by Sophie Oak
Win reached for her hand, squeezing it tight. “He better be worthy of you. If he’s not, if either one of them steps out of line, they should know that you have five brothers willing to kill them. And by kill, I mean take the maximum amount of pain before they’re no longer breathing.”
“He’s already been there, Win. He’s tougher than he thinks, and he’s going to pull through. We’re going to be a family, and I think that means spending a lot of time here.” It wasn’t so bad. She was starting to become rather attached to the community. “I hope you’ll visit. Whether it’s New York or here or California, I’m always going to want to see my big brother.”
Win turned, not watching her, but keeping his eyes on the road. “Ben and Chase are happy. Now you’re happy, too. I think Mark and Drew are just going to form a ménage with their assault rifles and live happily ever after that way. I’ll be honest, Georgie, I’m not sure what to do. This has been my life for so long.”
“You’re going to find a new one, and our brothers and I will stand right beside you.” She couldn’t think of anyone who deserved a happy ending more than Win. She felt her face light up because she’d just had the absolute best idea ever.
“Oh, god. What are you going to do?” Win practically backed off the bench. “That is the scariest look I’ve ever seen on your face.”
She just smiled and shook her head. “I’m going to make it my mission to find you a girl.”
“No. No. No. I can find my own sub. No. No. Georgia, if you ever loved me, don’t start setting me up.” He stood, holding his hands up. “I give up. I’ll take you to the cabin. I’ll pay for your wedding. Anything you want as long as you don’t start setting me up.”
It looked like everyone was a little afraid of her today, and that was a good thing. She gave him her most harmless smile because she was already thinking about who she could set him up with. Yes, this was a worthy project. “I will totally take a ride, but I make no promises.”
Only the best for her big brother. It was time she started to pay him back.
And it was definitely time to let her men know the score.
“My car’s in the parking lot.” He shook his head as he looked down at her and then ran a hand across her head the way he had when she was a kid. “You turned out okay, Georgie.”
He started walking, dragging her along because he was so damn tall. She had to admit that keeping up with him was easier when she wasn’t wearing five-inch heels. She just had to jog a little.
And he would look so good with Naomi. Georgia nearly sighed at the thought. Naomi had gorgeous coffee-colored skin and huge brown eyes. She was curvy just the way Win liked his women. Win never went for the skinny type. Oh no, he liked his women solid, and she’d heard him talking about his deep love for a truly curvy ass. Naomi’s had been round.
And they would have the most gorgeous biracial babies ever. She could already see her nieces and nephews. Oh, she would be such a good aunt.
“Georgia, seriously, you’re scaring me. No setups,” Win said as they rounded the corner.
“But I already have you married with two point three kids,” she admitted.
“No.” He started to say something else, but then a little pinging sound hit the air, and Georgia watched in complete horror as her brother’s perfectly white shirt bloomed with blood.
“Run, Georgia,” he managed to say.
“Win!”
He fell to his knees, his hand over his chest. Georgia dropped to the ground, trying to think of any way to save her brother. He couldn’t die. Win was too big to die, too strong and powerful.
God, he couldn’t die.
“I wouldn’t run if I were you, Miss Dawson.” A tall man in a dark suit stepped out from behind an SUV. He held a gun with a silencer on it. “I don’t think I got his heart. I could try again. I’m not the best shot in the world, but I doubt I would miss at this range.” He shrugged. “And if I do, my friends will be happy to fix the situation.”
She was suddenly surrounded by men. She counted seven of them and they all had weapons.
“I won’t run.” She wouldn’t leave her brother behind. “What do you want with me?”
His henchmen were rough looking, but this man oozed wealth. Even the gun in his hand looked oddly elegant. He was dressed beautifully, with blond hair and pale skin, but his crew was a motley mismatch of street thugs. “I don’t really want anything with you, dear, but I’ve found it’s always best to go into these situations with a little leverage. I believe Mr. Stark will begin to negotiate with me if I have his lover. You will come with me. You will come and then Mr. Stark and I will have a little chat about a man who my boss wishes to find.”
