9. Julie
nine
Julie
The living room was still wrecked from what we’d done to it.
Throw pillow face-down on the hardwood. Lamp on but askew, two bulbs out of three, making everything look jaundiced and off-balance.
My work blazer crumpled in a heap near the couch, silk robe hanging off a lamp, Bram’s leather cut draped over the sofa arm like an animal pelt.
A glass of water, half empty, had left a nervous little ring on the coffee table.
The air smelled like sex, whiskey, and a trace of blood.
The phone rang loud enough to shatter every echo in the room.
“Now what?” I said.
Bram laughed and checked his own phone.
I bolted up off the rug, not caring about the cold or the way my bare skin creaked against the nylon pile. I snatched the phone off the table before the second ring, which was a mercy, because my hands were already starting to shake.
On the screen, the name said MOM. In reality, it was Sally. Nothing about her ever softened into the word mother.
I answered. “Hello?”
There was a click, and then the kind of silence that meant something was already wrong. When the voice came, it was sharp, raw, the sandpaper version of calm. “Heard you had a late night.”
“Is this really the time, Mom?” I moved, grabbing for underwear, not breaking stride. I one-handed the panties, stepped in, yanked them up. Jeans next. It wasn’t a performance. It was autopilot.
“It’s always the time, Julie. Listen to me.” The voice dropped lower, urgent. “Your sister—Emma—she’s gone. Two of them took her from the rec center. Desert Scorpions, patches on their vests, faces I didn’t recognize.”
For a second I couldn’t breathe. Not like the books say, not a dramatic clutch at the throat, but a hot, sharp absence in my lungs, as if I’d sucked all the oxygen out of the room and left myself with nothing.
“How long ago?” I said. The words were coming from somewhere outside of me.
“Twenty minutes. I tried to call you twice. She’s probably already—” she bit it off. “Listen, you need to—”
I hung up. Not on purpose. My hand just closed on the phone so hard the touch screen lost its mind and cut the call.
I moved faster. Socks, then boots, laces dragging.
I found my bra by the couch and shrugged it on, then a ratty tee.
I found Bram’s cut on the arm of the sofa, and for a second, I just stared at it, thinking nothing at all, then I turned away, found my keys on the kitchen counter, snatched them up along with my phone and a jacket.
“Julie, what’s going on? Stop.”
“Can’t,” is all I said.
“Who was on the phone?”
I was in motion before I knew what the plan was. Go to Mom’s? The police? The rec center? All of it at once?
I never made it past the kitchen.
Bram was already up, standing in the middle of the room, shirtless and loose, the white tape from Doc’s stitches stark on his skin.
The wound looked angry, fresh, but he didn’t so much as touch it.
He watched me, face carved out of something old and unsmiling.
He watched the whole train wreck with the patience of a mountain.
“Damnit, Julie, stop!”
When I tried to pass him, he caught me. Not a gentle touch—his hand closed around my forearm with enough pressure to root me in place. He barely squeezed, but it was a statement. Everything stopped.
He said, “Stop.”
I tried to fight through. He didn’t let go.
“Let me go,” I said, my voice a whisper. “She’s my sister.”
His hand tightened, just a notch. “You’re not going out there like this. What the fuck is going on?”
I locked my knees and yanked, hard enough to pull my wrist free. “What are you going to do, Bram, hold me here? You want to tie me to the railing until I beg?”
He took a step forward, forcing me back against the counter. His face was so close I could see the flecks in the gray, the little scars at the corner of his mouth. “Tell me what happened.”
For a second I was going to hit him. Then the anger died, and I just deflated. My whole body wanted to collapse. I let myself slide down the cabinet until my ass hit the tile.
I breathed in, let it out in a hiss. “The Scorpions took my sister. Mom thinks they’re going to use her as leverage. Or worse.”
Bram nodded, like he’d already known. He crouched down, leveled his gaze. “You got an address?”
I shook my head. “All I know is two men, patches, faces she don’t recognize. Emma was at the rec center, tutoring for her summer classes. They must have followed her from the parking lot. Mom didn’t see which way they went, and she’s probably tearing apart the block looking.”
He watched me for a long second. Then he turned, walked to the window, and looked out. It was a move I’d seen before—measured, careful, weighing the threats and allies in every shadow.
I stayed on the floor, staring at my knees, both hands pressed flat to the tiles, as if I could push the house down through the crust of the earth.
