Chapter 9 Brother’s Keeper
brOTHER'S KEEPER
Dawn broke grey and cold.
I hadn't slept. Neither had Axel, though he'd pretended to—lying still beside me, breath too even, muscles too tense. We'd both been waiting. For what, I didn't know.
Around six, he gave up the pretense. Pressed a kiss to my shoulder and slid out of bed.
"I need to brief Hawk," he said, pulling on jeans. "About the call. About your brother."
"I should be there."
"You will be. But let me prep them first." He crossed back to me, cupped my face in his hands.
"Phoenix doesn't trust outsiders, Kai. And a mysterious call from someone connected to you, right after we learn about FBI involvement?
" He shook his head. "I need to frame this carefully, or they'll see Tyler as a threat before he even arrives. "
"Do you think he’s a threat?" The question hung between us. Axel's grey eyes searched mine.
"I don't know," he admitted. "But I know you love him. So I'll give him a chance to explain himself before I make that call." He kissed me—soft, lingering—and left.
I showered. Dressed. Tried to eat the breakfast Maria pushed on me and managed maybe three bites before my stomach rebelled. The common room was quiet, the usual morning bustle muted by the tension that had seeped through the clubhouse overnight.
Everyone knew something was coming. They just didn't know what. Around noon, Axel found me in the gym, beating the hell out of a heavy bag.
"Hawk wants to see you. Church."
I followed him through the heavy wooden doors. The officers were assembled—Hawk at the head, Tank and Irish flanking, Blade near the window. Their faces were carefully neutral, but I could feel the suspicion in the room like humidity before a storm.
"Kai." Hawk gestured to a chair. "Sit. Tell us about your brother."
I told them everything. Growing up in foster care together. The way Tyler had protected me, trained me, made me promise to survive. How he'd gotten involved with something he wouldn't talk about. How he'd disappeared eight months ago without a word.
"And last night?" Hawk prompted.
"He called. Said don't trust anyone with a badge. Said he'd been trying to protect me." I swallowed. "Said he was coming here."
"Did he say how he knew where to find you?"
"No."
Hawk exchanged a look with Axel. Something passed between them—a silent conversation I couldn't read.
"Your brother's timing is... convenient," Hawk said slowly. "We learn about FBI protection for Devil's Dust, and hours later he calls warning you about badges?"
"I know how it looks."
"Do you?" Tank's voice was harder than I'd ever heard it. "Because from where I'm sitting, it looks like your brother might be the leak. Might be the one who's been feeding our movements to Viper."
"Tyler would never—"
"You haven't spoken to him in eight months." Irish, surprisingly gentle. "People change, Kai. Especially when money or power's involved."
I wanted to argue. Wanted to defend the brother who'd taught me to fight, who'd held me when I cried, who'd promised we'd always have each other's backs. But the truth was, I didn't know anymore. Didn't know who Tyler had become in the months since he'd vanished.
"When he gets here," Hawk said, "we'll have questions. Depending on his answers..." He spread his hands. "We'll see."
The meeting dissolved. I stayed in my chair, staring at the scarred table, until Axel's hand found my shoulder. "I'm sorry," he murmured.
"For what?"
"For the position you're in. Caught between your brother and your—" He stopped. "And us."
Your family, I thought. That's what you were going to say. "Whatever happens," I said, "I chose to be here. I chose you. That doesn't change." His hand tightened on my shoulder. But he didn't respond.
Maybe he didn't know what to say.
Tyler arrived at three in the afternoon.
I heard the bike first—a Harley, rumbling through the gates. Not the smooth purr of a well-maintained machine, but something rougher. Meaner. I moved to the window of the common room, and my heart stopped.
The man climbing off the bike looked like Tyler. Same height, same build, same dark hair I remembered. But everything else was wrong.
He was wearing a Devil's Dust cut.
The patch was right there on his back—the snarling demon, the flames, the insignia of everything Phoenix stood against. My brother, my family, wearing the colors of the enemy.
"No." The word came out strangled. "No, no, no—"
Axel was beside me in an instant. I felt his whole body go rigid as he took in the scene.
"Kai—"
"He's one of them." My voice didn't sound like mine. "He's been one of them this whole time. The disappearance, the silence—he wasn't protecting me, he was—" I couldn't finish. Couldn't breathe. The floor was tilting under my feet, and nothing made sense anymore.
