Chapter 2
Two
It’s Called: Freefall — Paris Paloma
PRESENT DAY
I felt like shit the next morning on account of the lack of sleep. Not that I was a stranger to lack of sleep, but my mind had been shaken, a lot, by Jasper’s presence, my ensuing trip down memory lane, and the pain of where we’d both ended up. Where I’d ended up.
I’d been on my laptop for hours, desperate to find a way out. Knowing there wasn’t one. I was a victim to Jasper’s whims. To how long he deigned to let our history outweigh his duty.
It wouldn’t be an extended process. That I knew.
I’d felt it. In recent years, I’d felt him slipping through my fingers, if you could ever really hold on to a man like Jasper Hayes.
You couldn’t. It was like trying to grasp shadows.
Even all the way back then, that day in the meadow with my hands clasping the naked skin of his body, I wasn’t really holding him.
What was worse was after the chilling revelation that my luck was running out, that the longest relationship I’d ever had with a man was growing more and more toxic and deadly… I’d had to deal with my broody brother on my doorstep at seven in the morning.
“It’s criminal,” I muttered to him, banging around making coffee after I’d let him in. “Just because you have children who wake you up early doesn’t mean you inflict the same on your childless— by choice —sister.” I poured him coffee with a hostile glare. “Criminal.”
I had barely slept, just tossed and turned.
But I did it on my $10k mattress in Egyptian cotton sheets, panicking at my leisure.
Without an audience. I needed a mask in front of Rowan so he didn’t catch a whiff of my unease.
I’d already seen him note the two glasses I’d left drying by the sink.
He didn’t ask questions, but he’d noticed them.
“Why are you here, Cal?” Rowan stared at me in that intense way of his. You wouldn’t know it then, with him being all broody and menacing, but there used to be a lightness to my brother’s eyes. He used to have a softness about him. A playfulness.
Sometimes I saw it when he was with Nora and his daughters, but it was tarnished right then.
I grieved that.
I knew I would never be soft and carefree, it wasn’t in my nature. But it was his. Until it wasn’t. Until he deployed and did things that were locked away in sealed files, files I’d hacked into and been horrified by. Horrified by the things that had taken my brother from me.
I mourned that lightness.
And I cursed that over-the-top, alpha protectiveness combined with instincts honed to detect and identify danger.
I glanced from him down to my computer screen.
I’d opened it with bleary eyes since I considered that he was here at bumfuck whenever in the morning because he had something he needed doing.
Which he did. He had a flourishing construction business, but his books were a fucking mess.
Even with the considerable work I’d done of them.
“Because the IRS would likely put you in prison otherwise,” I joked dryly.
“Calliope.” Rowan’s voice was never ‘light’—not anymore— but in that moment it was steely, probing, serious.
I met his eyes, though I really didn’t want to. Averted gazes were a sign of weakness. I’d happily stared down bigoted, criminal CEOs, dictators, organized crime hitmen, but my brother was much harder.
His icy gaze missed nothing. Furthermore, although he wasn’t a warm, fuzzy teddy bear, he cared about me. I did not need the inquisitive stare of someone who cared about me. I would’ve preferred Jasper’s cold, growing more and more indifferent, stare.
“You did not come to Jupiter to do our books.” He nodded to my computer. “You were controlling billion-dollar deals, running entire companies. You have said that you’d rather be shot in the face than live in a small town.”
I rolled my eyes to deflect from how close he was getting to the truth.
I should’ve known Rowan would become tangled up and hopelessly in love with his wife before realizing something was amiss with me.
He was a beacon for danger, and I was the most dangerous thing in this town. “I was dramatic in my teens.”
His stare was unyielding. “You said that the last time we were home for Christmas.”
I ground my teeth. He was a dog with a bone.
I’d known something like this was coming, hadn’t I?
I’d fallen into a false sense of security, thinking that romance, children, drama would distract him enough to leave me alone.
Regardless, I was unprepared to go head-to-head with him, especially with Jasper’s visit hanging in the air, making it hard to breathe.
“What happened?” Rowan asked with a soft gentleness he hadn’t used with me … ever. “To make you, you of all people, run? Who hurt you?”
