Chapter 2
DEX
I left my apartment hours ago, losing myself in the gym until my arms and legs were cramping from exertion, and my t-shirt was soaked with sweat. I’d tried to exhaust my body and mind, tried to throw off my sullen attitude and utter boredom with life in general.
Lexi would have helped. And I could have called her even now but phone sex isn’t really my thing. I’m more of a physical guy.
Our friends with benefits arrangement worked fine when she was here, but she took off a few months ago to work in Spain as a nanny and she’s not planning on coming back for a while.
I haven’t met anyone since she left. No one who would be worth hooking up with. It feels like too much effort.
But after sweating out my ennui, I step out of the gym, still feeling restless, and decide to go upstairs to the penthouse, to Jett’s place. I’ve got something on my mind, business, mostly, but I also just want a distraction. When I knock on Jett’s door, Cari opens it.
“Oh. Hey,” I say, surprised.
She’s always here. Feels like she spends more time at Jett’s place than her own. Not that I hate her. I don’t. But I do want my brother back. Before I can say anything else, my little niece runs toward me.
“Uncle Dex!” she squeals, before wrinkling up her nose. “You’re smelly!”
I scoop her up and cuddle her. “That’s because I’ve been working out at the gym, and now you’re going to be smelly, too, princess,” I tease, sniffing the air.
She giggles as I set her down. I glance at Cari. “Hey, Cari. How’s it going? You opened your new flower shop yet?” She quit as Jett’s assistant, and is now opening her own small flower shop inside a café.
“I’m still finishing off a few things. I’m opening next week.”
“Good luck.”
“Thank you.”
Before I can ask for Jett, he steps into the living room, looking half-distracted. He’s dressed casually but sharp. Obviously going somewhere.
“You’re dressed up,” I state.
“Hey,” he drawls, buttoning his cuffs. “We’re going to see Brooke’s school play.”
“Why don’t you come along?” Cari offers, her tone teasing.
“I’d rather scrape my nails along a blackboard.” I flash Brooke a smile. “What are you this time, sweetie? A chicken or some other farmyard animal?”
“I’m singing,” she says, shyly.
“She’s got a great voice.” Jett says with pride. There’s a warmth in his expression that wasn’t there a year ago. He’s happy. Stupidly, annoyingly ecstatically so. I’m happy for him, but right now, I just want to grab a few beers with my brother. I need to talk and find a way to distract myself from this feeling of restlessness that I can’t seem to shake.
I glance at the time. The night is young. I’ve still got a few more calls to make. “You guys look busy, so I’ll get out of your way.”
“You sure?” Jett asks. “Stay. Have a drink.”
“I was thinking of heading to a bar.”
“Can’t tonight.” Jett studies me. “Something bugging you?”
“Nope. Work is work.” I shrug. “Lexi’s still away. My evenings are mostly always free. Just wanted to see if you wanted to grab a drink.”
“Sorry, maybe another time.”
“It’s cool. Enjoy the play,” I tell him, but honestly, I feel worse now than when I first walked in. Jett playing happy family and exuding happiness leaves me feeling melancholy, and I can’t explain why. I’m over the moon for Jett. If anyone needed to find happiness, it was him. Losing his wife like he did, and having to bring up Brooke, has been hard.
Feeling agitated with the mundanity of it all, I call my youngest brother as I leave, needing to hear a familiar voice. He picks up on the third ring, and I can tell from the noise in the background that he’s outside somewhere.
“Hey, where are you?” I ask.
Zach laughs. “Nowhere you’d want to be.”
Now I definitely don’t want to know. “I called to see if you wanted to grab a couple of beers.”
“You called Jett first, didn’t you?”
I grin. “No.”
“I bet you did.” Zach knows I would. He feels left out, but he shouldn’t. I love him just as much as I love my older brother. Feels like I can talk to Jett more, though, about life stuff.
“Alright, fine. I did. You busy?”
“Got my hands full at the moment.”
“Understood.” I don’t want details. Zach is a bit of a ladies man. But then, we all are. Even the Italian Knights, given some of the stories I hear from Rio.
Zach pauses. “You good?”
“Yeah,” I say, even though I feel like I’m wasting my damn night. “Catch you later.”
I hang up, exhaling. Both of my brothers have a life. They have things to do. I go back to my apartment, get dressed, and step outside. There’s a sharp bite in the November air. Too cold to wander around, but I’m too restless to stay in. I still need a drink. I need to let off some steam after today’s meeting with all of us, and our father. That old man has been pissing me off lately.
