by Avril Ashton
“Do you always have to yell?” Izek came thundering down the stairs. “I can hear you just—uh…” He stumbled over his feet when he saw Dima Zhirkhov. “Um.” He licked his lips as he eyed Dima up and down. “Hi.” Faint color touched his cheeks.
“Hey.” Dima winked. “Let’s go, people.” Dima whirled away. “If I’m late to meet my husband, I’m shooting somebody.”
* * * *
Israel Storm had a hulking presence with a wrecked gaze. Van had told Levi about his brother, what he did, the guns and the drugs. But Israel Storm just looked sad, and exhausted. Maybe even a little bit scared as he shook Levi’s hand then guided him upstairs to his guest bedroom.
Van lay there, atop the gray and white bedspread, all his clothes on, even his boots. Eyes closed. Levi saw the tear tracks, and spun to Israel.
“What the hell happened?”
“We had dinner with Mark Dulles.”
Levi blinked. “You were there?”
“He called me, asked me to come with him.” Israel blew out a breath, rubbed a palm over his head. “It was a disaster. Dulles threatened him, accused him of killing his sister.” He stopped. Glanced up at the ceiling. “Our sister.” His throat worked. “Then he left and I found him hysterical, out of mind with grief.”
“Why?” Levi whispered. “What happened?”
“My mother happened. I don’t know what she did or said, but he just…he wasn’t there anymore.” He tapped a finger to his temple.”
Fuck. Fuck. Levi toed off his sneakers then climbed up onto the bed, spooning Van, hugging his warm body tight. He couldn’t make sense of anything Israel had just said.
“Wake up,” he muttered against Van’s nape. “Open your eyes and tell me what you need.” When he looked up again, Israel was gone, and the bedroom door was closed.
Levi hung on to Van, murmuring to him, rubbing his head, kissing his exposed skin, until he fell asleep.
Chapter Fifteen
Israel closed the door softly and went back downstairs. Van’s husband and his son was in the house. They should be meeting under different circumstances. Not this. Not like this. He stood in the living room entryway and stared at the kid, Izek, who was slumped on the couch, fingers flying as he texted on his phone.
He should go say wassup, but he didn’t even know how to do that. It was his fault Van was damn near comatose upstairs. His fault, his mother’s fault. They didn’t come more fucked up than this family.
He’d also fucked things up with Reggie, who hadn’t said more than two words to him since they’d brought Van here. He knew why, and he didn’t even know how he’d explain why he’d lied so that it made sense.
“Hey.” He walked over, nodded at the kid. “You good?”
“Uh. Yeah.” Izek looked up briefly, flashed something of a smile. “I’m good.”
Okay. Well.
“So you’re my uncle, huh?” Izek put the phone down and met Israel’s gaze.
“I am.”
Izek nodded. “I Googled you.” He paused as if waiting for Israel to say something.
He shrugged. “It’s all true.”
Dimples appeared when Izek smiled. “Cool.” He picked up the phone again, and Israel figured he’d been dismissed.
He went down to the basement where he’d seen Reggie disappear earlier. He found his lover lying on his back on the leather pull-out sofa, staring at the ceiling. Israel walked over and stood next to the sofa, hands in his pockets, not speaking.
He was drained. The night had drained him, and he wanted to fucking give in for a moment, collapse under the weight of everything that sat on his chest.
But he needed to fix what he’d inexorably broken.
He sat on the edge of the sofa bed, and Reggie’s leg shifted away to give him more room. Israel sighed. He didn’t do well with silence and cold shoulders from Reggie. It reminded him too much of that fucked up time when they were fighting the attraction between them, when all they did was fight with each other because they couldn’t admit how much they wanted each other.
“We lying to each other now?” Reggie asked finally.
“No.” Israel shook his head. “I fucked up.”
Reggie snorted as he sat up. “You almost lose your shit because I kept my old apartment, and now you’re lying to me? About some simple shit, Is? Why would you lie about going to see your father, man?”
