3. Wentworth
THREE
Wentworth
HELENA, MONTANA TWENTY-FOUR HOURS LATER
It’s been almost seven years since I’ve seen my brother. Not since I was fifteen and he and his twin sister were seventeen. Barely eighteen months between the three of us—more than twice the difference between me and our younger sister, Silver, who turns twenty-one next month. I turned twenty-two last October. Delilah—my only full-blood sibling—is nineteen. After her, comes Sophia, who turns thirteen this year. The youngest of us is Mateo—he’s ten. There are four older siblings in Italy that I’ve never met.
Our father is a very busy man.
Easily distracted.
Easily bored.
The only thing Davino Fiorella ever fully committed to in his entire life is collecting Michelin stars. Collecting ex-wives runs a very close second .
Five stars.
Four ex-wives.
Two restaurants.
The only thing he has more of is children.
For the record, there’s eleven of us tangled up in the mess our father made of his personal life. Some of us are closer than others. By all accounts, my brother shouldn’t have even picked up the phone when I called, let alone agree to help me but there he is waiting for me on the tarmac when I step off the plane.
When he sees me, Damien even smiles.
Leaning against a beat-up truck parked a few yards from a black stretch limo with the Hawthorne Hotels insignia painted on its door, he watches while I make my way toward him, large canvas duffle bag slung over my shoulder. Worn leather portfolio tucked under my arm. It was a gift from my grandfather—the last thing he ever gave me and one of the few things I own in this world that I give a shit about.
“Holy shit you got big,” Damien says as soon as I get close enough to hear him. “Last time I saw you, you were barely scraping the underside of my chin.”
“Bullshit.” I give him a wide grin, slinging my duffle into the back of his truck while behind me, the steward opens the belly of the plane and starts off loading an assortment of designer luggage. “We were the same fucking height.” I look at him. Nothing much has changed. Where I continued to grow another five inches, Damien stalled out just north of six-foot. We share the same black hair. The same dark eyes but that’s where the similarities between us end.
Tossing a look at my duffle in the bed of his truck, Damien tips his chin at the limo parked a few yards away. “I was starting to think maybe I heard you wrong when you said you needed a place to stay.”
Aiming my gaze in the same direction, I watch the driver climb out of the limo so he can help the steward put the luggage in its trunk.
“You know how it is,” I say, trying to find a balance between telling him too much and telling him too little. “Subterfuge is the only way I get any peace and quiet.” I’ve called ahead to ten different Hawthornes to let them know that I’m coming and to get my suite ready—six of them out of the country. The Hawthorne Helena is the last place on the planet anyone would look for me but just in case some enterprising reporter picks through my tangled family tree and finds Damien, they’ll think that’s where I am.
“ Uhhh , no.” Damien shakes his head on a laugh. “I have no idea what that’s like.” There’s no mistaking the note of relief I hear in his tone. Of all of us, Damien and his twin sister, Dakota, are the only ones who didn’t take our father’s last name, in one way or another. Not that it would’ve mattered in my case. Even without the name Fiorella weighing me down, I’d still have Hawthorne to contend with. A few yards away, the driver finishes loading up the luggage before closing the trunk.
“I’ll have your luggage delivered to your room, sir.” He addresses me formally while Damien rolls his lips between his teeth to keep from laughing out loud when he hears the word sir . “Will there be anything else? Perhaps room service or a massage upon your arrival?”
Next to me, Damien makes a sound like he’s being strangled.
“No, thank you.” I shake my head while digging an elbow into my brother’s ribs. “Just the luggage.”
“Very well.” He flicks a faint look of disapproval in Damien’s direction before he turns to climb back into the drivers’ seat. Moments later the limo is started and drives away.
“It’s been seven years since I’ve seen you,” I tell him while I move to open the truck’s passenger side door. “Good to know you’re still an asshole.”
“Good to know you’re still a spoiled little rich boy,” Damien snipes back with a barely suppressed smile.
“I’m four inches taller than you,” I tell him while I settle into my seat. “I’m a big spoiled rich boy now.”
The laughter Damien’s been holding in cracks loose. “Kota’s great,” he says, referring to his twin sister. “But fuck, if I haven’t missed having a brother,” he tells me right before he slams the truck door in my face.
“So, how’s your mom?”
When I ask, Damien’s usually stoic expression splits in a wide grin. “She’s good.” He gives me a nod, gaze still glued to the road. “She’s going to be pissed you made it all the way to Montana and didn’t stop in to say hi.”