I pull out my phone and make a call. “You in?”
Rio answers straightaway. “Yeah. What’s up?”
“Wondered if you might want to grab a few beers. At The Oasis?” A stylish rooftop terrace in Manhattan, that’s been around for almost a decade. It’s become our regular haunt. Where none of the others hang out.
A beat of silence. He sounds tired. “You wanna come over to mine instead?”
“Sure.”
A few minutes later, I drive across town to SoHo where the Italian Knights live, my half-brothers. The secret family my father had when he cheated on my mom. The secret which drove her to her death when she found out.
But it was really me that put the nail in her coffin. It’s a burden which weighs on me. A burden I try to forget by having fun with women like Lexi.
I knock on Rio’s door and he answers in an instant, already holding a beer. “Hey, dude. Come in.”
We’re just a short drive away in Tribeca. It’s done by choice, not theirs, not ours, but the old man’s.
Like us, the Italian Knights also have a luxury four story building. Rio, like Jett, gets the penthouse, because he’s the oldest in his set of brothers. The guy’s got a rooftop pool and garden.
I step inside the penthouse, which I’ve visited more times this last year than in all the time we’ve known each other. He’s been over to my place a few times, and so far, we haven’t been caught, by either sets of brothers.
It’s a crazy situation, to have to hide the fact that my half-brother and I get on, but I have a sneaky feeling, Rio does too, that the old man likes this setup. He has us attending those painful Knight family dinners every so often, but we believe he likes keeping us divided, with just a thin veil of unity. A unity that’s needed for the Knight empire to continue its global domination. With six sons, the old man’s legacy is assured, and by encouraging our division, he’s safe in knowing we’ll never unite and take him on together.
Except that Rio and I got talking about a year ago. We were going down the elevator after attending one of the Knight family dinners, and by the time we descended to the base, we were talking like we’d been friends for years.
Brothers, more like it, because that’s what we are.
We discovered then that we’re more alike than not. People have commented that we look alike, except that my hair is short, if a little longer on top, while Rio’s hair is longer, his skin more olive toned. I’d say my hair is dark brown, but his is a shade darker. He sometimes sweeps it back, and other times he just parts it down the middle, and it hangs, like he’s a modern-day saint, albeit a brooding one.
Now that a few people have commented on it, I can see the resemblance. We do look alike, more than we don’t. We’re also quite similar. Neither of us like authority. We don’t like suits. We both have attitude and we can’t stand the old man. That’s what we call him, too.
“You hungry? We can order in,” Rio suggests, sitting down. He’s wearing jeans and a T-shirt, like I am.
“Yeah, sure. Jett’s busy with his whole domestic life thing.”
Rio snorts. “Cari’s a regular now at his place, huh?”
“Dude’s practically married,” I say. “I’m happy for him, but it’s impossible to get him out for drinks.”
“You have to be happy when people find love.”
I shoot him a look. “Since when did you turn sentimental?”
Rio just shrugs. I take a beer from his refrigerator and take a seat in one of his big comfortable couches. He sits across from me.
“How far down the list was I?” he asks, sitting back, beer bottle in hand.
“What list?”
“The list of people you called before me.”
I laugh. “Relax, brother. You were top of the list.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He doesn’t believe me, and he knows me well enough to know that he shouldn’t.
“Lexi and I barely text anymore, and I’m not in the mood for dealing with a stranger at a bar tonight.”
Rio assesses me carefully. “You sound lonely, dude.”
I shrug. “Bored, more like.”
“You need to get out there and find someone new,” he suggests.
I roll my eyes and take another sip of beer. But before I can respond, something catches my eye. Something sitting on Rio’s fireplace.
A photo, of a woman. Framed like it belongs there. Like it’s important. I freeze. The image is familiar. Too familiar. I get up, walk over, and pick it up by the edges. “What the fuck is this doing here?” I growl because I know exactly who it is.
Rio scrubs a hand down his face. “Shit.”
I turn the photo around, studying it. “This has been sitting here for months ?” This is the photo the old man had at the last family dinner.
“I should’ve put it away,” Rio mutters.
I look at him, then back at the picture.
The heiress. She’s standing outside, near a huge bouquet of flowers. Looks like the backdrop to a fancy event. Head tipped back, she’s laughing, and not looking at the camera either, like she doesn’t even know someone’s taking a photo.
