Chapter 21
MICAH
Ireached for Joy as she moved toward the bathroom, my hand catching her hip, pulling her back against me.
"Stay," I murmured against her neck. "Just a little longer."
She laughed softly, turning in my arms to face me. "I can't. There's a lot of work left to do."
"Work can wait."
"No," she said, not unkindly. Her hands pressed against my chest—not pushing away, just grounding. "It really can't. But later."
Later.
The word should've been enough. A promise. A bridge to cross when the time came.
Instead, it landed hollow.
I let her go, watching as she gathered her things, kissed me once more—quick, sweet, final—and slipped out the door with a reminder that I should pick up pastries from the bakery below her condo for a taste test.
The door clicked shut.
And I was alone.
Again.
I stood there for a moment, staring at the space she'd just occupied, and felt the emptiness rush back in like water filling a hull.
It wasn't her fault.
She had a business. Responsibilities. A life that existed outside of this room, outside of me.
But even in the short time she'd been gone earlier—meeting with Portia, handling logistics I didn't fully understand—I'd had too much time to think.
About my father.
About the woman who'd walked into Joy's shop and asked questions she had no right to ask.
About my mother, who'd held our family together with sheer will and love, and how I'd failed her by not being enough to keep the darkness at bay after Dad left.
All of it.
Every buried thought, every piece of unprocessed grief, every jagged edge I'd spent years smoothing over with violence and distance and the cold comfort of being alone.
It was all threatening to take me down.
And the only thing that fixed any of it—the only thing that quieted the roar in my head—was drowning myself in her.
In Joy.
In the way her body fit against mine. In the sounds she made. In the way she looked at me like I wasn't broken beyond repair.
But she was gone now.
And I was left with myself.
I thought about following her. Showing up at the shop, standing in the corner like some kind of guard dog, making sure nothing and no one got close enough to threaten her.
But that was insane.
Possessive in a way that crossed lines I didn't have the right to cross.
She wasn't mine to cage. She was mine to—
I stopped the thought before it could finish.
Because I didn't know what she was to me yet. Or what I was to her.
I pulled out my phone and checked the hours at the bakery. Open until five. Three blocks away. Easy walk.
Fine.
I could do that.
I got dressed and headed out the door, telling myself I wasn't running. Just ... moving. Keeping busy. Doing something normal for once.
I hadn't made it a block when I saw them.
Six figures stepping out onto the sidewalk ahead of me, moving in a way that was too coordinated to be random. Too familiar.
My brain registered them before my body could react.
Caleb. Jacob. Ethan. Lucas. Gideon. Levi.
My brothers.
All six of them.
I stopped dead, rooted to the spot like I'd been hit with a stun grenade.
They stared at me. I stared back.
For a moment, no one moved.
Then Ethan—the biggest of us, the one who'd always led with his body before his words—broke the spell.
He crossed the distance between us in three long strides and wrapped me in a crushing hug that knocked the air from my lungs.
"I've missed you, brother," he said, voice rough.
Something in me melted.
Not all at once. Not cleanly.
But enough that when the others moved in—crowding close, hands on my shoulders, arms around me—I didn't pull away.
Caleb clapped me on the back hard enough to sting. "Look at you. Still ugly."
"Speak for yourself," I shot back, the words coming automatically, like muscle memory.
Jacob grinned. "He's alive. And talking shit. Miracles do happen."
Lucas shoved him lightly. "Don't start. We just got here."
Gideon stood back slightly, arms crossed, but his eyes were warm. "Good to see you, Micah."
Levi just smirked. "Took you long enough to show up."
I looked at each of them in turn, my throat tight, my mind racing to catch up with what my eyes were seeing.
"What the hell are you all doing here?" I asked finally.
Jacob wrapped an arm around my shoulders. "There's a lot to explain. Why don't we talk as we go wherever it is you were headed? Where is that, anyway?"
