CHAPTER TWO #2
But my brothers were trying to help. In the ways they always did. Ways that skirted the legalities of the system but were necessary to help those who had disappeared and been forgotten.
It was our way of atoning for crimes that had never been ours. Our way of helping to balance out the atrocities our father committed.
We never talked about the why. But that didn’t mean we didn’t understand it.
We’d each come to terms with our trauma in our own way, dealing however we could.
But this was the one thing we did together: Looking for people who’d been lost. Trying to bring closure for them and their loved ones—something our father’s victims never got until it was far too late.
“I’m looking at a new unsolved case.” I leaned the two-by-four against the bare drywall. “Missing hiker. Twenty-six. Similar look to Nova.”
Just saying the words had fury flaring back to life inside me.
I could see her in my mind—the Nova she was today.
She’d slowly been putting on weight, looking healthier.
Her dark, nearly black hair gleamed when the sun hit it now.
Her silver-gray eyes had a spark in them, reminding me just how much of a fighter she was.
“Shit,” Mav muttered.
“Swear jar,” I warned.
He rolled his eyes. “Sky can’t hear me. And I hate to break it to you, but I’m pretty sure she’s heard the word shit before.”
I glared at my brother. “Just because she’s heard it before doesn’t mean she needs to memorize it.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Mav waved me off. “Missing hiker. You upload the deets to our app?”
The app was something our computer-genius brother, Dex, had designed. It was a place where we could organize our case files—and house all the tips about those cases. We called the app and the shadow organization the Hourglass Network.
“Not yet. I need to verify she’s a possible.”
Maverick nodded. “And, in the meantime, you … what? Became Bob the Builder?”
That glare was back on my face. “I like building stuff.”
He arched a brow. “I mean, you made a mean playhouse for the little princess, but this is kind of next-level.”
My gaze swept across the space over the garage. I’d brought it down to the studs and was building it back up, complete with larger windows and a skylight. Things that would make it feel open and the opposite of confining.
“I needed a project. It helps me think,” I said, defending myself. And that was true. I just didn’t want to think too much about what my other reasons might be.
“What are you going to use it for? Sky moving out?”
Just the reminder that my girl would indeed do that one day had my stomach lurching. “Don’t say that shit.”
Mav barked out a laugh. “Dude, I can’t wait until her first date. You’re gonna stalk that kid.”
A scowl twisted my lips. “She’s not dating until she’s twenty-five, at least.”
His laughter only intensified. “Good luck with that. Your girl is adorable and funny as fuck. She’s gonna be asked on a million dates before you know it.”
Nausea rolled through me. “Take that back.”
Mav just shook his head. “Prepare now.”
I shot forward, trying to trap him in a headlock, but Maverick dodged my arm. He wasn’t as successful when it came to my fist, which hit him in the kidney.
“Oh shit! That hurt, asshole.” Mav hit me with a hook to the ribs.
I grabbed for his tee, trying to pull it over his head so it would blind him. “Don’t talk about my daughter dating.”
Maverick snort-laughed as the T-shirt covered his eyes. He twisted, trying to escape the offending fabric. “Fine, fine. Jesus. That’s your trigger. I get it.”
It and so many other things, for so many reasons. But that was the case for all of us.
Mav pulled his shirt back down as he straightened. “I was just stopping by to see if you heard that Nova got a job.”
I bristled, every part of me going on alert. Nova was on a long road to recovery. Two weeks in the hospital. Three in a rehabilitation unit that worked on physical and occupational therapies. And now, outpatient treatment. “It’s only been four months.”
Maverick shrugged. “Dex said she’s been dying to get back to some sense of normalcy.”
I understood that: needing to find routine again. But this seemed a little quick.
“Wylder hired her at the Boot,” Mav went on.
That had ice sliding through my veins. Our eldest brother owned a bar and grill in town. It was mostly safe, but in the later evening hours, things could occasionally get dicey. The idea of Nova in the midst of that didn’t exactly sit right with me.
“When?” I growled.
Mav’s lips twitched. “She starts today.”
I was already moving. “Watch Sky.”
“Where’re you going?” Mav called, as I snatched up my keys and headed for the door.
When I didn’t answer, he shouted after me, “Tell Supernova I said hi.”
I just flipped him off. “Do not let my kid jump off the hayloft or ride in the pasture with no tack, understood?”
“Who me? I would never.”
The hell he wouldn’t. But it was a risk I was willing to take because something had created a bond between Nova and me that day.
And now, I couldn’t handle the idea of her being at risk.
Not being okay. I needed to check for myself—even if that made me reckless.
Because getting involved with a victim of a case in any personal capacity? It broke every rule in the book.