Chapter 37
Benjamin
The air smelled like old bourbon and sharper things. A place with no name on the door—just shadowed booths, low jazz, and the kind of silence people paid extra for. The kind where no one asked questions they didn’t want answers to.
Ben stepped inside, every muscle coiled with purpose.
He wasn’t here to waste time. He wasn’t here to spar or posture. He came for answers—results.
And Julian? Already waiting.
He sprawled in a back corner booth like he belonged to the room and the shadows in equal measure. One hand cradled a glass of something dark. Another identical glass sat untouched across from him. Ben’s.
Julian didn’t stand. Didn’t greet. Just offered a slow smile.
“You really showed up,” he said. “I was starting to think I imagined the call.”
His teeth pressed together, but his expression didn’t flicker.
He slid into the booth without comment. No glance at the drink. Every movement crisp, controlled, deliberate.
The suit was perfect. The mask even more so.
“I see you haven’t changed,” he said, voice flat.
Ben watched his brother, cataloging the changes time had carved into him. Julian was still lean, still carried himself with that same unsettling grace, but there was something harder in his eyes now. Something colder. Sharpened by distance.
It had been nearly six months since they’d seen each other in person. The occasional phone call kept the line from going dead completely, but even those were rare.
Julian exhaled a low chuckle—amused, indulgent.
He swirled his drink lazily, like he had all the time in the world.
"Oh, I’ve changed plenty. But you wouldn’t know, would you?" he said, mock-casual, sharp underneath.
He leaned back, stretching his arms across the booth like a bored god.
"Too busy playing righteous crusader—fighting for truth and justice—while, what was it again? Our parents’ marriage quietly imploded behind you?"
A beat. A sip.
"But I’m sure you noticed. If you ever picked up the phone," Julian added, deadpan.
He didn’t touch the drink. Didn’t shift in his seat. But something in the air shifted with him. A drop in temperature.
A warning.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” he snapped.
No courtroom cool. No polished diplomacy. Just raw irritation, laced with something darker—something that sounded like fear.
Julian’s smile twitched, like he hadn’t expected that level of bite so fast. He held Ben’s stare for a beat longer than necessary.
Then he shrugged and murmured, “Relax. I’m fucking with you.”
Ben leaned in, voice low, tense.
“Jesus, Julian. What the hell was that supposed to mean?”
He just smiled. “Chill, it was a joke.”
Ben didn’t move. Didn’t blink. But something in his gaze went colder. Harder.
“That’s not funny,” he said, voice low and edged. “Don’t throw shit like that if it’s not true.”
Julian lifted his glass, slow and lazy. “Then you’ve got nothing to worry about.”
They locked eyes.
Ben didn’t rise to the bait—but the hit had landed. A clean cut, expertly placed. And they both knew it.
The tone shifted again, his voice softening into something mock-gentle.
“But since you're here, I’m guessing this isn’t a social call.”
He twirled the drink between his fingers with deliberate ease.
“Shame. I could’ve introduced you to people who actually know how to have fun.”
Ben exhaled through his nose. Slow. Controlled. Measured.
The urge to walk away was real—but pointless.
He’d come here for a reason. And Julian? He was still the best devil in his arsenal.
Ben held his tongue, acutely aware that the instant he revealed his purpose, he'd be handing Julian a weapon—one his brother would wield with cold, calculated precision.
Yet he would surrender it anyway.
They'd run out of options. Crawford had built himself an impenetrable fortress of protection and caution. The system—Ben's carefully constructed system of justice—was failing. Not equipped for this particular monster.
Ben felt the room shift—subtle but unmistakable. Julian’s words sliced through the low hum of the bar like a scalpel, and suddenly the untouched drinks between them felt less like a courtesy and more like a warning.
Not that Ben didn’t need one—he did. But the tension between them was too precise to dull with alcohol. Too dangerous to soften.
Julian lounged back in the booth like he owned the place—and Ben's discomfort. One arm draped along the top of the leather seat, his glass held loosely in the other. That signature smirk tugged at his mouth, the one Ben had learned to read before he could tie his own shoes. He didn’t just look smug.
He looked like he was waiting to enjoy what came next.
“So,” Julian drawled, voice lazy but eyes sharp. “You finally took my advice.”
Ben’s stare hardened. Suspicion flared fast and quiet behind his eyes. His brother didn’t give advice. Not without strings. And never without a scoreboard.
“What advice?” he asked, voice low, flat. Controlled.
Julian tipped his glass in a loose, lazy gesture. The ice shifted with a soft clink, punctuating the moment like a smirk in sound form.