Georgia stood up, forcing herself to leave Win’s side. “I’ll come on one condition. You leave my brother here and you don’t shoot him again.”
“Or I could shoot him anyway. I would still have you.”
“You will find me very difficult to deal with if you touch him again. I don’t know why you’re here, but I will make your life a living hell, and don’t think I can’t do it. I’ll make damn sure you have to kill me, and then there won’t be anything on the earth that will make Seth give you what you want.” She’d been in this position before. She had to get through these few minutes and then she would start working on a way out. One step at a time.
“I believe you.” He looked to his men and said something in Spanish. They all moved back, one opening the door to a massive SUV and gesturing her inside.
She gave one last look at her brother, praying he would survive.
As they pulled out of the parking lot, she thought to ask one last question. “What do you want from Seth?”
The man with the easy smile turned, his eyes so cold she thought she would freeze. “John Bishop, of course.”
Well, of course. She wracked her brain but couldn’t come up with the answer to the one question now rolling through her head as the armed escort began to drive toward the cabin.
Who the hell was John Bishop?
Chapter Sixteen
Seth paced the floor and wished he could get the pilot back earlier than tonight. It would be perfect if he could just be gone. Georgia and Logan had made their intentions clear. They wanted each other. Not him.
Was Logan so pissed off with him for going to college that he would steal away the only woman Seth had ever really wanted?
And Georgia. She just wanted a Dom, but Logan couldn’t take care of her the way Seth could. Logan would do all the big gesture things, but he wouldn’t know how to take care of her on a day-to-day basis because Logan was still a coddled infant when it came to things like that. Sure he could top her in the bedroom, but would he remember how she liked her vodka tonics made? How she loved fresh lilies? And presents. She loved little presents because growing up she’d had all the creature comforts, but her parents never just brought her gifts. They’d forgotten her birthday half the time, the same way his parents had.
Was he doing the right thing? The situation seemed to call for a strategic retreat. Or should he start treating Logan like the enemy and come at him hard and fast and utterly annihilate him? It was what he would do to anyone else. He would zero in on a weakness and ruthlessly twist the knife.
He could point out all the ways Logan wasn’t good for her. Right down to the fact that he had a drug dealer in the past.
He heard the sound of crunching gravel and knew that he wouldn’t. Because Seth Stark had a weakness, and his weakness had two names. Logan and Georgia.
He was going to be a self-sacrificing idiot who just walked away. Maybe in a couple of years he might be able to look them up again.
Fuck.
“Seth!” Logan shouted as he walked in the back door. “Dude, what’s up with all the luggage? Did Georgia get back yet?”
Just get through the next couple of minutes. Just play it cool. They don’t need to know how much it hurt. Seth was good at masking his emotions. He was an iceman. “You’re a motherfucker, yo
u know that, Logan? Do you know what a son of a bitch you are?”
Yeah. That was real cool.
Logan stopped, his expression going completely blank. “What are you talking about?”
Laugh it off. Tell him that your job is done here and then get the hell out. He doesn’t have to know. His inner voice was so rational, and he listened to it ninety-nine percent of the time. But not today. “I was standing right outside the door, asshole. I heard every word you said to her. Tell me something. Were you going to try to kick me out of my own cabin or were the two of you just going to use me for cash for a while?”
Yeah, that was a direct hit. He could see plainly the way Logan blanched. “What are you talking about?”
He was totally out of control. Seth knew he should be cool as a cucumber, but he was eight years old again and just lashing out. “I thought you didn’t take charity, Green. You wouldn’t let me pay for college, but you’ll let me pay for your drug habit.”
It was so clear now. Logan wouldn’t let him pay for college because he hadn’t really wanted to go with him. He hadn’t taken him up on the roommate offer because he hadn’t wanted to live in New York. Oh, sure, he’d head off to Dallas with a dude he barely knew, but he didn’t want anything to do with his best friend.