“I don’t know.” He truly didn’t know why he’d fired off that text telling Reggie he was going to see his cousin, Xavier. He searched himself, even now, but the answers weren’t forthcoming.
“Did you think I wouldn’t understand?” Reggie asked. “That I wouldn’t support you?”
“Fuck, no.” He’d never had to question Reggie’s support or his loyalty, not once. “I don’t know, maybe I just…Maybe I wanted to keep this for myself, to myself. I didn’t want to share it. Or I wasn’t ready to share it.” He swallowed, muttered, “Even with you,” and watched Reggie’s face turn stony.
He’d hurt his lover.
“I’m sorry.” He reached out grabbed Reggie by the shoulder. “I’m sorry, Reg.” He didn’t know what the fuck he was doing, what he was saying, but he saw himself hurting this man, the man he loved, and it tore him open.
“Little lies,” Reggie said sotto voce. “Little lies, they turn into big lies. And those big lies, they become wrecking balls.” He swung a leg off the sofa bed, got up and towered over Israel, face expressionless. “I don’t care why you lied, Is. I care that you thought it was okay. No big deal.”
“Reg.”
His lover walked away, up the stairs, and Israel remained behind in the cold, dark basement.
* * * *
When Van opened his eyes, he found Levi curled up next to him on a strange bed in a strange room. He flipped onto his back, groaning when his memory told him where he was, and where he’d been the night before.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
He melted down in front of Seraphina Cook. In his brother’s arms.
As if his mind conjured him, the bedroom door opened and Israel’s head appeared. He stepped into the room.
“Yo.”
Van cleared his throat. “Hey.”
Israel watched him closely, gaze missing nothing when he asked, “How you feel?”
“Kinda like I lost my shit, and cried all over you.”
The other man pursed his lips. “You did that.”
Van took note of the strain around Israel’s mouth, the shadows in his eyes. Van wasn’t the only one going through it, Israel was right there with him. But was it fair to the other man? “I heard what you said last night, the promise you made, but I won’t hold you to it.”
Israel’s gaze sharpened. “Why not?”
“Because she’s your mother.” He sighed, shifted and Levi moved with him. “I had my mother growing up. I don’t know what it’s like to question that, to be without it. She’s your mother and that’s a bond that’s…” He swallowed. “It’s everything, that bond.”
Israel kept silent for a moment, just watching Van from the foot of the bed. Then he lifted his head a bit, straightened his shoulders. “What if I want you to hold me to it? What if I want to be your big brother, and do what big brothers do?” His eyes reddened. “What if—What if I want to protect you from her?”
What if I choose you over my mother? Van heard that even though it wasn’t spoken out loud. “I would be honored,” he said hoarsely. “To have you as my big brother.” Fuck, this emotion thing was draining him.
“Tell me about her,” Israel rasped. “Mel. Tell me about our sister.”
Levi made a sound and lifted his head, looking so good with the tousled hair and sleep-swollen eyes. “I’d like to hear about her, as well.”
Van smiled down at him, and bent, giving him a quick kiss on the nose. “Okay.” He motioned for Israel to take a seat. Then he started talking.
“Her name is-was-Melissa,” he corrected himself swiftly, softly. “She was three years olde
r.” He tucked Levi into the crook of his arm, resting his head back on the headboard. It hurt. To talk about Mel in the past tense. To think about her in that way. Which was why he pretended. Her loss should have set him to his knees long before last night, but the booze and drugs had numbed him. Losing Levi had numbed him.
“She took that big sister thing to heart, fighting my battles for me.” He closed his eyes on a chuckle. “I used to hate that. I was supposed to beat up the bullies and chase off the boys, except she did those things, chasing off the girls I liked.”
A hand stroked his chest so he opened his eyes again, caught Levi’s touch and held it close to his heart. “She was different,” he said softly. “I don’t think we ever got a proper diagnosis, but looking back I’d say she fell somewhere on the Autism spectrum.”
When Israel nodded, he continued. “She liked silence. And routine. Give Mel a schedule, a list, a task, and she got it done to perfection. And she listened, probably because she wasn’t a fan of too many words, but Mel listened.” The memories choked him and he took a second, rubbing his hand up and down Levi’s arm.
