“Yes.”
I tap my fork against the plate, nerves making me fidget. “That phone call earlier. You looked… different after.”
His posture shifts slightly, but he doesn’t shut down. He just watches me like he’s deciding how much truth I can hold.
“It was my brother,” he says.
“You have a brother?” I ask before I can stop myself. Then I realize how dumb that sounds. “I mean—obviously you have family. You just… you give off only child energy.”
“Really?” His mouth twitches. “I have brothers. I have a lot of brothers.”
“How many?”
He leans back in his chair, eyes drifting to the fire like it’s easier to talk when he’s not looking at me too directly. “Six.”
My eyes widen. “Six brothers? Were your parents okay? Did anyone check on them?”
A low chuckle rumbles out of him. It’s not loud, but it’s real. “We grew up in a small Texas town,” he says. “Valor Springs.”
“Of course you did,” I murmur. “That sounds like a place where people ride horses to school and drink sweet tea as a personality trait.”
His eyes flick back to me, amused. “Not far off.”
I smile despite myself. “Tell me about them.”
His gaze softens. The hard lines of him ease just a fraction.
“Nash is the oldest,” he says. “He’s… steady. The kind of guy who always knew what to do, even when none of us did. I’m the second eldest. Then there’s Mack. He’s loud. Big laugh, bigger opinions. Sin’s quiet but he watches everything—like he’s always calculating angles. Banks is trouble wrapped in charm. A lot of charm. Jace’s the one who could talk a rattlesnake into leaving the porch. Colt’s…” He exhales. “Colt’s the kind of brother who’d drag you out of hell by your collar and yell at you the whole way.”
I can’t help it—I’m smiling. “And you?”
His eyes hold mine. “I’m the one who learned early that if you stay calm, you can hold the whole thing together.”
Something in my chest tugs.
I shift my legs under the table. “So Nash called because…”
“He took a job.”
“Oh,” I say, not really understanding. “And that’s bad?”
Crewe’s expression tightens again, like the subject is sensitive. “Yeah.”
“With Maddox Security,” I say, remembering the name.
His jaw works once. “Yes.”
I take a careful breath. “And… something about your dad.”
The cabin goes quieter. Even the wind seems to pause.
Crewe stares at the table for a second, then lifts his eyes to me. “I was seventeen,” he says.
The words come out flat, but his voice has a rough edge now, like he’s dragging the memory up from somewhere he keeps locked.
“We were on the edge of town,” he continues. “Dad had taken the truck out. Said he’d be back before dark.”
He swallows.