I blinked. "Uh. Bakery. Three blocks that way."
Lucas's eyes lit up. "Thank God. I only had one meal so far today. I'm starving."
Everyone laughed—real, easy laughter that hit me somewhere deep.
"You're always starving," Caleb said.
"Remember when we used to fight over the last bread roll at dinner?" Gideon added.
"Mom made one too few on purpose," Jacob said. "Just to see what we'd do."
I shook my head. "She made one too many. Not too few."
They all stopped and looked at me.
"What?" Ethan said.
"She told me once," I said quietly. "On one of those nights I couldn't sleep. She said she always baked an extra roll just to watch us. To see who'd fight for it and who'd let it go."
Silence settled over us—not uncomfortable, just ... heavy.
"Of course, she told you," Levi said finally, his voice softer than usual. "You were always the one she worried about most."
I didn't know what to say to that, so I didn't say anything.
We walked the rest of the way in a strange, comfortable silence punctuated by the occasional comment or jab. It felt surreal—like stepping into a memory that didn't quite fit anymore but still held the shape of something I'd once known.
The bakery was small, warm, smelling like butter and sugar and everything good. The owner looked up when we walked in, her eyes widening slightly at the sight of six large men crowding her shop.
"Can I help you?" she asked, smile polite but cautious.
Levi stepped forward. "We'll take two of everything. To go."
Her eyebrows shot up. "Two of ... everything?"
"Everything," Levi confirmed. "And we'll each put in our own orders, too."
The owner's eyes lit up—not with greed, exactly, but with the kind of delight that came from unexpected business. "All right then. Give me a few minutes."
She and her assistant got to work, pulling trays from the case, boxing pastries with quick, practiced hands.
Caleb pulled out a black credit card I'd never seen the likes of before—thick, matte, with lettering I couldn't read from where I stood—and handed it over without hesitation.
I frowned. "Where the hell did you get that?"
He just grinned. "Perks of the job."
When everything was packed and paid for—a mountain of boxes stacked on the counter—we grabbed our individual orders and crowded around a small table in the back corner.
The huge to-go box sat in the middle like a centerpiece.
Finally, Gideon leaned forward, elbows on the table, and got down to business.
"We were all invited to Charleston," he said. "Same as you."
I stared. "All of you?"
"All of us," Caleb confirmed.
"And Dad?" I asked, the word still tasting wrong in my mouth. "You knew?"
"No," Jacob said immediately. "That was ... new. Very new."
"Very," Levi echoed, his jaw tight.
I exhaled slowly, trying to process. "So you all just ... showed up? No questions asked?"
"We had questions," Ethan said. "But we came, anyway."
Gideon nodded. "Dominion Hall made us an offer we couldn't refuse. And then things got ... complicated."
"Complicated how?"
Jacob and Caleb exchanged a glance.
"Silas," Caleb said slowly. "And six other men at Dominion Hall. They're Danes, too."
My brain stuttered. "What?"
"Products of Dad's other wife," Gideon said flatly. "Half-brothers we didn't know existed until recently."
I sat back, the chair creaking under my weight. "Jesus Christ."
"Yeah," Lucas muttered. "That was our reaction, too."
"And there's more," Levi added.
Of course, there was.
"The Vanguard," Gideon said, his voice dropping lower. "Ever heard of them?"
I shook my head.
"Secret organization," he continued. "Dad had deep ties with them. Worked with them for years. But something changed. They turned on him. Declared a sort of ... war."
"Why?" I demanded.
"We don't know," Jacob admitted. "Dad won't say. But recently, they called a truce."
"Until now," Caleb added grimly.
It clicked.
All of it.
The woman at Joy's shop. The timing. The way she'd known my name, known about us.
"The woman who visited Joy," I said, voice hard. "That was them."
Nods all around.
"We think it was a woman named Victoria," Gideon said. "Dad knows her. But he's keeping the details close."
