Men In Control (Smith Brothers Complete Series)

by Brenda Ford

  But it’s a pointless prayer really because I would know that voice anywhere. I might not have heard that sheer rage before, but it doesn’t mean I don’t know that it’s him. The chat with Alex mustn’t be going well.

  “Oh shit.” I don’t even need to get to Alex’s dressing room to see the scuffle. It’s spilled out into the hallway and it seems to be bloody already. Alex has hold of his nose, his fingers turning red as blood bursts through his fingers, and Angelo has a shred right across his tee shirt. This is bad. Real bad. “Guy’s stop this.”

  Before I can run to them, Mandy pushes past them both, pulling her own top down over herself, revealing an expression of sheer fury. That face combined with her inside out top really doesn’t match. I could laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation if this wasn’t so bad, particularly when she shoots an evil look my way as she stalks away. She created this whole mess by screwing around with two brothers, and now that it’s all come to a head, she’s running away rather than facing the consequences. I can’t say that I’m surprised.

  As she turns the corner, I notice her cell phone coming out. Probably to call the next guy on her list. I can’t imagine someone like Mandy not always having a backup plan in case things go wrong.

  “You wrecked everything,” Angelo yells while swinging his fist once more. He connects with Alex’s cheek, but only slightly as he ducks out the way. The wall gets the brunt of the punch. “I fucking hate you.”

  “I love her!” Alex’s excuse sounds pathetic as he yells it loudly. “I wouldn’t have gone anywhere near her otherwise. I wouldn’t ever want to hurt you or risk what we have. I just… I couldn’t help myself.”

  “That is utter bullshit.” Angelo doesn’t want to hear any of it. “Fuck you, Alex. You lied to me. I don’t know how long for, but you lied to me. You betrayed me; don’t you get that? Don’t you understand what you have done? You should have told me. You shouldn’t have gone anywhere near her… there are so many better ways that you could have dealt with things. I mean, I am your brother. Not just some guy. This is unbelievable.”

  Nope, it really isn’t a relief to have the truth out. This is only going to get uglier before it gets better.

  That theory is instantly proven right when Angelo leaps at Alex like a damn animal. I know this fight isn’t really about Mandy, I’m sure that Angelo is over her by now – I desperately hope anyway – I think that this is more about their relationship, but it’s still a bit of a sting to see him acting like this. It isn’t him. Sure, Alex is hitting his brother back, but that’s more in self-defense than anything else. Angelo is just attacking.

  “Stop!” I scream while running forwards. I can’t just stand here and let this happen. “Please, stop.”

  I try to get in the middle of them both to tear them apart before someone ends up getting seriously hurt, but they won’t let me. The pair of them are so focused on one another I don’t even think they know I’m here. I attempt to get my fingers in between them to get them apart for just a moment to get them to think straight, but it won’t happen. I just keep getting knocked back over and over as they scrap and fight like crazy.

  “You are a fucking asshole,” Angelo growls in between punches and what I think is a kick.

  “You know I wouldn’t…” Alex tries. “I wouldn’t if I didn’t feel so strongly….”

  “You have no right to feel strongly. For an ex or a current girlfriend.”

  From the next punch, blood flies off Angelo’s hand and splatters across my face. Even when I cry out in disgust, none of them notice I’m there. This is starting to get ridiculous. One of them is going to kill the other.

  “Gary!” I scream out, running back into the bar. “Gary, I need you. It’s bad.”

  I only really want the attention of one person, but my screaming combined with the audible yelling which has now got so loud everyone can hear them drags everyone back stage. I can’t do a damn thing to stop the stampeding crowd. I guess this will either stop the guys because they won’t have a choice, or it will get worse.

  “I’m going to call the cops,” the bar maid calls to me. “Stop the fight.”

  I try to signal to her not to do so because that’s the last thing we need, but she either doesn’t listen to me or she chooses to ignore me, and she turns to use the phone. Fuck, now I really need to end this fight.