“Ah, now I know why Win is here. So big brother dug up some dirt, huh?” Logan pulled off his hat and set it aside. “Well, I was planning on telling you anyway, so I guess this is as good a time as any. Why don’t you sit down?”
“Fuck you, Logan. I’m not sitting down. I’m not listening. I’ve finally got the message. I’m the little city prick who trailed after you every summer. I’m not masculine enough for your world. I’m not the kind of friend you need, and you won’t be bought. Because that’s what I do. I buy friends because I can’t just make them. So I get it. You’re going to be Georgia’s Dom, and I’m going to go back to New York where I belong. Actions. I should have really looked at your actions and then I would have known where I stood.”
God, he sounded like a whiny chick trying to justify a breakup. He was everything his father had said he was. Not manly. Overly emotional. Useless.
Logan put his hands on the bar and stared for a minute. “What were my actions, Seth?”
Logan was so calm, but then Seth was just starting to understand that he didn’t value the friendship. Seth had managed to turn it into some mythic story. Best friends forever. Such bullshit. Real men didn’t act like that. Real men had golf buddies and shared a beer with their “friends” right before fucking the other guy’s wife. They didn’t get emotional about some other dude.
Seth took a long breath and then let it out. He needed to walk out of this with as much dignity as he could muster. “I’m sorry. I’ve been acting like a kid again. This place meant so much to me growing up and I think I’m foolishly trying to get that feeling back again. I’m using you to do it.”
“What were my actions, Seth?” Logan repeated the question, but his voice was softer now as though he felt sorry for Seth.
Why the fuck had he started this? “Fine. You got in trouble and you didn’t call me. I should have known. You had better friends. I just…you were always my best friend. I was a weird kid.”
A hint of a smile curled up Logan’s lips. “You still are, buddy.”
“It was hard to make friends, but I found that after I met you, I didn’t need them anymore. I was content to have one person.”
“And I was mad that you didn’t come back here to go to college,” Logan said softly. His face flushed just a little. Maybe he wasn’t as unemotional as Seth had first thought.
“What?”
“I was angry that you didn’t come back here so we could go to Adams State together,” Logan explained. “That was our plan. We came up with it when I was twelve and then you went to MIT. You left me behind. I was angry for years about that. You didn’t even come back for the summers.”
Seth had gotten the scholarship to MIT at the same time he’d come up with his software idea. He’d been a little obsessed with it. He’d just known that he could make computers work more efficiently. The software he’d come up with integrated systems with ease, and from there he’d been able to completely transform the way companies did business online. But he’d needed the professors at MIT, the equipment, the connections. He wouldn’t have had them here. “Logan, I thought you understood I had to go to a bigger school. I needed one that concentrated on technology. I offered to pay for you to come with me.”
Logan shook his head. “Seth, I couldn’t have made it into MIT.”
“There were other schools.” Seth had sent him about a thousand enrollment packets.
“And I was scared of them.” Logan sat down at the bar. He was calmer, more assured than Seth had ever seen him. God, Logan had grown up and Seth still felt like a kid. “I was scared of leaving Bliss. I was scared that I would get out into the real world and not fit in. I was scared that once I was in your world, you would realize what a completely inappropriate friend I am for you.”
“What?”
“Don’t play dumb. What would your parents have thought of me? The people around you? I was a hick kid from a small town who was kind of scared of his own shadow. And I was raised by lesbians. And my male role model is a guy who keeps a star chart of all the alien species he’s met. Yeah, I would have been totally accepted.”
Seth’s heart hurt a little, but Logan was right. “I would have accepted you.”
