Kade’s eyes are traveling over my face. “Yea, Micah’s dad liked to beat on him. He beat him so badly once he ended up in the hospital.” He hesitates before adding, “He suffered permanent brain damage.”
My hands fly to my mouth to cover my sob, heart hurting for that little boy, and for the man I consider a friend. “His speech!”
Kade nods slowly. “His speech. The language center of his brain was damaged. It makes it hard for him to put together sentences, especially if he’s stressed or around new people. He’s so fucking smart, Becca, but he can’t get the words out.”
“Tell me where his father is now.” My voice is ice cold.
Kade’s eyes are hard as they meet mine. “He’s been dealt with.”
“Where is he, Kade?” I push. I want to find him. I want to break him. I have so many ideas. So many skills. I could make the pain last for days, all without drawing blood.
“He’s dead, Becca.” Those eyes of his are still hard.
My anger dulls a little, but I still need to know. “Did it hurt?”
Kade’s smile would be chilling if I wasn’t perfect ready to kill Micah’s father myself. “Yes, Becca. It did.”
That makes me feel a little better. “Good. That piece of shit should be rotting.”
His smile shifts, warms. “You’re a bloodthirsty woman, Becca. I like it.”
My glare only makes his smile grow. That smile kills me. It starts to knit those snapped threads. I can’t allow that. This man is attracted to me because he met me at my lowest point. He looked at me, and his programming wouldn’t let him walk away.
My sadness over the life he was forced to lead softens my voice.
“Kade. Thank you for sharing all of that with me. It helps. And it’s okay. I understand why you backed off. We’re okay.”
“What do you understand, Becca?” Kade asks evenly.
I sigh, releasing the last of my anger. Letting all the foolish hope I had built around this man drift away with it. “I understand that you looked at me and saw someone who needed fixing.” I shrug. “I appreciate it, Kade. I do. I was in a not very good spot. My shitty situation met your fucked up past, and you couldn’t do anything but help. I’m grateful. But me sticking around any longer is not good for either of us.”
Kade nods slowly. “Maybe at first, that was true. Helping the girl. Trying to fix her is a pretty solid pattern in my life. More than one of my brothers has pointed that out to me.”
My eyes widen. “Brothers? You’ve only ever mentioned one.”
Kade laughs softly. “They’re not blood brothers, Becca. They’re more than that.” Kade pauses, smiling softly, his eyes drifting to the past. “My last time in state care, I ended up in a group home. It was a pretty shitty place. My mom had died a few years before, and Micah and I had run pretty wild. Doing whatever we had to do to stay out of the system and, in Micah’s case, away from his dad. When they finally caught up with us, and they couldn’t pin any of the shit we’d done on us, they stuck us in the home together. That’s where Ransom found us all. He was bigger, older, and he made us a family.” His smile shifts into a smirk. “Well, a gang at first, then a family. We called ourselves the Brash Brothers.”
I raise my eyebrow. “The Brash Brothers?”
Kade laughs. “Yea, I know. One counselor at the group home called Ransom brash. It wasn’t a compliment, but Ran liked it, and it stuck. Fuck, half of us didn’t even know what it meant, but we thought it sounded cool.”
“And you’re still in each other’s lives?” I asked.
“Yep. We built Brash Auto together. This was our first garage. I’m still not sure how Ransom got his hands on it, but we did whatever we had to do to make it a success. We’ve got a ton of them now, with another dozen set to open this year.” He shrugs. “Ransom’s got us in a bunch of other stuff, but I don’t really handle that part of the business.”
This piece of him, the way he talks about his family, leaves me a mix of happy and sad. Happy that he has family, people he clearly loves. But it emphasizes how truly alone I am now. Dad and I were such a great team. I never felt like I needed anyone else. Losing him felt like losing a limb. I have to learn how to walk again.
“So, you run this garage for him?” I’ve barely seen him, and something tells me he’s got a lot more going on.
He smiles and shrugs again. “I’m the Chief Operating Officer. I oversee all the garages.”
13
KADE
“Why the hell were you doing all this then?” She asks, waving her arm around the office. I can’t help but smile at the disbelief on her face and in her voice. It’s cleared away the anger from before. I’m so fucking relieved she’s actually talking to me again. I couldn’t let her just walk out of my life.
“This place feels like home,” I admit to her. “That apartment you’re staying in? That was the first home I felt completely safe in. This garage? We built this garage, Becca. A bunch of reject kids did this. We were told over and over we were useless, a fucking drain on society. That we weren’t going to amount to anything. But we proved them wrong. This place was ours.”
