7. Brother Code
Chapter seven
Brother Code
Atticus POV
I get him into the hallway before it becomes a scene.
Not by much.
The door swings shut behind us and I can still hear Delia pivoting at the podium, reframing Mason's interruption as a surprise cameo, her voice smooth and unbothered through the wall. She's good at that. Turning wreckage into content.
Mason doesn't say anything right away.
He stands with his back against the cinderblock, arms crossed, and looks at me the way he's looked at me since we were kids. Like he's already done the math and is waiting to see if I'll lie about it.
I don't.
"She came to me," I say. "I didn't go looking for this."
"I know." His voice is flat. "That's not the part I'm upset about."
The thing about Mason is he's never been afraid of me. Most people are, a little. The size of me, the way I go quiet when I'm angry instead of loud. It works on most people. Mason just looks at me and waits.
"Then say the part you're upset about."
"She gave up her whole morning today." He says it like it's already evidence. "Left the bar in the middle of prep because Delia's assistant called and told her the car was downstairs. No heads-up. No real choice. Just your schedule now." He pauses. "That's how it starts."
"It's not—"
"She built that bar herself." His voice doesn't rise.
That's the Knox thing, both of us. We don't raise our voices when it matters.
"After everything she went through to get out from under people who made decisions for her, she built something that was completely hers.
No one tells her when to show up or when to leave or how to smile for a room.
" He looks at me hard. "You understand what you're asking her to hand over? "
I do. That's the part that sits wrong in my chest if I let myself think about it.
"She agreed to this."
"Did she?" His eyes don't move. "Or did she agree because the alternative was worse and you were the only option in the room?"
I don't have a clean answer for that. He knows it.
"You used her." He says it quiet, which is how he says the things that stick.
"You needed a face beside you that reads good and clean and people like, and you picked hers.
You didn't ask what it would cost her. You didn't think about what it means for her to stand next to a headline every day when she's spent years making sure her name stays small and safe.
" He stops. "You just claimed her. Same way Dad used to claim people.
Decided they were his to protect, his to manage, his to position wherever it was most useful to him.
Called it love. Called it loyalty. Never once asked what they wanted.
" His voice drops. "You remember how that felt from the inside. "
I do. I remember it exactly.
I go still.
He watches that land. He knows it lands.
There's a version of me that defends myself here.
Points out that I drove to her apartment to cut her loose before any of this started.
That I sat in a parking lot for forty minutes watching a man watch her building because something felt wrong and I wasn't willing to leave until it wasn't. That I told Delia no, twice, before circumstances made no impossible.
I don't say any of it.
Because he's also right. And the part of me that's been my father's son longer than I've been trying not to be knows exactly which version Mason is seeing right now.
"She's scared," I say instead. "Of something that has nothing to do with me or the team. The arrangement protects her while we handle it. That's the whole story I can give you right now."
"Can't or won't?"
"Can't." I hold his eyes. "It's not mine to tell."
Something moves behind Mason's eyes. He's processing. He processes fast, always has. It's the Knox thing, the rapid-fire assessment. But where I go cold, he goes hurt. And hurt Mason is harder to read than angry Mason.
"She never told me she was scared," he says. Quieter now. More to himself than to me.
"No."
"She tells me everything."
"Not this."
He looks away. Down the hall, toward nothing. He presses a fist briefly to his chest like something there needs holding down.
That's the part that costs him the most, I think. Not that she's standing next to me on a podium. Not the cameras or the PR arrangement or even the risk to her reputation. It's that she carried something heavy enough to need protection and she went sideways instead of to him.
I know better than to point that out.
"She's my best friend," he says finally. Not accusing. Just reminding me of the weight of it.
"I know."
"She moved to this city with nothing. She worked doubles for two years to save the down payment on that bar. She doesn't date hockey players because she watched what it did to..." He stops. Shakes his head. Doesn't finish the sentence.
He doesn't have to.
I've seen Sienna Hart run a room full of men twice her size and never once look like she needed saving. I've also seen her go very still when someone stands too close. I know the difference between those two things and I know which one I want to make sure she never has to use around me.
"I won't make her collateral," I say.
"You're already making her collateral. The question is whether you blow it up afterward.
" He pushes off the wall. Rolls his neck once.
"She gave up her privacy today. Her name.
Her face. Things she kept private for a reason I'm guessing you know and I don't." His eyes come back to mine.
"Whatever she's running from, you better make sure you're the wall between her and it. Not another thing she has to run from."
"That's the plan."
"Plans change."
"Mine don't."
He looks at me for a long moment. The hallway is fluorescent and ugly and someone is laughing inside the press room and it feels like the wrong soundtrack for this.
"Once," he says. His voice comes out rough at the edges. "I'm giving you one warning. She ends up hurt, I end up knowing it was you, and brother or not—" He stops. Starts again. "We clear?"
"We're clear."
He holds my gaze another three seconds. Then he pushes off the wall and walks back toward the press room without looking back.
I stand in the hallway and breathe.
He's right about the part he doesn't know. He's right about the part he does. He's right about all of it, and I have no defense worth making, and that's fine. I'm not looking to win the argument.
I'm looking to keep the promise.
My phone buzzes. Email from Delia's assistant, sent four minutes ago. Subject line: Updated Travel Itinerary — PLEASE REVIEW.
I open it.
Effective immediately, Sienna Hart joins the Tridents organization as official Team Hospitality Liaison. Role includes all road travel, sponsor events, and media appearances per attached schedule.
Road trip departure: tomorrow, 7:00 a.m.
Note: Suite assignments attached. Ms. Hart has been notified.
I read it twice.
She's been notified.
I stand in the hallway and think about Sienna Hart in her kitchen this morning. Coffee she'd already stopped tasting. Phone face-down on the counter. Spine completely straight.
The way she said five minutes like she was doing me a favor by listening.
The way she signed the agreement anyway.
Tomorrow. Seven a.m.
I put my phone in my pocket and go back inside.