I need to channel all my chaotic energy, harness the emotional storm inside of me, and order my tangled thoughts in one direction—finding my asshole brother.
Chapter 3
Wizard
Ihaven’t succeeded in getting myself entirely under control by the time I get to the security room. Dravin immediately shoves out of a chair so ergonomically expensive that I still want to cry just thinking about how much Tyrant spent on it, and he bought themyearsago. I didn’t call Maverick in, but he’s here too. They’re both bleary eyed, but Maverick more so. He’s still rumpled, his hair tousled and his patchy beard somehow looking unshaven.Hedoesn’t seem like he’s had the benefit of a strong cup of coffee yet.
Dravin gives me a sheepish look. “I hope it’s okay that I called Maverick. I thought we could use all the help we could get.”
Maverick’s chest puffs up, but it’s mostly fake ego. He’s a decent guy. He’s fairly new to the club. Came here because he had nowhere else to go after being in jail for years. One wrong bounce, and his luck could have been mine. I’ve done far more shit online that I could have been caught and punished for than he ever has.
“Not prying or anything, but isn’t that your brother’s fiancé?” Dravin asks.
He crosses his arms over his chest and leans casually against one of the desks. The room isn’t really all that small. It’s just so crowded with screens, computers, laptops, and other techthat it feels more claustrophobic than it is. I set it up a long time ago. It’s fucking crazy how many years I’ve been a part of this.
I’m honored. This is my home and my family, it truly fucking is, but sometimes I have to shake my head at how seven years can just… evaporate.
Maybe because I’ve always been so busy, but I also hardly ever sleep. I never have. Three to four hours a night is all I ever need. With all the extended hours in a day, you’d think they’d slow down.
“Yeah.” I lift my hand and cup the back of my neck.
Dravin is definitely prying and he’s far from finished. “I haven’t been here long, but you’ve always been known as the quiet guy passionately dedicated to his work. You barely ever go out. You don’t talk to anyone outside the club that I’ve seen.” His face blanks and he sizes me up. He must decide I’m not going to swing at him, so he continues. “Is it true that it’s always the quiet ones that you have to watch out for?”
Anger blasts through me, radiating pain like standing too close to an inferno. It’s a thoughtless question and I know that Dravin doesn’t mean to hurt me with it, but he didn’t grow up here. He doesn’t know a thing about me. No one does. No one knows the fucking agony that I’ve put myself through. No one knows just how badly undone I am every single time I’m anywhere near Esme. I should have broken my addiction to her years ago, but it wasn’t possible. He doesn’t know Esme either. How everyone in this town wrote her off before she even started, and how hard she had to work to prove them all wrong.
I roll my eyes to try and cover how badly rattled I am. That desperate, ugly hope keeps surging in my chest. “Weren’tyou the one who told everyone that your old lady was your sister when you got here, and then we saw you kissing?”
Dravin has a great face. He thinks it’s not very expressive, but it is. It’s kind of fun to watch it scrunch up when he realizes that he’s not the only one who can play at giving shit. “She wasn’t,” he sputters. “That was just our cover. You fucking know that. Fuck, man, that’s disgusting.”
“Obviously.” Maverick puts in, eyes tracking between the two of us.
“Obviously as in obviously not the same thing at all?” Dravin asks, confused.
I’m confused too. My head is going to split open. I promised Esme I’d have my brother found in an hour. That wasn’t a flex. I had no doubt I could do it, but I didn’t anticipate other people taking up my time with total nonsense. It’s not finding James that’s going to be the issue. It’s getting him back here.
“I’m not making a cuckold of my brother,” I snap and sit down in the chair Dravin shot out of earlier. I slide my laptop along the desk while the wall of screens steadily illuminates every aspect of the clubhouse. The left and right walls are for feeds that belong to our businesses, buildings, and houses. We’re accumulating so many that we’re going to need to fill up another wall soon.
“That’s a very big word and it’s still very early,” Maverick says, groaning.
“You know what it means.”
“Can you tell us what the hell is going on?” Maverick begs. “I know Dravin didn’t call me down here out of the good of his heart.”
“You don’t know any such thing, darlin’,” Dravin drawls.
Maverick is a pretty good guy, like most guys here. No one comes to blows over bullshit like that. We can all rib each other without it getting mean.
He’s right. I do need to tell them both what the hell is going on. I make even briefer work of it than Esme did, but it’s clear from Maverick and Dravin’s pinched faces that they’re less than impressed.
“Maverick’s really good at finding people,” Dravin says, spelling it out for me.
I roll my eyes. “Yeah. Got that. I don’t need help, but thanks for worrying about me.
“I could get Tyrant and Raiden together,” Maverick offers, trying to be helpful in any way he can. “Order some breakfast. Have it ready for whenever you are.”
Fuck. I shouldn’t have mentioned me telling Esme that I’d only need thirty minutes to find my brother. It’s more like fifteen now, I’ve wasted so much time.
“If you need help, holler,” Maverick says. “Until then, I’ll be ordering breakfast. Do you want me to call any of the old ladies? They can check on Esme? Sit with her maybe? She could join us for breakfast. I think Tyrant and Raiden will want to talk to her too.”
