Chapter 21
GIDEON
The two men who climbed out behind Elias stopped me cold.
Lucas stepped out first—with that same sharp grin I'd grown up ducking punches from.
He moved like a blade, all economy and edge, the kind of operator who could slip through shadows and leave bodies behind without breaking stride.
His dark hair was longer than regulation, swept back like he'd been running his hands through it, and his eyes scanned the property with a predator's interest.
Then Ethan.
Christ.
Ethan unfolded from the passenger side like a mountain deciding to walk.
Closing on seven feet if he was a few more inches, shoulders broad enough to block out the sun, hands that could palm a basketball or crush a throat with equal ease.
The scars that raked down his arm—courtesy of a grizzly that had made the fatal mistake of threatening his younger brothers—caught the morning light and turned him into something out of myth.
The Shield, that’s what Dad had called him. Because once Ethan Dane planted himself between you and danger, nothing got through.
My brothers.
Here.
Together.
I couldn't move. Couldn't process it. We didn't do this—didn't converge, didn't gather, didn't show up in the same place at the same time unless someone was dead or dying.
Since we'd each gone our separate ways in the military, there had been no family reunions.
Just quick meet-ups with one brother at a time in faraway places—a beer in Berlin with Lucas, a meal in Manila with Ethan, always brief, always just the two of us.
Never like this.
Never together.
Lucas's grin widened when he saw my expression. "Surprise, little brother."
Something in my chest cracked open—something I'd kept locked down since I was a kid. I crossed the distance between us in three strides and pulled them both into a hug that would've embarrassed me a week ago.
Lucas grunted, laughing. "Jesus, Gideon. You getting soft on us?"
I didn't answer. Just held on for another heartbeat, breathing them in—gun oil and pine and that particular scent that was just Dane, the genetic signature we all carried like a brand.
When I finally let go, Ethan's hand came down on my shoulder, heavy and warm. His eyes—dark brown, nothing like mine or Lucas's—held that steady kindness that had gotten us through childhood when Dad disappeared and the world went sideways.
"Good to see you," he said simply.
"What the hell are you doing here?" I asked, my voice rougher than I meant it to be. "Both of you?"
Lucas shrugged, still grinning. "We've been here for a bit, actually. It's a long story."
"There are things to say," Ethan added, his voice dropping lower, more serious. "About Dad. About the rest of the family."
The words hit like a punch to the gut.
Dad.
Byron Dane. The man who'd taught us to track, to hunt, to read the weather in the shift of clouds.
The man whose laughter could fill a valley and whose disappearance had hollowed me out so completely I'd forgotten what joy felt like.
The mythical, larger-than-life figure who'd vanished when I was still young enough to believe heroes didn't just abandon their families.
"Dad?" I repeated, the word feeling strange in my mouth. "You found something?"
Lucas and Ethan exchanged a look—the kind of silent conversation that brothers who'd survived hell together could have without words.
"We're all coming together because of Dad," Lucas said carefully. "All of us."
"I don't understand." My mind was racing, trying to fit pieces together that didn't make sense. "Why? Why now?"
Ethan shifted his weight, and I realized he was uncomfortable. Ethan was never uncomfortable. The man had stared down a grizzly and won. But right now, he looked like he was searching for words that didn't want to come.
"Not only might Dad have been attached to whatever organization is targeting us," he said slowly, "but Dad left a deeper secret. Something none of us could've imagined."
The world tilted slightly under my feet.
"What secret?" I asked.
Lucas pointed at Elias, who stood a few feet away, watching our conversation with those calculating blue eyes. "Him."
I looked at Elias, then back at my brothers. "What about him?"
"He's one of us," Lucas said.
I shook my head, confused. "Yeah, I know. Elias is an operator. I get it. Dominion Hall recruited—"
"No," Ethan interrupted, his voice gentle but firm. "Elias and his six brothers—" He paused, letting that sink in. Six brothers. Elias had six brothers, same as me. "—they're our brothers, too."
The words didn't compute.
