Engaging his Enemy (Shattered SEALs #4) - Amy Gamet Page 0,8
she not have told him right then, right after he left? The Navy had been his life’s dream, that was true, but he would have given it up in a second if he’d known.
Instead, she’d kept the child a secret, raising the baby in the very house Moto had grown up in, and Ben had been there the entire time. They never would have called him if Ben hadn’t needed his help, no matter if it was a fresh grave Ben had likely dug up himself.
“Fuck you,” he said quietly, the very idea of helping Ben suddenly too much to tolerate. The only thing he truly wanted to do was beat the ever-living crap out of that man. He put the car back in drive and headed down the road more slowly than before, making the turn onto State Street.
Old mansions lined the road, their monstrous floor plans long since divided into apartments of various sizes. Number two-eighteen was a tudor-style castle-looking thing with a wide driveway. There was a small lot in the back, and he pulled his rental car in beside a late-model Ferrari with dull red paint. He had a car just like it back home, but his was the current model year and shiny as the surface of a pond, and he knew instantly the car belonged to his brother.
That was the way they’d been. Two peas in a pod, their parents used to say. Both of them had wanted to enlist in the military. Both had a lust for computers, fast cars, and beautiful women.
The same woman.
He ducked into the rain, making his way to the door. Stickers with last names demarcated seven doorbells, and he pressed his brother’s. Lightning flashed and he counted to four before the thunder boomed. The door opened, and Ben stood before Moto for the first time in ten years.
A grown man stood where a young one had been. Ben strongly resembled their father, the shock of it like a punch to the solar plexus. They appraised each other, neither moving or saying a word. When Ben turned and headed upstairs, Moto followed. The hallway smelled like an Italian restaurant, with distant sounds of people talking and someone playing music.
On the third floor, Ben opened a door and held it for his brother. Zach walked in, scanning the open space with its dormered ceilings, ornate dark woodwork, and modern decor. A window air conditioner hummed beside a leather couch, the rain pelting its metal exterior. Moto turned to face his brother, the muscles of his arms flexing in preparation for the battle ahead.
Without a word, he punched Ben squarely in the jaw, sending him backwards into the closed door. “How could you do it?” Zach barked, grabbing a fistful of Ben’s shirt and hoisting his brother toward him. “How could you keep my own kid from me?” He pushed Ben hard in the chest, throwing him back against the door once more and advancing on him again.
Ben slunk to the floor, one hand holding his jaw and the other held up to ward off another attack. “You talked to Davina.”
“And my kid. What the fuck, Ben? Who in the hell do you think you are?”
“You should be thanking me. I took care of the mess you left behind. I raised that kid like my own—”
“Nobody fucking asked you to do that! Did it ever occur to you I might like to know my own child? Be a father to the kid I helped create?” He turned and paced, returning to Ben and enjoying how the other man cowered. “And you tried to marry her. Take the girl I loved and make her your wife.”
“I did what I thought was best.”
“Best? How in the hell is keeping my child away from me in anyone’s best interests but your own?”
Ben glared at him, blood dripping from the corner of his mouth as he got to a stand. “You’re a self-centered, egotistical ass.”
Zach considered punching him again, his fist already curling at his side, but he held off, needing to understand. “I was a kid, Ben. We all were.”
Ben shook his head. “No. It was bigger than that. You didn’t love Davina, you only loved yourself. I wasn’t just going to hand her and the baby over to the one person guaranteed to screw it up. I had a responsibility to protect them both.”
“If I was self-centered, it’s because I was driven. I wanted to succeed and no one was going to stand