“And we get why you’d be wary of us,” Maverick says.
“But you don’t have all the facts, and whatever Hamilton and Mathers have been saying is bullshit.” Dark venom flares behind Kaiden’s eyes. “They’re the ones you should be wary of, not us.”
“I know how to protect us. I’ve kept us safe for years when you fuckers didn’t give a shit whether we lived or died.”
“That’s not true,” Kaiden says.
“We should move.” Maverick eyes the people milling around us in the lobby of the precinct.
“Let’s talk back at your place and take it from there,” Kaiden says.
“Let’s not.” I snag Ro’s arm. “I’m taking my brother home, and you two can crawl back under your hole in Rydeville. We don’t need you or want you.”
“Zayn,” Ro whispers. “They got you out of here and made the charges disappear.”
“Because they’re trying to lull us into a false sense of security. Wake up and smell the coffee, Ro. Stop being so fucking naïve.”
“You’re being a dick. At least hear them out.”
“I don’t owe them shit, and neither do you! They abandoned us until it suited them to come looking for us.”
“We couldn’t find you, but you know all about that, don’t you, Zayn?” Sawyer Hunt says, coming up at the rear, flanked by Jackson Lauder and Drew Manning. “Or should we call you Argon, or what about Rogan?” he adds with a smirk.
“Oh goodie, all the gang is here,” I deadpan even though Xavier Daniels is conspicuously absent. Barron too. Unless they’re outside with the car.
Lauder smothers a laugh, and Kaiden glares at him.
“We need to go,” Hunt says to Kaiden. “We’re drawing too much attention.”
“Sounds like a plan,” I say, grabbing Ro’s arm. “Let’s get out of here.” I drill a look at the others. “Alone.”
Ro shucks out of my hold, and pressure sits on my chest. “I want to go with them, and I want you to listen to what they have to say. Come on, Zayn. Just do it for me.”
My little brother does not play fair, and I’m not happy he’s siding with them over me, but a part of me gets it. Ro’s been searching for inner happiness from the moment our parents and Pen died. He sees a ready-made family and thinks it’s the solution to his troubles.
But it’s not.
These people will use and abuse us and toss us aside again when it suits them.
Unless we get there first.
“Fine,” I concede with a scowl. “We’ll do it your way.” I eyeball Kaiden. “But I’m only doing this for Ro.”
“No, fuck no!” I hop up, and the tablet slides off my lap onto the floor. “I don’t believe it!” I grab Kaiden up off the couch by his shirt and hiss in his face. “You’re lying! You fabricated that documentation to lure us in!”
“I wish that were the truth, Zayn, but it’s not. We haven’t doctored that evidence. Like we said, we found it on Mathers’s drive. Your father left those files for you. He wanted you to find it should something happen to him. He wanted you to know the truth.”
My lips pull back in a snarl as I grip Kaiden’s shirt tighter. He could shove me away, but he’s humoring me.
“I can relate to how you’re feeling. I?—”
Letting go of his shirt, I thrust my clenched fist in his face, roaring when he stumbles to the floor, tripping over Charlie Barron’s feet. “Stop fucking lying!” I yell. “You don’t have a fucking clue what I’m feeling.”
Kaiden’s eyes darken in anger as he takes Manning’s hand, letting him pull him up. Kaiden probes the trickle of bloodseeping from his nose. “Maybe not,” he says, exchanging another one of those conspiratorial looks with Maverick that boils my blood. It’s like a silent tag team since we returned to our apartment with our brothers, Hunt, Daniels, Lauder, Barron, and Manning in tow. “But I can guess.”
“Did he really do it?” Ro asks, looking at Kaiden through red-rimmed bloodshot eyes. “Did Denton really kill our family?”
Kaiden’s anger fades as he drops onto the arm of the chair beside Roman. “Everything points to it.”