I stared at Ethan, waiting for the punchline. When it didn't come, I looked at Lucas, who'd lost his grin and was watching me with something that looked almost like pity. Then at Elias, who stood there with his arms crossed, expression unreadable.
"That's not—" I started, then stopped. "You're saying Dad—"
"Sired another brood," Lucas finished bluntly. "Seven sons in Charleston. Seven in Montana. Fourteen total."
My father. My hero. The man whose disappearance had changed me from a happy kid into a loner who trusted silence more than people. He'd had another family? Another seven sons he'd never mentioned? Never brought home? Never even hinted existed?
"How?" The question came out raw. "When?"
"That's what we're still piecing together," Ethan said. "But the timeline overlaps. He was with both families. Living two lives."
I felt like I'd been hit in the chest with a battering ram. "And you're just—you're just telling me this now?"
"We found out recently," Lucas said. "The Charleston Danes didn't know about us any more than we knew about them. Dad kept both families separate. Compartmentalized."
Elias spoke for the first time since they'd arrived, his voice carrying that same controlled authority I'd heard on our calls.
"It was news to us, too, Gideon. Finding out we had seven brothers in Montana—that our father had lived an entirely separate life out west—" He shook his head. "It took some adjusting."
"Adjusting," I repeated numbly.
"But now that you know," Elias continued, stepping closer, "you're part of the family. All of it. The business. Dad's wealth. Everything."
Wealth. Business. I barely heard the words through the roaring in my ears.
Thirteen brothers.
My father had fourteen sons.
And he'd abandoned us all.
"I don't—" I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes, trying to force my brain to catch up. "I don't understand any of this."
Ethan's massive hand settled on my shoulder, grounding me the way it had when we were kids and the world got too big. "Don't worry. We'll explain everything we know. It's a lot, but we've got time."
"Time," I echoed, the laugh that escaped me sharp and bitter. "Yeah. Time."
Lucas elbowed me in the ribs, gentler than his usual bruising jabs. "Hey. Look at the bright side—Caleb's having the time of his life on the family yachts. Can't wait to see you. Says Montana's looking boring compared to Charleston's coastline."
Despite everything—despite the earth-shattering revelation that my entire understanding of my family was wrong—I felt my mouth twitch. "Caleb's here?"
"Yep," Lucas confirmed. "And Jacob."
"Jacob?" A fourth brother, quiet and deadly, the one who could disappear into a crowd and reappear with intel no one else could get.
Ethan nodded. "Only two Montana Danes left to bring in after you."
I tried to process that. Tried to imagine my brothers—the men I'd grown up with, fought with, bled with—all gathered in Charleston. All here because of a father who'd kept secrets so deep even death hadn't dragged them into the light.
"And you're sure?" I asked, hating how desperate the question sounded. "About Elias? About—about all of them being our brothers?"
"DNA confirmed it," Ethan said. "It's not a mistake, Gideon."
Elias stepped forward, and I saw something in his face soften—not much, but enough to make him look almost human instead of just lethal.
"I know this is a lot. Believe me, finding out about seven half-brothers I'd never met wasn't exactly on my bingo card either.
But we're family. And family protects family. "
The word hung there between us—family—loaded with more weight than it had any right to carry.
I looked at my brothers—Lucas with his blade-sharp grin returning, Ethan with his steady, grizzly-scarred strength—and then at Elias, this stranger who shared my blood whether I was ready for it or not.
Fourteen of us.
The number rattled around in my skull, refusing to settle.
"How did Dad—" I started, then stopped, shaking my head. "Never mind. I don't think I want to know right now."
"Fair enough," Lucas said. "We've got plenty of time for the full story. Right now, we're here for the situation with Sam Jarrow."
The name snapped me back to reality. To the inn. To Hazel inside, watching through the window. To the immediate threat that had brought Elias here in the first place.
"Right," I said, forcing my mind to shift gears. "Jarrow."
"We'll handle it," Ethan said with the quiet certainty of a man who'd handled worse. "But first—" He glanced toward the house, his expression warming. "—maybe it's time for your girl to meet the family."
Your girl.
