Best Friend's Sister - Alexis Winter Page 0,59
of her. I’ll make sure she knows all of this. She’s not taking Deven anywhere, most of all, back to the man who put his hands on her without permission.
Ten minutes later, I’m pulling into Drake’s driveway. It’s nearly full with all my brothers being here. I haven’t even seen Wyatt or Clay since I’ve been back home. It’ll be nice to get to catch up with them.
As I’m climbing out of the truck, the barn door opens, and I see Wyatt standing in the open doorway. I smile as I head in his direction. When I’m close enough, he pulls me in for a long hug and slaps me on the back harder than necessary.
“I’ve missed you, man. How ya been?” he asks, pulling back.
I smile. “I missed you too.” I move farther into the barn, and Clay grabs me by the back of the neck, forcing me into a hug. He slaps my back painfully as well. Brothers are rough.
“Hey, little bro. How’s it been?”
“Good. How’s life?” I ask, pulling away.
“Oh, you know. Same shit, different day.”
“Come on, guys. Let’s go upstairs and have a seat,” Drake says, leading us all up the stairs to the loft. The place looks brand new but unfinished. There’s a big circular table set up in the center and what looks to be a bar that he’s building behind it.
“This is going to be my new man cave,” he says, grabbing us all a beer and a bottle of whiskey to share.
We all take our places at the table, and Drake pours a little whiskey in five shot glasses. He spreads them out, giving us all one. He holds his in the air. “To us all finally being home at the same time and together,” he says as we all throw the shots back.
Everyone slams their glass down onto the table.
“Now, onto the important stuff.” He looks at me. “Hudson, there’s been some shit going on for a while now, and you haven’t been home to tell us what you think.”
“About what?”
“We have a half-brother out there,” he starts and the rest of the guys groan and roll their eyes, clearly tired of hearing about it by now.
“What?” I ask.
He nods. “Yep. Dad had an affair years ago, and the woman moved when he broke things off. She found out she was pregnant a little while later, and she never told dad or her son about any of us.”
“Okay,” I say, trying to process what I’m hearing.
“But then, that woman passed away and her son found some things when he was cleaning out her belongings. He found out who is father was. Did some researching and found out who we are, what we have, and about the money.”
“Great,” I mumble.
“Drake wants us all to give up a small portion of our share to create a share for this guy. What do you think about that?” Colton asks.
I feel put on the spot. “I…um,” I start, unsure where I’m going with this.
Drake looks at me. “He’s our brother. Wouldn’t you like to get to know him?”
Colton buts back in, “If we give this guy his share, who’s to say he’s not going to sell it to some outsider? This is ours. We were born into this. We had to put up with dad’s shit for years. I’m not going to give anything up without a fight.” He leans back and crosses his arms.
Drake looks at Colton. “We’ve been over this, Colt. He’s family.”
Colton shakes his head. “No, you guys are my family. My wife and kids are my family. Dad, all my nephews. That guy, he’s not my family. Family is about more than blood, Drake.”
It’s crazy how these two can be so different.
Drake lets out a long breath before looking at me. “It’s time we vote.”
“Whoa, wait a minute. Are you absolutely sure that this guy is who he says?”
Drake nods. “We had a court-ordered DNA test. He’s dad’s.”
“So what are we voting for here?”
“We’re voting to see if we should give him a share or just buy him out.”
“So we either have to lose a part of our share in the company or lose out on thousands of dollars? How’s that fair? I didn’t run off and have an illegitimate child.”
“Thank you,” Colton says.
“Look,” Drake breathes out. “I know it isn’t fair to us, but this isn’t fair to him either, okay? Now, we can address this now by voting, or we can tell him to fuck off and make him