  “Police!” I yell, trying to be heard over the eager sounds of the crowd. “The police are coming.”

  I have to scream out a few more times to get anyone to hear me. Finally, someone catches on to what I’m saying, and they yell the message forwards, causing other people to shout it too. I breathe a sigh of relief and pray silently that this will be enough to pull Angelo and Alex apart, ending this craziness.

  Perhaps it’s good that Mandy is a coward and she has run. Now I just hope she stays away. She’s caused enough damage. The guys really don’t need her back again. Neither of them.

  A cold breeze sends a shiver down my spine as I watch the police pile a bloody Alex and a rage filled Angelo into separate police cars to arrest them. I can only assume that they were so involved in the fight they didn’t even realize that the cops were coming. I tried and failed to stop them from getting in to trouble.

  I stare at Alex who has his head hung low in the back of his police car. I can’t help it. My heart goes out to him. I feel bad for him because he didn’t mean to get himself in this situation. Sure, there are many ways that he could have done things differently, but love makes people do crazy things. I know that myself. Now, he’s lost it all through his stupidity. Mandy, Angelo, and probably the rest of the Smith brothers. Who knows how the rest of them are going to react? It will definitely get crazy for a while with all kinds of rows. What a mess.

  Then my eyes travel over to Angelo. His eyes lock with mine and I see the mask of anger melt away. He looks scared and hurt, like a small boy who has been hurt badly. I wish more than anything that I could hug him and hold him to my chest, to comfort him through the shock and pain. This is why I didn’t want to be the one to tell him. I didn’t want him to have that look on his face because of me. Then again, this isn’t exactly better.

  “I’m sorry,” he mouths sadly to me, his eyes filled with agony. I don’t know what he’s got to apologize to me about, but I nod and accept it anyway just because it seems that’s what he needs right now.

  As the cars eventually pull away and the boys get taken to the police station where who knows what will happen to the pair of them, I break away from the crowds and start to move away. There isn’t anything that I can do here now, it’s better for me to just go home and wait. While I walk, I decide to fire off a message to Oliver just to let him know what has happened. This is an issue for the Smith brothers to deal with now.

  I guess I don’t really know my place in any of this now. I don’t know what Angelo will want to do from here. This whole incident might be too much for him, just like Sheri warned me it would be, and he might want to pull away from me for a while. Or even forever because I might remind him of all of this.

  “Perhaps I should have just told him,” I whisper. “Maybe it would have been easier.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Angelo

  “Does that bastard think that he’s doing me a favor?” I spit out angrily, not that there’s anyone around to hear me. “Oh, he doesn’t want to press charges about me attacking him? Thank you very much.”

  I stomp out of the police station, allowing the burning hot rage to continue circling through me because it’s the only thing preventing me from feeling all the pain. My fists ache like crazy, as do my ribs and cheeks where I’m pretty sure Alex got me a couple of times. But he was worse off, that much is for sure. And I’m glad about it. He deserves to be worse off after what he did to me. I mean, how can he even think about doing that? Fucking my girlfriend? I don’t give a shit about any of his excuses either. It doesn’t matter how he feels about Mandy, although I definitely don’t think its love,
it can’t be, he still shouldn’t have behaved like that.

  “Angelo.” Oliver makes me jump when he calls out my name. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

  “You have?” I furrow my eyebrows in confusion. “I didn’t know that you were here.”

  “I came as soon as I heard. Rachel messaged me. I’ve come to take you home.”

  “Right.” I’m surprised that Rachel did that, she looked really mad at me when she saw me being taken away by the police. I guess she isn’t totally turned off by me. “Well, I’m out now. Let’s get going.” I start to move, but Oliver doesn’t come with me. “What are you waiting for? I want to get out of here now.”

  He shoots me a guilty look. “I don’t want to leave Alex here all by himself. I want to get him too.”