There was no softness in his second question. His tone morphed into one of menace. It was my brother, the protective soldier, avenger of honor, ready to ride off and punish whoever needed to be punished.
Skin prickling, I reminded myself this was my brother . He was not taking this role to hurt me, to control or belittle me. He was doing it because he loved me.
Still, I bristled against it, the inference that I couldn’t take care of myself, that a man had to take care of me.
“It’s cute that you think I can’t handle anyone who was ever brave enough to try to hurt me,” I scoffed, drumming my nails along the keyboard.
Rowan stared at me, not saying anything, his simple gaze probably trying to unravel the loose threads of my hastily knitted lies and distractions.
I didn’t blink, having experienced enough dick swinging staring contests. Although most were with men trying to best me, bring me down, make me submit. It was considerably harder when the man in question was simply worried about me.
But I managed.
And Rowan blinked first.
“Jesus, Cal. It’s okay to be human sometimes,” he sighed in defeat, rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s okay to talk. Ask for help. You can’t be staunch all the damn time.”
I raised my brow. Rowan was one to talk. When he got back from deployment with shadows permanently etched beneath his eyes, he’d moved away from all of our family to start a business hours away, then threw himself into it so he didn’t form any meaningful connections.
I waved at him. “Hello pot, it’s me kettle. We seem to be a similar shade of black.”
He grinned, shaking his head. Though the grin didn’t last for long.
With Rowan, it never did. “Cal, I’m man enough to know when to back off, and I sense I’m not the one who’s gonna get the truth outta you.
Not yet, at least. I’m also smart enough to know my formidable, successful, hurricane of a sister did not come to Jupiter for the scenery or a job with shit pay. ”
“You don’t pay me,” I corrected him. “And I babysit. For free.” I didn’t add that I’d pay him for the opportunity to be with my nieces.
Money was one of the few things I didn’t need to worry about.
“Shit pay,” he nodded. “You’re not a small-town woman. And you were born in a small fucking town. From the day you entered the world, you were determined to conquer it. Mom always joked you’d become a dictator.”
I sighed, as if the exhale could brush away the complicated feelings I had for my well-meaning parents who simultaneously didn’t understand me and knew me in ways I couldn’t fathom. “Only men have the need to take over regimes.”
His head swung side to side in disagreement. “Seriously, Cal. You came here because something shook you. And if it shook you of all people, it scares the shit out of me. You’re in trouble.” His voice vibrated with worry. With menace. He’d been stewing on this for a while.
I quirked my head. “If I’m not in trouble, I’m not breathing.” I forced casualness into my tone.
“Yeah, you’ve been in shades of trouble your entire life,” he agreed, tapping his finger on the island counter.
“But this is different. I may not know the specifics, may not know anything, but I know this is different. Right now, I’m gonna let you shut me out.
But the second I sense it’s getting too big and too fucking dangerous, I’m stepping in. ”
I closed my laptop with a little more force than necessary.
“Rowan, I get you. You came out of the womb with alpha basically stamped on your forehead. And it only got worse when you deployed. It’s in you to do this .
” I waved my hand between us. “Protect, take care of, take control.” I paused, staring at my brother, the one I loved with all my heart.
One of the few men I’d die to protect. “But I promise you, you step in to my business, I’ll fucking ruin you. ”
My voice was ice cold, words sharper than they needed to be.
I hated myself a little for speaking to my brother like that.
Not enough to follow up with an apology, though.
This was about protection. Protection for myself, yes, but most importantly, protection for my well-meaning brother and his entire family.
Yes, I understood he was a badass former soldier who had done things, hurt people, killed people. He wasn’t exactly some na?ve, small-town boy who couldn’t handle himself. He was capable of defending himself pretty fucking well. He was noble. A hero of sorts.
But the problem was that the people I was tangled up with weren’t just villains, there was no nobility, no rules. They possessed a kind of ruthlessness that even Rowan wouldn’t be able to match up against.
Heroes didn’t fare well against the real villains of this world.
Rowan was eyeing me without the coldness I deserved. Without resentment. Still, worry lingered on his face. And I saw defeat too.
He nodded once. Defeat.