Whoever took it caught a moment, and caught her. The very essence of her. She’s beautiful. Full mouth, pouty lips. Bright green eyes framed by thick lashes. Thick defined eyebrows, too. She’s impossibly stunning, now that I find myself staring at her for longer than is normal. Her hair is medium brown, long and luscious. Loose curls, running riot down her shoulders. She has high cheekbones. Of course she would. A perfect nose, too.
Of course.
And she wanted to marry Jett. Have a marriage of convenience. I find it suspicious why someone who looks like her would want to be a part of that. It also disgusts me and makes me wonder what her real motive is.
“Is this your shrine to her?” I look at him in disbelief. The dude looks something I’ve never seen him look before— agitated .
Rio exhales slowly, eyes flicking to the photo. “She’s gorgeous, right?”
I let out a dry laugh. “No argument there, but you don’t even know her.”
“Do we ever really know anyone?” he counters. “You go to a bar, meet someone, it’s all based on looks anyway.”
I narrow my eyes. “So what, now you’re obsessed with some woman you’ve never met?”
“It’s not like that,” he snaps.
“Really? What conclusion do you expect me to draw from this?” I thought Rio was way cooler than that. This is odd and confusing. I’ve seen this guy in action and he doesn’t go crazy over a woman. As far as he’s concerned, it’s easy come, easy go.
He scrubs his hand over his jaw. “I borrowed it, and I meant to put it back at the next family dinner.”
He stole it from my father’s penthouse. What the hell was he thinking?
“You borrowed it? Also, you think the old man hasn’t noticed it’s missing?” I snap. I know exactly when he took it. It was that time our father told us about the deal with the Brazilian heiress, when he expected Jett to agree to the alliance between the two families, but instead my headstrong brother turned up with his assistant, Cari, and declared his love for her in front of us all. “It was that dinner,” I state, my mind whirring with the possibilities of what this could mean because this behavior is out of character for Rio, and now I’m starting to get worried.
“I doubt he’s missed it,” Rio retorts.
“Why do you have this, brother?”
“Why not?” He takes a big swig from his beer bottle, and I note that he hasn’t answered my question.
“Are you seriously considering this?” I’m fearful of his answer, of the expression on Rio’s face. This guy looks like he’s seriously considering the marriage deal. I think it’s a sick idea that only someone like the old man could come up with. “What type of woman would agree to an arranged marriage?” I ask when he doesn’t answer. “What type of guy would agree to this?”
“Your brother was going to do it,” Rio pushes back.
I’ve spoken to Jett about this, and he never would have. “He was never going to. The old man thought it would be a good idea, and he tried to get into Jett’s head, by telling him that Brooke needed a mother, and Jett needed a wife, but you should know by now that neither me nor Jett would ever willingly adjust our lives to fit in with something the old man dictates. I can’t vouch for Zach, but that guy’s always had a soft spot for the old man. Me and Jett, not so much. As for you …” I point at Rio with the photo. “This is the last thing I expected from you, brother.”
Rio looks away, and I probe deeper. “What’s going on? Something you want to talk about.”
All I wanted was an evening chilling and hanging out, taking it easy. Not some existential angst situation.
“You still getting over the breakup?” I prompt. He was serious about someone, and they broke up a while back. He’s not like me. He doesn’t do hookups or casual relationships. This guy wants something deeper. Meaningful. I guess in that respect we’re different.
“That’s over. Forgotten,” he says, with a finality in his tone that tells me not to pursue the matter.
“Okay. And this …” I hold up the photo. “What about this, brother?”
“She’s gorgeous.”
“She’s not bad,” I agree. This woman has movie star looks, for sure, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that photo has been touched up, just like in celebrity magazines. She can’t be that beautiful. Because, now that I find myself staring at the photo with a little more concentration, she’s really pretty. “But looks aren’t everything.”
My heart sinks looking at Rio’s face. I never had him down for being such a soft guy, not with that dark and dangerous persona he’s always projecting. “If you’re obsessed with her, why don’t you just go for it?”
“What?”
“Marry her. Agree to marry her.”
“Thought the old man said the deal’s fallen through.”
“With Jett,” I point out. “But he hasn’t said anything more.”
“It’s been a few months. Maybe she got another offer?” Rio asks, and the fact that he’s asking, suggests that maybe he’s been thinking about it.
“If you want her, go for it. Do something , instead of sitting here worshipping this picture.”
“I’m not worshiping that picture,” he snaps. “I just took the photo and I was hoping to put it back at the next family dinner.”
“But you’ve been thinking about her?” I nod at the photo. Rio doesn’t answer. But the look in his eyes tells me everything.