Damien’s mom, Suzi, is the executive head chef at Hawthorne Helena and the only one of my father’s ex-wives who was ever nice to me. When Davino shipped us out here that single summer Delilah and I spent with Damien and Dakota, Suzi welcomed us with open arms. I never forgot that.
“And Kota?” I ask, referring to Damien’s twin. “She graduated with her bachelors last year, right?”
“She did.” He gives me a nod. “She dove right into her master’s—indigenous studies.” There’s no mistaking the pride in his voice when he talks about his twin. “She wants to get her doctorate in anthropology.”
“That’s amazing.” I give him a sheepish grin. “Delilah got drunk, stole a horse from Central Park stables and pulled a Lady Godiva through Strawberry Fields.”
“So, she’s as levelheaded as I remember,” Damien says on a laugh. “How’s your mom?”
“Astrid?” I look out my window on a humorless chuckle. I know he’s only asking to be polite. My mother did everything she could to stymie his mother’s career advancement with Hawthorne Hotels. One of the last things my grandfather did before he died was promote her to executive head chef. By leaving his controlling shares to Delilah and me, he made her promotion impossible for my mother to reverse. “Still a nightmare.”
Damien makes a noise in the back of his throat that sounds like it wants to be a laugh. “So... what’s with all the subterfuge ?”
I knew he was going to ask. Has a right to ask but that doesn’t mean I want to answer him. “I told you,” I say evasively. “It’s the only way I get any privacy. If someone figures out I’m here, they’ll think I’m staying at the hotel.”
“And why aren’t you staying at the Hawthorne?” I can hear it in his tone, he knows I’m talking him in circles and his patience is wearing thin. When I don’t answer him, Damien makes an irritated sound in the back of his throat.
“Look, are you going to tell me what’s going on or are you going to keep pretending you called me because you had a sudden urge for another summer of brotherly male bonding?”
Sighing, I aim a look out the window. It’s green here. Impossibly green. Countless miles of it rolling out in front of me to collide with towering mountains and piercing blue sky. “Does it matter why I’m here?” I ask, suddenly sure that if I tell him what’s going on, he’ll pull over and kick me out of his truck in the middle of nowhere.
“No.” He shakes his head, gaze glued to the road in front of him. “It doesn’t matter to me, one fucking bit. Seven years or seven seconds—you’re my brother.” He flicks a look in my direction before going back to watching the road. “But it might matter to the people I talked into letting you stay with them.” He shakes his head. “Tom Barrett is my boss, Went. I can’t—”
“Trust me, you didn’t have to talk very hard. I just cut your boss a six-figure check for a one-month stay in his shitty little hunting cabin,” I remind him, instantly hating the bitter, entitled sound of my own voice. “Ol’ Tom has been bought and paid for. Why I’m here is none of his business.”
“Yeah. Maybe.” Damien nods his head in my peripheral. “But it’s sure the fuck mine , asshole. ”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to disagree with him. Damien and I are brothers but we barely know each other. One summer spent together as teenagers is the extent of our relationship but as soon as the words surge up my throat, I swallow them down. Because I called him and he answered. I asked for help and he said yes, without hesitation. I have a thousand people in my life who’ll ask how high when I say jump—but only because it’s their job.
Throwing a look at my brother, I instantly regret calling him. Dragging him into this mess. Because none of this is his fault and it sure as hell isn’t his job. “Fuck—I’m sorry, okay?” When my apology does little to loosen the set of his jaw, I look out the window again. “I’m not running from the law.” It’s a half lie. I might be. Depends on how fast Conner Gilroy can untangle the mess Lexi made. “I didn’t kill anyone. No one is after me—I swear.”
He waits a beat before he says anything.
“ But ?”
“But my ex-girlfriend did something stupid—” Stupid is an understatement. Lexi didn’t do something stupid. She did something reckless and dangerous that might end up costing a man his life. “and she’s trying to blame it on me. The tabloids are in a tizzy and LA was not the place to ride it out.” Blowing out a heavy sigh, I swipe a rough hand over my face. “I just need some time to get it sorted. That’s it. Just a few weeks to—”
“Alright.” Damien gives me a sigh of his own, along with a nod that loosens his jaw. “But you’re still an asshole.”
“Davino Fiorella is our father,” I remind him with a grin. “I come by it honestly.”