Being the youngest of three boys, he was taking his time to settle down, but so was I. Only the middle brother had settled, but he was always thinking further into the future of the three of us.
“Your current plaything?” he asked, taking a seat on top of my desk.
Couldn’t he act like a human instead of a cat, I thought.
“Not your business.”
Although I could talk to Blaise about a lot of things, explaining why I currently had a human chained to my bed wasn’t one of those things. He’d give me the speech about how to treat a lady right, and that I shouldn’t have left her alone.
“In your bedroom? Come on, Bash. You never leave someone alone in your house, let alone your bedroom.”
I shot him a glare.
“Not your business,” I repeated, voice hard. My eyes were glued back to the computer screen, watching Oakley.
He sat there on the bed, looking around the room like he was thinking hard about something. The book that he could read sat untouched on the nightstand, but his eyes kept going to the floor beside the bed.
Moving the camera just enough, I could get half of the cover of the book he was desperately trying to be sneaky about.
That one, thankfully, wasn’t horrible. But it was still one I didn’t want him looking at.
He was already perfect, and he didn’t need more ideas to tempt me.
“Is she a little?” Blaise asked, peeking at the screen once again.
“He’sa minor,” I spoke through gritted teeth. “And shouldn’t be trying to fucking read those books.”
I fixed the camera back on Oakley. It wasn’t worth the time to explain that the kid on my bed was a boy, despite how well he looked with his hair pulled back.
“Bash,” Blaise lowered his voice.
“It’s not what it looks like, I swear. His stepfather was going to sell him. I didn’t have a choice but to step in.”
“Him? It’s a girl, dude.”
I waved my brother off. “He has fucking boy parts. Stepfather was a piece of shit.”
“I’m not gonna ask,” he finally sat down in the chair. “But why? That kid should be put into a foster home. Or turned over to the feds. Something. We don’t mess with minors, man.”
“I would. But I can’t. There’s a hit out for his head. And until then, I’m stuck with the kid.”
“Well, fuck. What are you gonna do then? You can’t seriously think about keeping him.”
“What else am I to do?” I huffed, rubbing a hand down my face roughly. “He’ll be killed if he goes anywhere.”
This was the wrong brother I needed advice from. He wasn’t going to be of any help. He hadn’t dealt with the inner works of the family like I had. Which was good. Blaise preferred to stay out most of the business, preferring to work legit work for us. Which is good for him.
I was jealous, because I fucking tried to do that, too. I tried to keep the family business at the auto shop running, and only that. But when our older brother, Nathon, got into trouble, I was called. I didn’t have a choice but to get my hands dirty.
I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat, though. The family was everything, blood or not. I’d kill for my family. Ihadkilled.
Just because Blaise wasn’t stupid, he knew of the inner workings. He was part of the family and was just as trustworthy as the rest of them were. But he didn’t have firsthand experience in much of what I was dealing with.
“Well, how old is he?”
I shook my head at his question. He didn’t want to know. Or maybe it was more of the fact that I didn’t want to say it.
“Bash,” Blaise sighed. “I can’t help you if you don’t give me some clues.”