The phrase sent a different kind of shock through me. I'd been so focused on the revelation about my father, about these new brothers, that I'd almost forgotten Hazel was inside waiting. Watching. Probably confused as hell about why I was hugging strangers in the driveway.
"Yeah," I said, the word coming out steadier than I felt. "Yeah, she'd like that."
She really would.
Hazel, who'd spent most of her life alone. Who'd lost her mother and changed her name and built walls so high even she couldn't see over them sometimes. She'd understand what it meant to suddenly have family appear out of nowhere. She'd know what to do with the weight of it.
And maybe—maybe she'd help me figure out what the hell I was supposed to do with seven new brothers and a father whose secrets kept multiplying even after he was gone.
"Come on," Ethan said, his scarred hand squeezing my shoulder once before letting go. "Let's go inside. Introduce us properly. Then we'll figure out how to keep you both safe."
Lucas fell into step beside me, and for a moment we were just three brothers walking toward a house like we'd done a thousand times growing up. The familiar rhythm of it settled something in my chest, even as my mind still reeled from everything they'd told me.
"She pretty?" Lucas asked, that troublemaker grin firmly back in place.
"Shut up," I said automatically.
"That's a yes." He laughed. "Can't wait to meet her. Been too long since someone made you go all soft and stupid."
"I will break your nose," I warned.
"You can try," he shot back, completely unworried.
Ethan chuckled behind us, the sound rumbling like distant thunder. "Leave him alone, Lucas. Man's been through enough this morning."
"This morning?" Lucas scoffed. "Hell, this week's been a trip for all of us."
I couldn't argue with that.
As we climbed the porch steps, I caught sight of Hazel in the window. Our eyes met, and I saw the question there—Who are these men? Are we safe?
I nodded once, trying to communicate everything I couldn't say from this distance: They're family. Complicated, impossible family. But they're here to help.
She nodded back, trusting me even when I'd just had my entire world rewritten.
God, I loved her.
The thought hit me square in the chest, clear and undeniable.
I loved her. This woman who'd inherited a broken-down inn and a year-long clause and a father who'd crawled out of prison to haunt her.
This woman who made lists to feel safe and kept flashlights in every room and still managed to look at me like I was worth keeping.
I loved her.
And now I had to introduce her to my brothers—plural, expanded, more than I'd ever imagined having—while also figuring out how to keep her safe from a threat that apparently involved my dead father's secrets and an organization targeting everyone with Dane blood.
"Ready?" Ethan asked quietly.
I took a breath, squared my shoulders, and reached for the door.
"Yeah," I said. "Let's do this."
The door swung open, and Hazel stood there in my hoodie, looking small and fierce and absolutely terrified. But she held her ground, chin up, eyes moving from me to my brothers and back again.
"Hazel," I said, my voice steadier than I felt, "meet my brothers. Lucas and Ethan."
Her eyes widened slightly—surprise, maybe, or relief that these weren't enemies—but she extended her hand, ever the professional even when her world was crumbling.
"Nice to meet you," she said.
Lucas took her hand gently, his grin softening into something almost respectful. "The pleasure's ours, ma'am."
Ethan's massive hand engulfed hers next, and I saw the way his expression gentled, the way it always did around people who needed protecting. "Gideon's told us a lot about you."
"He has?" She glanced at me, confused.
"No," I admitted. "But they know you're important."
"Very important," Ethan confirmed.
Hazel's cheeks pinked, and something in my chest eased at the sight. She was okay. Shaken, but okay.
"Come inside," she said, stepping back. "Maude made enough breakfast to feed an army."
"Perfect," Lucas said, already moving past her. "I'm starving."
As we filed into the house, Elias bringing up the rear, I caught Hazel's hand and pulled her close for just a second.
"You okay?" I murmured.
"Are you?" she countered, those green eyes seeing right through me.
"Getting there," I admitted.
She squeezed my hand. "Then, so am I."
And somehow, with my brothers filling the foyer and Maude already fussing over feeding them in the kitchen, with Hazel's hand in mine and her trust in her eyes—
Somehow, I believed it.