“This is not good,” I said. “They’re going to keep fucking with me.”
Bram said, “I’ll call Rusty. Tell him to have Sniper and Trace at the compound, ready in fifteen. Full gear, no questions.”
I blinked. “She’s my sister. This isn’t your fight.”
He smiled, slow and cold. “Everything’s my fight, Julie. You should know that by now.”
I closed my eyes and breathed. I stood up. The anger was back, but it was tired now, like an old dog too exhausted to bark.
Bram called Rusty. He answered on the first ring.
“It’s time,” Bram said. “No more fucking around and waiting.”
He ended the call and then came to me, holding me, letting my head rest against his chest.
I stood, and we walked to the living room, my world collapsing, our worlds colliding.
Bram let go. I dropped onto the edge of the couch, my spine bowing out like a snapped bridge cable. Elbows to knees. Palms flat to my thighs. I was held together by geometry and friction alone.
He moved across the room, slow and deliberate, every step buying him time to think.
He didn’t take his eyes off me, not even when he peeled the shirt off the floor and started working his arms into the sleeves.
There was blood dried on his skin, little smears on the white bandage, and I realized I could smell it in the air, sharp as salt.
He sat on the opposite end of the sofa, leaving a clean two feet of dead space between us. His voice was gentle, but the words were nonnegotiable.
“I can help. Let the club fix this. It’s already in motioning.”
“Bram…”
“Don’t,” he said. “I’d go to hell and back for you, Julie. Let me do this for you.”
I shook my head. My jaw locked so tight the bones hummed. “It’s not your fight, Bram. You need to let me handle it.”
He watched me reach for my keys, watched my hand fumble, watched the fact that I had no idea where I was going or what I’d do when I got there. He leaned forward, forearms on knees, and let the silence grind down every excuse I might have tried to make.
“You can’t,” I said, my voice thin and hollow.
He didn’t argue. He waited. The waiting made it worse.
I looked up, finally, and saw him for what he was: every inch a killer, but more than that, the kind of man who only turned his violence loose when he’d measured it to the gram.
The kind of man who would burn a city just to keep a promise.
I for once believed a man when he said he’d destroy the world for me.
He said it again, softer this time. “I can help, Julie.”
I started to tell him no again, but it twisted in my throat. The word fell apart before it got to my mouth.
Instead, I said the thing that scared me more than losing Emma. “You don’t know everything.”
He didn’t blink. “Tell me.”
I looked at the wall above his head, the yellow light striping it, and focused on a spot just left of center, because if I looked straight at him, I’d never get through it.
“The Colonel is my father,” I said.
Bram didn’t move, but the air got heavy, like a drop in barometric pressure before a storm.
I kept going, fast, before he could interrupt.
“My mother raised me, but he got to her early, before anyone else had a shot. He got out before I was born, left her with nothing but the last name and a warning not to use it. She didn’t tell me until I was old enough to know what it meant.
When I took the DA job, I thought it would be a way to put everything he did behind me.
But he made sure I was the one who got the offer.
He pulled the strings, made the calls. I found out two years later.
Blackmail, threats. He has files on everyone, Bram.
Everyone in this town. Half the cases I’ve prosecuted were cleaned up ahead of time to make the office look good, to make me look good. It’s all rotten.”
Bram’s jaw ticked, just a fraction, but he didn’t say a word.
“I spent years pretending I deserved to be here,” I said. “And then you walked in, and I realized how much of it was a fucking joke. That’s why I can’t let you help. If anyone finds out, I’m dead. Emma’s dead. Mom’s dead. The whole house of cards comes down.”
He turned away, his hand braced against the back of the couch, head bowed. For a second, I thought he’d lost it. But then he just breathed, like he was dragging air into a burned-out mine.
“You should have told me sooner,” he said, not looking at me.
“I know.” The words were so small I barely heard them myself.
“It doesn’t change how I feel about you,” he said.
I sighed and shook my head. “He’s the man responsible for Mille’s death. My Father!”
He straightened, shoulders rolling back, and looked at me with a new kind of resolve. Not forgiveness, but something colder, cleaner. The world had been reset. The rules changed, but the job didn’t.
He said, “I can help,” and this time I didn’t argue.
We sat like that for a long minute, the two of us and the gulf of things we couldn’t take back. There was nothing left to say, so we stood, side by side, and got ready to go to war.