“Seth, one of two things would have happened,” Logan began. “You would have paid attention to me and not gotten your work done and you would have resented me. Or you would have ignored me and then I would have resented you. I can see that now. Everything happened the way it needed to happen. I wasn’t ready then. I am now. I’ve finally figured out that bad shit can happen to a person anywhere in the world, but that doesn’t mean you don’t take it on. That doesn’t mean a man should hide away. I didn’t take the money because I wasn’t sure I would make it through school, and I didn’t want to let you down. I’m cool with it now. I know what I want to do, and you’re the moneybags of this family.”
“What?” Seth was starting to feel like he was way behind in this conversation. He’d kind of thought this would be the place where he stormed out.
Logan leaned forward a little. “I know we’re supposed to be having this massive fight, but I don’t want to fight anymore. I’m going to lay it out and I’m going to hope that you can forgive me. I didn’t call you after the incident because I didn’t want you to see me like that. I was ashamed. I was lost. I was broken, man. I was utterly broken. I let it happen.”
“You didn’t exactly have a choice, man.”
“I did later. I chose not to call you. I chose to beg my moms to understate my injuries to you. I chose to keep taking those pills even after I didn’t need them because I didn’t want to have to feel anything. Caleb cut me off, and I went out and found some more. The asshole didn’t even charge me at first, and then he told me I had everything on credit. Yeah, I bought that. He was paying me off to not turn his ass in. I chose to do that. And I chose to buy heroin one night because I was going to go out in a blaze of glory.”
Seth felt nauseous, like he’d just been kicked in the gut. “Oh, god. You were going to kill yourself.”
“Yes,” Logan admitted. “I didn’t actually try, but I went so far as to buy it. I sat in Hell on Wheels. I had a couple of beers. I walked into the bathroom because I didn’t want my moms to be the ones who had to find me. It seemed fitting to die in a toilet because that’s where my life was.”
His best friend had nearly died—twice—and he hadn’t realized it. “What stopped you?”
“You sent me a text. I was sitting there staring at it and wondering if I would feel really good just for a few minutes before I died and my phone buzzed and you were asking if I’d seen the new Batman movie and, just for a second, I wanted to. I wanted to see the movie. I wanted to grab some popcorn and sit in a t
heater and do something normal. I had one fleeting second where I wasn’t thinking about what a piece of shit I was.”
He forced down the need to cry. All of his anger was gone in a rush of empathy. “Logan, how can you think that way?”
“I’ll tell you, but not without Georgia. I only want to say it once, and there are a few people I need to say it to, but I felt that way then. There’s a little piece of me that still feels that way. But that night, I knew I wanted to do one thing and that was see a movie. Silly thing, really, but it had been months and months since I wanted anything beyond feeling numb. So I dumped the drugs and I called my friend Hope, and she marched into that bar and she sat up all night with me and in the morning. I also had to pay off my dealer. I am sorry about that, man. Sawyer helped me out by making up the whole barroom brawl story so you and Nate didn’t have to know how far I’d fallen. Hope convinced me I should talk to Bernie when I paid him off. At first I was just going to drop a tip and have the bastard arrested, but Hope is really convincing. She seems to think we all deserve the chance to change. Do you know what happened? After an hour with Hope, the dumb fuck used every dime I paid him—your money—and he got himself clean and right with the law. Who does that? I remember watching him and I couldn’t quite believe it. At the end of the day, he was just a scared fuck like the rest of us. But he took the out when it was given to him. When he walked into the station house, I knew I had to go to Dallas. If a low-life drug dealer could change, I had to. I called Wolf and he talked to his brother, and I tried to get out. But there the truth is, I shamed this badge. I shamed my family.”
“You made a mistake, and you’re correcting it. Logan, you could have told me then and all I would have done was gotten my ass here as fast as I could.” He would have done anything to help his best friend.
“I know that now. And Georgia will forgive me, too. That’s not the problem. I haven’t forgiven myself, and I’m not sure how I’m going to do it, but I know what Leo was trying to tell me now. I have to figure it out because I’m not willing to lose anything more. I’ve chosen to be afraid to move, to see the darkness. I think you would have handled it better.”