“Our parents—our mother and the guy she married, who raised us as his own—they were killed when I was seventeen, armed robbery gone bad.” He inhaled deeply when the pain got too sharp. “Mel was in the house. She saw it.”
Levi made a mournful sound, and Israel cursed.
“We lived together after that, and we were good. Things were good. Then our father came sniffing around, started grooming me to work for him in the FBI. He worked there at the time, and I just…” He shook his head at his stupid naiveté. “He’d never been around. I wanted what he represented. I ached for it, and I think Mel did too, but—” He shrugged. “She didn’t really say those words. Anyway, when I began doing actual field work, I had Mark put someone on Mel. Kinda round the clock protection that she wouldn’t know about, but someone who’d be there to make sure she was okay. It was all good, until I went undercover to get close to Levi.”
“Being with you in Cali, meant I wasn’t near Mel,” he explained to Levi. “I called her every now and again, but Mark would always assure me she was fine. And we’d talk on the phone. She was okay.”
“But she wasn’t?” Israel asked.
“Maybe she was.” Van shrugged. “Maybe she wasn’t. I don’t know. When things went to shit with Levi, I was all set to go back to her. You know, lick my wounds. Except Mark was there with an assignment that just couldn’t wait. Now or never.” His face twisted at the words his father had spoken to him. “I think a part of me still wanted to please him back then.”
Israel grunted.
Levi remained silent, but Van felt his anger on Van’s behalf.
“So that’s how I ended up going undercover in Seraphina Cook’s organization.”
“Fuck.” Israel jumped to his feet and began pacing.
“Who is Seraphina Cook?” Levi asked.
“My mother,” Israel said bitterly.
Levi’s eyes went wide.
“I wasn’t prepared,” Van said. “I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t in my right fucking mind. I was flying blind, and unbeknownst to me, I’d been made under five seconds flat.”
“She knew who you were,” Levi breathed.
“’She knew I was my father’s son, and she made sure to take out whatever anger she felt for him on me.”
Levi grabbed his chin, turned Van’s head so their gazes could meet. “What she did to you?”
No way was Van about to go through the long list of things that woman had put him through. “Doesn’t matter. I was rescued finally, but not by Dutch or anyone from the FBI.”
Levi’s brow creased. “Who?”
“Elias,” Israel spoke up. “One of my best friends.”
Van watched his brother for a second. Even back then they’d been connected. “Elias Kote saved me. He’d been sent in to take Seraphina out, but he chose to let her go and rescue me instead.” Van had been torn about that second shot at life. He hadn’t been thinking about Mel, or Levi, and Izek. He’d only been thinking of finding ways to silence the white noise in his head, to wipe away the images and the sounds of his own screams as he begged and pleaded to live.
He’d wanted to die.
“She lost me,” he said hoarsely. “But she went after Mel, because apparently I’d broken, said things…” He glanced away. “Done things.” He didn’t remember most of it, but the little he did?
Like acid poured down his throat, way it rotted his insides.
Lips brushed his temple, and Levi hugged him close, stroked him. Calmed him enough. “I spent a long time in the hospital. Sedated. Fucked out of my mind. When I came to, after asking Dutch if Levi and Izek were safe, I asked about Mel. She was fine, he said. So I could breathe easy for a bit, but once I was out I went straight to her.” His heart beat accelerated, and he wanted to jump off the bed, race back in time, get there earlier. Like a maybe a week earlier, in time to tell her he’d protect her, she didn’t have to worry.
“She was hanging from the light fixture. The rope around her neck was stained with blood.” Tears tumbled down his cheek. “Her blood. She’d jammed a knife into her left ear.”
Israel spun away, giving them his back.
“Fuck.” Levi’s curse was horrified.
“She was cold. Gray. Already…already…” Van shook when he turned to Levi. “She’d been gone so long, about a week, and nobody knew. Nobody cared. Nobody worried. The man who was supposed to protect her failed.” He balled his fists. “I failed.”