Rage flared hot and immediate. I almost slammed my fist on the table. "Then we make him tell us. He owes us that."
No one disagreed.
The silence stretched, thick with old anger and new stakes.
Finally, Lucas broke it.
"We've all found a home here," he said quietly. "And women we want to spend the rest of our lives with."
My eyes went wide. "What?"
I looked at each of them in turn.
Caleb nodded. Jacob nodded. Ethan, Gideon, Levi—all of them.
Not sheepish. Not embarrassed.
Certain.
"You're serious," I said.
"Dead serious," Ethan replied.
My mind spun, pieces clicking into place faster than I could process them.
I sat there, stunned, trying to wrap my head around it.
On one hand, I was happy for them. More than happy. I could see it in their faces—the contentment, the peace I hadn't seen since before Dad left. Since before Mom died. Since before we'd all scattered into the military and lost touch with everything that mattered.
They looked whole.
And I wanted that. Desperately.
But the idea that Joy was tied to all of this—that she might be planning their wedding without knowing I was connected—occured to me and made my chest tight.
I decided to keep that tidbit to myself.
I exhaled slowly. "Any other bombshells you want to drop?"
Levi grinned. "Oh, there's more."
Of course, there was.
"You know that shrink who came to check you out?" he said.
I frowned. "Yeah?"
"She's actually an actress. Works with Lucas's fiancée."
I turned to Lucas. "Your fiancée?"
Lucas actually blushed.
Caleb elbowed him. "Lucas's fiancée is Lexi Montgomery."
I coughed out a laugh. "The Lexi Montgomery? The actress?"
"The one and only," Jacob said, grinning.
"You're fucking with me."
"Nope," Levi said, still grinning. "Dead serious."
I shook my head, disbelief warring with amusement. "What's the second surprise?"
Levi leaned in closer, his grin widening. "We're worth billions now, brother. Billions."
The word didn't compute.
Million was a number I could barely wrap my head around. Billion wasn't even in my mental vocabulary. I had no measuring stick for it.
"What does that mean?" I asked.
Lucas elbowed Caleb back. "It means we can do whatever the fuck we want. Forever."
That settled over me—heavy, strange, impossible.
I stared at the table, at the pastries we hadn't touched, at my brothers sitting around me like we were kids again plotting some half-baked scheme.
Except this wasn't half-baked.
This was real.
Then Gideon's voice cut through, quiet and cold.
"There's one more thing."
The way he said it made my skin prickle.
I looked up. "What?"
He exchanged glances with the others. No one wanted to say it.
"Victoria," Gideon said finally. "The woman from The Vanguard."
"What about her?"
His jaw tightened. "We think she's the one who killed Mom."
The world stopped.
Not metaphorically. Not dramatically.
It just ... stopped.
I heard the words. Understood them. But my brain refused to process what they meant.
"What?" My voice came out flat. Hollow.
"We don't have proof," Jacob said quickly. "Not yet. But Dad's been looking into it. The timing lines up. The methods. Everything points to—"
"No." I stood so fast the chair scraped loud against the floor. "No. Mom died of a heart attack."
"That's what we thought," Caleb said quietly. "But there are ways to make it look natural. Ways to—"
"Stop."
They did.
I stood there, hands clenched into fists, every muscle locked tight.
My mother. Lila Voss.
The woman who'd held us together when Dad vanished. Who'd loved us fiercely, completely, even when we made it hard. Who'd sat with me on those sleepless nights and told me stories about bread rolls and family and believing in something bigger than grief.
Dead.
Not from illness. Not from time.
Murdered.
By a woman who was still out there. Walking around. Breathing.
The rage that rose up wasn't hot.
It was cold. Precise. The kind that came from years of training, years of learning how to channel fury into something useful.
Something deadly.
I looked at each of my brothers in turn.
"If that's the case," I said, voice low and lethal, "we find this mystery woman. And we shut her up for good."