“The Crimson Bloom,” he said, every syllable deliberate. “Told you ages ago you needed to loosen up. Apparently, you listened. Word is, you didn’t just visit—you went back. Multiple times. Had yourself a favorite.”
Ben stilled. Just for a second.
But that second was everything.
His posture straightened, hand tensed against the edge of the table. His pulse kicked up. Still, his expression didn’t change—cut from stone, trained into stillness.
“That’s not—” he began, voice tight, laced with warning.
Ben watched his brother laugh—low and slow. Rage coiled tight in his chest. Julian had always known how to get under his skin, but this? This was different. This was surgical.
“Don’t bother,” Julian said, grinning like a cat with feathers on its tongue. “I know what happened. Blondie had you wrapped around her little finger.”
He leaned in then, eyes gleaming with that signature predator’s gleam that made Ben’s skin itch. Julian didn’t just collect secrets—he sharpened them.
“But what I didn’t expect?” His voice dipped, velvet and poisonous. “That she’d turn out to be your very own associate.”
The world contracted. Every muscle going tight as frost filled his veins. The booth. The drink. Julian’s smug face. It all blurred into static behind the blow of those words.
“How the hell do you know that?” he asked, voice low and dangerous.
Julian raised a brow, mock-offended. He pressed a hand to his chest, theatrically wounded.
“Brother. Please. That’s insulting.”
He tapped his temple, slow and deliberate.
"This is what I do." Julian's words unfurled like a snake stretching in sunlight. "Would be embarrassing, really, if I couldn't connect a dancer to her legal name and the prestigious firm where she plays attorney by day." The casual cruelty in his precision made Ben's stomach turn to lead.
His hands curled into fists under the table, nails biting into his palms. The need to hit something—someone—flared, vicious and bright. But he didn’t move. Not yet.
“If you knew,” he said, each word precise as a scalpel, “why didn’t you tell me?”
Julian’s grin turned wicked. “Why would I?” he said, leaning back like a king. “Watching you figure it out on your own was so much more fun.”
Ben exhaled sharply, dragging a hand down his face.
The weight of his brother's knowledge pressed against his chest like a physical thing—dense, suffocating. He looked tired now.
"You're a real piece of work," he muttered, just loud enough to cut through the low thrum of the bar.
Julian raised his glass in mock salute, eyes gleaming with undisguised delight. The amber liquid caught the dim light, scattering gold shadows across the table like broken glass.
"And you’re the genius who dove headfirst into the fantasy," replied, bright as sin.
Ben cursed under his breath, something venomous and short. His fingers clenched around his untouched drink, knuckles straining white. The rest of the room dulled into static as he braced himself for what came next.
Then, "She's coming here."
Julian perked up. Visibly delighted. His posture shifted—from lazily amused to intensely interested in a single heartbeat.
His smile became sharper.
"Winters? Ohhh, this just keeps getting better." Julian leaned forward, elbows on the table, chin resting on his interlaced fingers.
Ben shot him a look. Pure fire. The kind of look that would have made anyone else at the firm step back, reconsider, retreat.
"Don't mess with her," he said, voice flat, dangerous.
He felt his shoulders draw tight as Julian lifted both hands in mock surrender, his expression arranged into that familiar mask of exaggerated innocence. Theatrics. Polished since childhood. Ben could almost hear their mother's voice—Julian, for God's sake, wipe that smirk off your face.
"Wouldn't dream of it," he answered, mild as tea.
Ben didn’t buy it for a second.
The pause that followed wasn’t empty—it was strategic. Julian setting the table, carving space for the knife he was about to slide in. And sure enough, the smirk returned—thinner now, colder.
He tilted his head slightly, studying Ben the way a surgeon might assess a wound before cutting deeper. The gaze was invasive. Dissecting.
Then, softer—too soft—Julian leaned in.
“But you’re the one worried about how I’ll behave?”
Ben didn’t answer. Not right away.
The words hit, sharp and deliberate, and Julian let the silence stretch like wire between them. Waiting. Watching.
Then—“Tell me, brother,” Julian went on, voice dipped in sugar and disdain, “are you really sure you’re the steady one in this equation?”
Ben tensed. A flicker in his eyes—heat, restraint, something sharp. But still, he held.
Julian raised his glass again, slow and easy, eyes glinting.
Ben’s voice came low. Final.
“Watch it.”
That made him smile—wider this time.
And that smile said it all.
The air between them shifted—thickening with something heavier than whiskey and unspoken history.