2. Chapter 2
Chapter 2
Freya
T he water surrounds my body like a safety net.
As I drop my head against the jacuzzi padding, one of the dangling ties of my bikini top wraps around my neck, and I flick it back with a sigh.
“Fucking hell. I can’t believe they are officially patched in to lead The Daring Brotherhood,” Amirah says from the opposite side of the hot tub.
She takes her champagne glass and finishes it before pouring another one.
My stomach twists at the mention of them .
Tonight’s been wild.
My hands are still trembling underneath the water.
“You still haven’t told me exactly what happened in the graveyard.” Amirah side-eyes me and I fall farther into the warm water.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I say.
Amirah frowns.
“Fine, but you did wake me from my beauty sleep, so naturally, I will want answers eventually.”
Music from Lucas’s house floats through the early morning air, and part of me wishes I was there.
The other wants to give Lucas space.
How am I supposed to tell her that I killed Lucas’s mother?
That I’m responsible for taking away someone he loved, and he’ll never forgive me for this?
The way he looked at me in that tomb, his eyes full of hurt and pain—I did that, and I won’t ever be able to take it back.
“Lucas and my brother share the same father,” I whisper, and for the first time, it really sinks in.
Alec and I don’t share the same father.
So he’s my half-brother.
No, fuck that.
He’s always been my full brother and always will be.
“Holy shit.” Amirah sits straighter, half her champagne falling into the water.
“Yep.” I sigh, taking my glass from the side of the jacuzzi and finishing it in one gulp.
“That’s messed up. I have so many questions.”
So do I.
“Yeah, well, he’s dead now, so we won’t be getting the answers.”
She gasps.
“Who’s dead?”
“Lucas’s father and . . . and . . .” The words lodge in the back of my throat.
Amirah slides across the seat so she’s closer to me, water sloshing onto the deck.
She pulls me into her arms, and I let her take me.
Tears well behind my eyes, and my head pounds, feeling like it’s about to explode.
“I killed—” My throat becomes dry, and I whisper, “Nadine.”
Amirah sucks in a breath, but she doesn’t let me go.
She holds me close, running her hand up and down my back.
A few minutes later, she pulls back, looking into my eyes.
The corner of her mouth lifts slightly.
“Never did like that bitch,” she says, and I laugh uncontrollably until the laughter turns into tears once again.
I pull myself out of her arms and fall back against the jets.
The reality of the situation hits me again—I killed someone.
And even if she wasn’t a good woman, I still pulled the trigger.
What gives me the right to play God?
“Hey,” Amirah says, bumping shoulders with me as she settles back into the spa.
“I know you’re beating yourself up about this, but I bet you had a good reason for doing what you did.”
I shrug.
Is any reason really good enough?
Still .
.
.
“She pushed drugs on me and admitted to killing Alec. But I didn’t mean to kill her—she was aiming a gun at me, and I snatched it off her. A shot went off, and before I knew what happened, she was dead. You should have seen the way Lucas looked at me tonight,” I say, squeezing my eyes shut.
“He hates me.”
“Lucas couldn’t hate you. He’s in love with you, but he might need time to heal from this.”
“I’m not sure he’ll get over it, and if he doesn’t, I won’t blame him. As much as it kills me, I’ll leave him alone. Until he finds his way back to me—or not.” My words hang in the air, and I don’t know if I believe that I’ll ever really let him go.
Yet if the roles were reversed and he killed my brother, I don’t know if I could ever forgive that.
My heart might be broken in two, but if a relationship between us is meant to be, then it’ll happen.
I need to hold on to that.
“I have to go back home and sort some things out with Mom, and it’s probably for the best,” I say, though even I can hear the defeat in my tone.
“The boys will have their hands full with The Brotherhood, and Lucas needs space.”
Amirah huffs.
“You belong over here—you always did. Now you can both come back home.”
I laugh and shake my head.
“We never belonged here, not really, and Mom isn’t better. She still thinks I’m lying about Alec and that he’ll come back.” A shiver runs down my spine.
That’s not going to be a fun conversation when she finally realizes he’s gone.
Will it tip her over the edge?
She can’t drop further than she already has.
“You do what you have to, but don’t just disappear.” Amirah takes another sip of her champagne.
“That hood rat will get you back over there and won’t let you leave, but I’ll fight him.”
I frown.
“Uh, which one?”
“You know . . . the one who’s always following you around with those intense dark-brown eyes.”
“Kai?” I ask, and she nods.
“Yeah, Kai—that’s it. He’s always wearing that leather jacket with the 18hood logo on the back.”
“You’re paying a lot of attention to a guy from the wrong side of the tracks,” I tease, and her cheeks pinken, and I’m sure it’s not just from the heat of the water.
“Shut up.” She splashes me, and I raise my hands in surrender.
We stay in the jacuzzi until our fingers become wrinkled and the sun begins to rise on the horizon.
I’m reluctant to leave, since it means returning to my old life without Alec there.
He really is gone now, and nothing will be the same again.