Phoenix members materialized from everywhere. Tank, shotgun in hand. Irish, pistol drawn. Blade emerging from the garage with a wrench that could crack skulls. They formed a perimeter around Tyler, weapons raised, a wall of lethal intent.
Tyler raised his hands slowly. His eyes found me through the window, and I saw something there I didn't expect.
Anguish.
"I can explain," he called out. "Just give me five minutes."
"You've got thirty seconds before I put a hole in you." Tank's voice was ice. "Start talking."
"I'm undercover." Tyler kept his hands up, kept his voice steady. "FBI. I've been inside Devil's Dust for eight months, building a case against their federal protection."
"Bullshit." Irish spat on the ground. "Feds don't ride with trafficking MCs."
"This one does. Because the corruption goes all the way up, and I couldn't trust my own agency to investigate." Tyler's eyes found mine again. "Kai. I know how this looks. But everything I've done, I did to protect you. To protect people like you."
I was moving before I made the conscious decision. Out the door, across the gravel, until I was standing ten feet from the brother I hadn't seen in eight months.
He looked older. Harder. There were new lines around his eyes, and a scar on his jaw that hadn't been there before. But underneath the Devil's Dust cut, underneath the road-worn exhaustion, he was still Tyler.
"Prove it," I said. "Prove you're not one of them."
He reached slowly into his cut—Tank's shotgun tracked the movement—and pulled out a badge. FBI. The photo matched his face.
"I went under fourteen months ago," he said.
"Took me six months to get patched in, another eight to work my way close to Viper's inner circle.
I've got evidence of trafficking routes, money laundering, murder.
" His jaw tightened. "And I've got proof that a senior FBI agent has been protecting the whole operation. "
"Michelle Chen." Hawk's voice came from behind me. I hadn't heard him approach. "That's the name we've been given."
Tyler's expression flickered—surprise, then grudging respect.
"Your intel's good. Yeah. Special Agent Michelle Chen.
Twenty-year veteran, runs the organized crime task force in this district.
She's been taking Viper's money since I was still bouncing between foster homes—over a decade of protecting traffickers who prey on the same kids we used to be. "
"And you can prove this?"
"I can prove everything." Tyler lowered his hands slowly. "But I can't do it alone. Chen has people everywhere—local PD, federal prosecutors, maybe even judges. If I try to bring this through normal channels, it disappears. Along with me."
"So you came to an outlaw MC for help." Tank's voice dripped skepticism. "Forgive me if I don't buy it."
"I came because you're the only ones Chen can't reach." Tyler's eyes swept the assembled Phoenix members. "And because three days ago, I heard Slash bragging about the witness they've been hunting. The pretty nurse with purple hair who's been warming Reaper's bed."
The words hit me like a punch.
"He described you, Kai. In detail. The violet highlights, the jade pendant, the way you fight." Tyler's voice cracked. "And then he said Chen had authorized a kill order. Not capture—kill. You're not just a witness anymore. You're a loose end."
The world went very quiet.
Axel was suddenly there, his arm around my waist, holding me upright. I hadn't realized I was swaying.
"A kill order," Axel repeated. His voice was deadly calm—the kind of calm that preceded violence. "Federal authorization to murder a civilian."
"Chen's desperate. The trafficking operation is worth millions, and Kai can link Viper to the attacks on Phoenix.
If that connection gets made publicly, it threatens everything she's built.
" Tyler stepped closer, and this time no one stopped him.
"I broke cover because I couldn't let that happen.
Because I already lost one family, and I won't lose another. "
He was standing in front of me now. Close enough that I could see the fear he was trying to hide.
The guilt. "I'm sorry I disappeared." His voice dropped, meant only for me.
"I'm sorry I left you alone. I thought keeping you in the dark would keep you safe, and I was wrong.
" His hand came up, hovered near my face without touching. "I was so fucking wrong, Kai."
I moved first.
Grabbed him, pulled him into a hug so tight my arms ached.
He went rigid for a moment—surprised, maybe, or overwhelmed—and then he broke.
His arms came around me, and I felt him shaking.
"I thought you were dead," I whispered into his shoulder.
"Or worse. I thought you'd left because you didn't care anymore. "
"Never." His voice was thick. "I never stopped caring. I never stopped watching. Why do you think Devil's Dust couldn't find you for three days after that first night? I was feeding them false leads, sending them in circles. Buying you time."
I pulled back, stared at him. "That was you?"