21. Henry
twenty-one
Ipull the visor down to look in the mirror. The blood splatter isn’t that bad. At least there’s no arterial spray. It’s not as though I killed Louis. A little light torture, nothing more.
“That was a waste of time, but I can’t say it wasn’t fun,” Gabriel says.
I frown at my brother. “Torture isn’t fun. It’s something you do when it’s necessary.”
“Are you seriously telling me it didn’t feel good to hurt the man who hurt our sister?”
“That’s not why we did it.” Not that there turned out to be much more information to extract. The man had already confessed to several crimes before we even took him to the garden shed. The idiot was bragging.
“We should have let Dean have him,” Gabriel says.
“Dean might have killed him. His emotions were too involved. It’s never wise to do something like that because you want to vs. need to.”
I don’t pretend to myself that my soul isn’t painted with tar, but I have lines I don’t cross. That’s one of them. I let my emotions get in the way earlier when I considered murdering Jonny Lennox, but I don’t need to physically harm the man to make him live a life of regret.
Gabriel reaches into the backseat of my SUV and pulls a duffel forward to rest in his lap. Unzipping the bag, he sorts through the items and hands me a couple of baby wipes. I lift a sardonic eyebrow.
“Yeah, yeah. Obviously, you need a shower, but you can’t walk back in the house looking like that. What if one of Bronwyn’s friends is downstairs looking for a glass of water or Phee needed a bottle or something? You’d scare the girls.”
I don’t think Phee still drinks from baby bottles. She uses cups with spouts on them, but his point still stands. I snatch the wipes from his hand and clean my face. I should have taken the time to find a splash guard and gloves, but this was impromptu information collection, not planned. “Did I get it all?”
He pulls out another wipe and rubs vigorously at a place near my ear that I couldn’t see in the mirror. “Come here, little man. Let Mommy get you all cleaned up.”
I huff a laugh. For a moment, it feels like my brother is here.
He sobered up after dinner, for starters, which is rare lately. He tried to flirt with Sydney Walsh, and she told him the smell of alcohol made her want to vomit. Several of us heard the exchange. She wasn’t exactly subtle about it.
I don”t remember my biological mother. I was only two when she died of a drug overdose when Gabriel was only a few months old, but Dad has occasionally spoken of the sense of helplessness associated with watching another person spiral. I”m beginning to understand that feeling.
When Gabriel has downtime, he’s got a drink in his hand. Unfortunately, he has a lot of downtime. My brother is unraveling, and I can’t fix this for him. No matter how much I wish I could.
Lately, I miss my brother even when we’re in the same room. I don’t know if Gabriel is an alcoholic or not, but if he isn’t yet, he’s on his way.
I work on getting the blood off my hands as Gabriel pulls a clean black T-shirt from the bag.
“The shirt has to go. Your pants are fine until you shower,” he says.
I remove my bloodstained, white button-down, and he stuffs it, along with the wipes, into a plastic bag. I’ll burn the whole thing later.
I catch him glaring at the old scar on my abdomen before he shakes his head with a jerk and looks back down at his hands, clearing his throat. “How are things going with Franki?”
I pull the shirt over my head. “We’re getting married.”
“Just like that?”
“It has to be fast. I don’t have time for anything else.” Now that I think about it, I’m not sure she did agree. She said “okay,” but even at the time I wasn’t certain we were talking about the same thing. She enthusiastically backed me up with her father, but she may have thought I was lying to him to get him off her case.
He frowns. “I assumed you had feelings for her. If your real goal is to get your hands on MPD, then you need someone mercenary, not sweet. Choose someone prickly and capable of standing up to you, not someone who will roll over and give you everything you demand. It’s not a fair exchange. There’s no honor in it.”
I eye Gabriel speculatively then take a shot in the dark to see what happens. “You may have a point. I understand Sydney Walsh has some financial problems. She’d probably agree to be my wife, and she’s plenty prickly.”
Gabriel turns on me in fury. “Don’t touch Sydney. Don’t even talk to Sydney. Stay the fuck away from her—”
He clamps his mouth shut, and I affect a surprised tone. “Is that how it is?”
“Whatever you’re thinking, you’re wrong.”
“I’m thinking that in the future, if you put your arm around Franki and whisper in her ear again, I’ll have to encourage the single guys on the team to take a look Sydney’s way. I hear women are really fond of Ryan. Harris too. Sydney’s cute, if you go for the prickly type. I’m certain if I let the guys know that dating her isn’t a conflict of interest, they’ll be lining up to whisper in her ear,” I say silkily.
Gabriel’s jaw flexes tightly, then he smiles. “I was acting brotherly with Franki. Your jealousy is unfounded.”
“It wouldn’t bother you to see a man holding Sydney and whispering in her ear?”
He looks away, his muscles tight.
“How about I stay out of your love life, and you stay out of mine?” I offer.
Gabriel huffs. “I don’t have a love life, but even I know having a wife who can trust you is more important than whether you take control of one more damn company.”
“What would you know about it? Your life is one party after the other.”
He snorts. “You’re the golden boy. I’m the fuck u—”
“How do you afford your lifestyle? Who funds our missions? Who pays for our security? Who keeps our employees working with fair wages? Do you think I like working a hundred hours a week? Do you think I want to be the only person in this family who gives a shit about logistics? I studied physics and astronomy. I never wanted any of this. You’ve got an MBA and can’t be bothered to drag your ass out of bed until noon. Don’t leave me hanging by a fucking noose, then tell me you don’t like the way I’m dying.”
Gabriel goes utterly still.
I suck in a breath through my nose.
He shakes his head stiffly. “I didn’t know. I should have….I didn’t want to step on your toes.”
I scoff in disbelief, and he looks away.
“I didn’t want to disappoint you,” he says.
“I don’t understand that statement.”
“I’m the reason you were shot, Henry. You were protecting me from my own stupidity. I’m the fuck up, and you’re the one who saves everyone. I didn’t think you’d want my interference. You don’t trust me, and why would you?”
I stare at him, trying to understand. “We were children. The only person at fault for shooting me was the woman who did it. If I don’t trust you now, it’s because you’re rarely sober enough for me to rely on.”
He leans back against the headrest and stares out the front windshield at the clear night sky. He’s quiet for a long moment. Finally, he admits, “I fucked up. Sydney…knows things she shouldn’t.”
“You were drunk,” I say flatly.
“Yep.”
“Are we talking blackmail or is it worse than that?”
“Dad and I came up with a solution, but if she’d been a federal agent”—He closes his eyes—“I’m heading to rehab on Monday and getting my shit together.”
I do my best to hide my doubts. “Sounds good.”
“I’ll get this figured out, Henry.”
This time, my words are sincere. “You’re acknowledging there’s a problem. That’s the first step. You call me when you need me. I’ll be there,” I say.
“I will. I won’t let you down.”
“Don’t let yourself down.”
He opens his door. “You do the same. Find an answer for MPD that doesn’t involve screwing up the best thing that’s ever happened to you.”
I open my own door and speak over the hood of the car as he walks away. “I love her. Needing to marry her sooner, rather than later, doesn’t change that. She’ll understand.”
He turns back and shakes his head slowly. “I don’t know much about love, but I know a train wreck when I see it.”