another night.” He took another sip of his drink. “For now, I want to know how our product got tampered with?”
“He didn’t take ours,” I said. “There was only one of our guys at the party, and he wouldn’t have sold to Blake. I made it known that I’m the only one of us who can buy. It’s been that way since day one.”
Ethan pinched the bridge of his nose. “So, what you’re saying is it could’ve been a lot worse.”
“Yeah.”
“Mom, I’m sorry,” Theo said, as the tears Ella had been holding back began to fall.
Ethan walked over and started rubbing Ella’s shoulder.
I’d watched them and the love they shared for years, wondering what it would’ve been like to live in a home like this.
My parents concerned about what happened to me.
What would it be like to wake up to a Sunday morning breakfast instead of slinking around the house, praying not to be seen?
I’d gotten a taste when I’d stay over for a weekend, but it made going home to my reality so much worse. So I stopped.
Theo, you and Blake and your father are my whole world.
The thought of anything happening to any of you…
don’t lie to me again, Theo. Don’t hold back.
I would rather know everything, and yes, I might be angry, but I will always love you and your brother.
Promise me that you won’t ice your father or me out again.
“I promise. We’ve wanted to bring you in on everything for a long time,” Theo said.
“I’ll assume you didn’t come to us for fear of our allegiance to your father,” Ethan said.
I nodded. “We really need to talk, but I think you need to curb your expectations of taking over right now. None of the other families are going to follow an eighteen-year-old who is wet behind the ears. You would need major alliances to support you.”
I didn’t feel eighteen. Everything I’d been through, the terror I’d lived with, made it seem so much longer.
“What is the plan with Blake,” Myles asked.
As we started to come up with a feasible way to keep Blake safe and my father in the dark, my mind drifted to Ren lying upstairs. The way she’d jumped over my legs and taken over the situation, ordering everyone around….
Blake was lucky. We all were. I looked up at the ceiling and then wiped away the thoughts that were trying to take shape before focusing on Ethan.
B lake
What have I done?
I was propped up on my pillows, not sitting or lying down, but somewhere awkward in between. Rambo ran on his little wheel, booking it like he had places to go, while it hurt me to take anything more than short, breaths. The pain I felt didn’t stem from my cracked ribs. It ended there.
Muffled, raised voices floated up the stairs, and I knew it was about me and what to do with me. If my parents didn’t ship me off to a rehab center, I’d be shocked, but them finding out and even being forced to leave wasn’t what hurt me to the core of my soul.
A tear leaked down from my eye. I knew shit was going wrong. I could feel that something wasn’t right. All I could think about as my chest tightened was that I wanted to see Ren. As she looked up at me, the sheer terror in her eyes broke me. I knew I was done. I’d fucked up and for good this time.
Worse was opening my eyes, realizing what was happening as the paramedics looked me over, and then seeing Ren being treated as well.
They called it microdose exposure from giving me CPR.
She was going to be okay, but that wasn’t the point.
How far had I fallen that my brother started carrying around Narcan?
And if Ren hadn’t known what to do…and I put her at risk…
fuck. If God wanted to give me a wake-up call, he didn’t need to punch me in the face.
Gritting my teeth, I slowly inched closer to the side of the bed. Who would’ve thought having a large bed would be a problem? But right about now, a single would’ve been a fuck-load better. The effort to move and yet not move too much made my chest hurt more.
Bracing myself for the pain, I got my legs over the side of the bed and stood.
I didn’t scream, which was a win, but a part of me wanted and felt I deserved the punishment.
Shuffling like I’d turned eighty overnight, I made it out to the hall and leaned against the wall to rest. I needed to find Ren.
I heard my father tell Myles to put her in the spare bedroom, but we had eight of the fucking things.
Luckily, she was lying on the bed of the first room I came to. My chest throbbed, looking at her. This wasn’t fair. There was no way to wrap my head around what I was feeling. It was too much and all over the place, but what I did know was that I needed to be near her.