goddamn toxic, always has been.
“I don’t know, bro. How much time you got?”
“Seriously, why wouldn’t you try?”
“And repeat the same actions? She had more power than Lo did to break me. Albeit, I broke us apart and felt like shit the past two years, I felt I had control.”
“You started drinking again, didn’t you?”
He nods, his face scrunched. He stands, pacing back and forth. Then he’s at my desk, palms flat, his gaze hitting mine. “She’s gone, Jase. That’s why I’m here. She fucking left, and I don’t know why.”
“What do you think I can do?” He stares at me, his expression imploring all while he seems visibly shaken.
“We own the top floor of Hollow Hills.”
“So that was you,” I mock. “Couldn’t just find somewhere not relative to me and everyone else?”
“Where’s the fun in that?” he taunts. “Glad I did now because you have access to the database, no?”
I nod, hating that he knows this. If anyone knew outside of us, I could be facing lawsuits.
“Find out what happened,” he begs, straightening himself and backing away.
So, I do.
After combing through the time frames Toby supplied, I find his wife in the elevator with some woman.
“That fucking cunt,” he growls. I’m so surprised I almost punch him for calling his wife that. “Whatever she said to Joey set her off.”
Turning the audio on, we both listen to that lady say, in explicit detail, what she wanted and planned on doing with a married man’s dick.
Apparently, that man is my brother.
“I didn’t love her. I’d never leave Joey, and I’d just cut things off with her. Fuck.”
He grips his head and bites his fist. I understand his helplessness. It’s something that I used to feel often. Even now, there are moments when the distrust haunts Lo. Even with therapy, that little niggling at the back of her mind doesn’t fully disappear.
“I have to go find her,” he says a moment later. He’s a mess. A goddamn tornado terrorizing his own mind.
“How about we give her some time, and you come see Lo and the kids?” I offer out of nowhere. It stops Toby in his tracks, and he gawks at me as if I’m mad.
Maybe I’m crazy. Either way, this meet, it’s fate. Has to be.
“I can’t!” He raises his voice. “She’s a cutter, Jase. She fucking cuts when she’s a mess.” The strain in his eyes has me worried. Lo was suicidal, but her self-harm tended to reside in her own mind. A personal hell of her own making.
“Then talk to me about her. Settle your mind so I can help and maybe we can come up with some viable options.”
He nods and starts from the beginning.
His spitfire reminds me of my own.
And once again, I finally feel like we’re brothers and not enemies.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Present
Joey
I don’t know what brought me here, but I’m here. Hell, I don’t even know why. I was halfway to the cove before turning around, heading right to where I am now.
The house is massive but so white picket. It’s something that I’ve never cared for. I’m not an extravagant wife, by any means, but this is too mundane for even me. It looks like my dad’s place, and that’s exactly what I avoided my entire life.
Him.
Repetition.
Hatred.
I stare at the three-story home, seeing the way it seems too peaceful. From everything Francis told me, this is anything but a happy home.
It’s been five years.
Sitting in my car for another five minutes, I don’t even notice my passenger door opening, but when it does, a little shriek escapes me. The teenager from Gray’s house sits next to me, a scowl darker than ever covers his face. If I thought the world made me bitter, this little psychopath is something else entirely.
“The fuck are you staring at my house for?” a gravelly voice barks at me.
My eyes connect with the figure inside my car, and chills break across my flesh like little pinpricks of unease.
His dark hair is jagged and unruly like he runs his hands through it in an attempt to make it look as fucked up as his soul.
His eyes, so heady with hatred and filled to the brim with experience and death, burns me.
He makes his own marks, and I find it has me shriveling into myself.
It’s not something I’m used to.
Little punk kids don’t evoke these reactions in me, but this one does. He digs deep with his nearly black eyes, his pupils dilated with agitation. He makes sure I’m aware that he doesn’t