“No.” Levi and Israel said in unison.
“Don’t put that on yourself,” Israel barked. He was angry, but his eyes were wet.
“I should have known he wouldn’t watch out for her. I should have known.”
“Babe, stop.” Levi fisted Van’s shirt, shook him. “Listen to Israel. It’s not your fault. The blame resides with Mark, and Seraphina.”
“What did she do?” Israel asked. “What did she do to Mel?”
“One word was written all over Mel’s bedroom walls. Stop.” Van wiped his face. “Seraphina bribed the guy who’d been watching over Mel. I found him, made him talk.” He’d made him scream too, and beg. Beating him to a bloodied pulp with his bare hands. Then shooting him in the fucking head. “Mel liked silence.”
Levi tensed beside him.
Israel faced him, body still, unblinking as he waited.
“Seraphina had him rig the place, pipe loud music in. Twenty-four hours a day. They drove her crazy.” He swallowed. “I wondered why she wouldn’t call Mark for help. Why wouldn’t she call daddy. She referred to him like that. Daddy. But she did reach out to him for help.” His voice broke, the anguish heavy in his chest when he said, “One hundred and fifteen missed calls. She called him a hundred and fifteen times. And he never answered. He never picked up the phone. Not once.” He nodded to Israel. “So that’s why I hate our father.”
“Good enough reason to me.”
“I-I talk to her,” Van confessed in a low whisper. “Like every day. Sometimes more than once.” He didn’t meet either of their eyes. Speaking that made him seem less than sane, and while he very well might be, the last thing he wanted was to see confirmation on Levi or Israel’s eyes. “One day I got drunk and forgot. I called her phone, and by the time reality hit me, her voicemail kicked in. Her voice…” He shook her head. “I just started talking to her. Left a message. Then I called again a few days later. Same thing. So I talked again.” He turned to Levi, begging for his husband to understand when he said, “I talk to her when I’m high, when I’m happy, or sad. Or fucked up. I imagine she’s listening, wherever she is. I found out later that Dutch pays the bill, makes sure the phone remains on.”
Israel walked over to Van’s side of the bed and stood there silently for a moment as if gathering his thoughts. “I’m sorry,” he said finally, regret and sadness laced his words. “For what my mother did. For what my father did and didn’t do. I am sorry.”
> He was, Van saw that. “I know.”
“You wanna stay for a bit?”
“Cool.”
Israel walked out the bedroom, and Van rolled over and into Levi’s arms.
Chapter Sixteen
They spent the day in Israel’s house, and though Van couldn’t help but notice the tension between his brother and Reggie, it was still good. Once the heavy shit had been aired out, it was time for him to get to know his brother. So they sat around in the cold backyard, talking loud, until day turned to night.
Izek was fascinated with Israel, and even Levi seemed like he didn’t know what to think. On paper Israel wasn’t a good guy at all. Van had been skeptical at best when Dutch had told him about Israel, and knowing what he knew about the man he saw no way they’d be anything but two men who had the misfortune to share the same father.
And the fact that Seraphina was his mother?
But like everything else, Van was learning there was layers to Israel Storm. And he didn’t mind at all calling him brother.
Night had fallen, and they’d ordered food from the Chinese spot down the block as Reggie talked about his dealings with Dutch.
“I’m saying, Dutch keeps his hands in all the pots. Nothing dude does surprises me, but aye...” Reggie shrugged. “I’ve got limits, you now? Some lines shouldn’t be crossed.”
If you want to work with Dutch or even know Dutch on any kinda level, you had to be willing to cross lines. Just the ways things were. Levi was done with that. Like Sullivan Black, Levi had reached the point where Dutch had pushed him beyond where he wanted to go. He was done.
Retired.
The doorbell rang, the sound drifting to them in the backyard through the open back door. Van linked fingers with Levi who sat next to him, and his lover flashed him a smile while his eyes glinted on the light.
Sometimes it took Van by surprise, when he’d look up, to his left or right and see Levi there. It would startle him, the thudding of his chest, the racing of his pulse.
