made his father rich enough to believe his ambitions mattered more than his son’s.
“Why are you here?” Loren muttered when I followed him into his childhood bedroom. Unlike my grandmother, his parents hadn’t left it alone. They’d converted it into a guest room, completely wiping away everything that helped shape Loren into the man he was today. It was only unusual or unnecessary when you had nine other available bedrooms for guests.
He took a seat on the foot of the queen bed before planting his back on the mattress and closing his eyes.
“You know why,” I said as I watched him from the doorway. “Come home.”
“I am home.”
It took everything I hoped to be one day not to storm across the room and wring his goddamn neck.
He didn’t get to say that shit to me.
When Loren’s father threw him out for finally getting his mother to leave him, he had no one else but us. We were his family, and it had been that way ever since. Loren thought it had all been in vain when his mother crawled back like a thoroughly whipped dog, but it hadn’t. We made sure of it.
I then took that shitty deal with Savant and convinced my friends to do the same.
I couldn’t let Loren back under his father’s thumb. He’d been close to giving in and ready to accept whatever scraps his father threw for a price much too high when that deal came to the table.
But Savant had only wanted me.
Loren and Jericho had been optional, but I insisted, begged, giving Carl Cole the leverage he needed to fuck us. I’d told myself I was helping my best friends. Loren could support himself and Rich would avoid prison. After a while, I couldn’t live with that lie anymore.
Some days I felt guilty, others I didn’t.
Loren knew, and that was why he hated me. It wasn’t because I liked taking charge. Frankly, Loren was too lazy for the role. It was because I succeeded where his father had failed. I forced a life on him rather than let him make his own choices. He trusted me, and I used him to feed my addiction.
“You know as well as I do that isn’t true.”
He didn’t respond, but I knew he was listening.
Swallowing my pride, I finally let free the words I should have spoken a long time ago but hadn’t. I’d never been afraid that I might actually lose him before. “I’m sorry, Lo.” It seemed like I waited an eternity before his eyes slowly opened, and his black gaze met mine. “I’m sorry for breaking your trust in me, I’m sorry for not letting you choose your own path, I’m sorry for making you think we didn’t need you, and I’m sorry for not being sorry sooner.”
He made me wait.
Loren made the silence stretch as long as he possibly could before he simply said, “Thanks.” I was pretty sure my gut couldn’t hold any more dread. Clasping his hands underneath his head, Loren closed his eyes again. “You can go now.”
I narrowed my gaze on him as if he could see the warning in them. “Don’t test me, Lo.”
“Or what?”
I casually crossed the room without saying a word. When I reached him, I gripped his collar in my fists and yanked him from the bed until there was no space left between us. He let me. “Or I do everyone a favor, and I make you a bottom.”
Loren needed some humility, and one of these days, he was going to push me into giving him some. He made me see the difference between a leader and a dictator, and while I was determined to temper those urges, I would always run this shit. If Loren forced me to make that an undisputed fact, so be it.
We stared at one another for a long while before he swallowed and tried to push me away. I tightened my grip.
“You stink,” I informed him. My eyes were starting to water being this close.
He looked away and mumbled, “Back the hell off me then.”
Rather than do so, I pushed him toward the en suite until he stumbled inside. “Shower, shave, and get dressed. We have somewhere to be.”
“Such as?”
“Braxton’s hearing,” I informed him, getting back to business. “It’s today.”
Loren stared at nothing as his mind worked, and he overthought what really should have been crystal clear. “What makes you think she wants us there?”
“Whether she does or not, we will be. We’re not letting her do that