As I leave the warm embrace of the swirling water, the fresh morning air sends a wave of goose bumps across my body.
Music from Lucas’s house down the street continues to play in the background.
“I can’t believe they’re still going,” I say, grabbing two large towels from a chair on the porch.
“Yeah, it’ll go on for days. It’s a big deal, new leaders. It doesn’t happen every day,” Amirah says, taking a towel from my hand.
“Will you join them?”
She shrugs.
“Traditionally, girls aren’t allowed—only the guys in The Brotherhood.”
“For real?” My eyebrows raise.
“I’d have thought, being the new king’s sister . . .”
“Comes with literally zero special privileges.” Amirah sighs until a glint of mischief lights her eyes.
“But watch me go and visit, anyway.”
I frown, shaking my head.
There are so many underlining rules of The Brotherhood that I’m still trying to figure out.
Women play such a small role in their world, something that I don’t agree with, and I have no idea how I’m going to fit in with them.
I slip into my worn-out jeans and Gage’s hoodie.
His woodsy scent still clings to the fabric.
“Make sure you keep me updated, and don’t be gone long,” Amirah says, pulling me in for a tight hug.
“Okay, got it.”
One of Amirah’s drivers gives me a ride back over the tracks, dropping me off in front of the trailer park.
Sunshine pierces the clouds, bathing the trailers in an orange glow.
The scraping sound of the dirt beneath my soles is a constant reminder of the distance I’m putting between myself and Gage, Lucas, and Hazen.
They’ve been my anchors since Alec went missing.
Coming back here hurts like hell, because everywhere I look, I see him.
Memories flood at every corner, all revolving around Alec.
Tears well behind my eyes.
I just want him here with me.
To go back in time and give him one last hug, tell him I love him more than anything in this world.
But I can’t, and that’s like a knife to my chest.
He’s really gone.
Rubbing my eyes, I yawn.
I just want to get home and go to sleep.
To let dreams take me away from reality, even for a few hours.
The screen door to our trailer creaks as I pull it back and twist the knob on the main door.
It opens and I shake my head.
Doesn’t she ever learn?
No locks.
Anyone could walk straight into our trailer.
Darkness surrounds me, and the smell of something burned lingers in the air.
Soft snores come from the couch, and I sigh in relief.
I never know what I’ll walk in to—she’s usually on a bad high or a good one or sleeping it off.
Thank God for the latter.
Pulling out my phone, I flick on the flashlight and shut the door behind me, sliding the lock into place.
Mom stirs on the couch, her blanket falling to the ground.
I move as quietly as I can, picking up the blanket and gently placing it over her.
The light from my phone shines down on her.
Sweat beads on her forehead, but her body trembles.
She’s probably coming down from one of her benders.
I hate that she puts herself through this—that the drugs have become her only source of relief.
I’ll never forgive Lucas’s mother for giving her that first hit and kicking off the avalanche that was our family’s downfall.
Mom stirs and her eyes fly open.
She grabs my wrist, digging in her nails before her eyes soften slightly.
The more time that passes, the more I forget who she was before, how much she loved me and Alec and would do anything for us.
Before the drugs became her priority and she forgot about her kids.
“Where’s Alec?” she asks and my heart twists.
I kneel on the carpet in front of the couch and take a deep breath.
Here goes nothing .
“Remember, I told you that Alec, he’s . . . he’s—” My words choke my throat, and I swallow past the lump.
“He’s dead.” Tears slip down my cheeks in a steady stream.
My mother shakes her head.
“You’re a liar,” she hisses, rolling onto her back and looking up at the ceiling.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, my head falling against her chest.
I feel its rhythm, a gentle rise and fall with each breath she takes.
I wait, anticipating the push, but it never comes.
She breathes, and breathes, and soon her chest shakes as tears spill from the corners of her closed eyes down to the brown fabric of the couch below.
Anguish like I’ve never seen before wrecks her face, and God, I wish we didn’t have to do this, but we do.
He’s dead.
Her first baby.
My brother.
I don’t know how long we stay like this for—minutes?
Hours?
—but eventually, when my knees ache from the hard trailer floor and my throat is raw from crying, her sobs subside into choked hiccups, stuttered with silence.
“I want to get better,” she says so softly that I think I imagined it.
I lift my head up off her chest and look into her blue eyes, the same as mine.
“Really?”
She nods.
“For Alec,” she says, and I squeeze her hand.
I want to believe her, I really do, but I’m just not sure I can.
She’s got to want this more than she wants to get high.
Her arms wrap around me, and I freeze.
My breathing picks up, and I have no idea what to do.
I can’t even remember the last time my mother hugged me.
The last time I felt her warm body against mine.
When she presses a kiss into my hair, I’m done for.
Tears stream down my cheeks again and soak into her T-shirt.
I move so I’m lying on the couch in front of her.
She holds me and I never want her to stop.
She may have gone off the rails, but she’s all I have left now—and if she does want to change .
.
.
that could mean everything.
She’s my mom, and she’ll always be my family.