  “You have to be fucking joking me,” I sneer. “You think I want to go anywhere with Alex?”

  “I know that it’s raw. I get that. But you two are brothers. More than brothers. You’re twins. This might be a shitty situation, but we need to get over it as a family. We have been through too much together since childhood to let something like this to come in between us. I think it’s best for us all to talk now.”

  I back away from Oliver, staring at him like he has lost his damn mind. This has got to be a joke. Oliver can’t seriously think that me and Alex are ever going to get over this, can he? We’re not going to have a cozy chat over a cup of coffee, and everything will be okay. There isn’t a single combination of words that could make me understand Alex’s point of view. I would never be able to do anything like that to him. However much I like someone, I wouldn’t ever be able to put them before him. I even asked him about me and Rachel!

  “Oliver, Alex is the last person I want to be anywhere near ever again. After what he did to me. Yes, I know that we have been through a lot as a family. But never betrayal. I never assumed that I would have to face this from any of you. I mean, he was fucking Mandy. He probably has been for a long time, while I was with her.”

  “But you aren’t with her now,” Oliver tries. “You’re happy with Rachel, so this is in the past.”

  “But it isn’t. Yes, me and Mandy might not be together now, and I am far happier with Rachel than I ever was with her, but we split up because she was cheating. Alex ended us selfishly. Instead of just telling me that he had feelings for her, he conducted an affair behind my back and that is something I can never forgive.”

  Oliver is silent for a couple of seconds, clearly trying to figure out what to say next. His next words better be good ones, or he is choosing the wrong side. I know that no one will want anything to come between our close-knit family, but Alex made his choice He chose to put his sexual needs before his family.

  “Alex could have anyone,” I remind Oliver. “He’s a fucking rock star with women throwing themselves at him all the time. He could have anyone in the world. Why Mandy? Why ruin everything for her?”

  “Don’t you want to find out?” Unfortunately, Oliver takes this the wrong way. He uses it as a way in. “Don’t you want to talk to Alex and find out why he risked everything for her? It isn’t like him, there must be a reason.”

  “I already did. He just told me that he ‘loves’ her. What sort of bullshit excuse is that?”

  Oliver nods and flickers his eyes downwards. “I thought as much. It has to be love, doesn’t it?”

  I snort. That has to be a joke. He can’t really think that love is a good excuse. Love for a woman should never over shadow love for your family. Especially when it’s something like this.

  “I’m going to Rachel’s house.” I shake my head at my brother. “You wait here for Alex and hear any excuses that you want. I don’t want to know anymore. I’m done with him. It’s over for me.”

  “No, Angelo, you can’t feel that way…” Oliver calls after me as I walk off. “Angelo, please.”

  But leaving him behind and walking away from Alex is the best thing I can do. I don’t want another fight; I don’t think that the police will leave it with a warning twice. I really don’t want to see him either. There is only one person that I want to be with right now, I just hope she wants to see me too.

  “Please don’t leave me as well, Rachel,” I plead to no one, just any deity who may or may not be listening to me. “I need you right now. More than anyone in the world.”

  “I just can’t figure it out, can you?” I demand while panting up and down in Rachel’s living room. “Not only Alex, I mean there is nothing that will ever make me understand him and what he did, but Oliver too. Why would he want to see Alex? Why wouldn’t he just turn his back on him? He should do.”

  Rachel doesn’t say much, but then she hasn’t said a lot since I first walked in to her home. I guess she doesn’t know what to say really, and it’s allowing me to just continue ranting which I do need. No one has listened to me without interrupting ever since I found out about Alex and Mandy, so I guess this is nice.

  “Do you think that the rest of my brothers will do the same? Take Alex’s side?”

  “I don’t think that Oliver was taking his side…” she offers. “Just trying to see a balanced point of view.”

  “There isn’t a balanced point of view. Not with this.” I shake my head so hard that my whole-body trembles. “There is right and wrong, and there isn’t a chance in hell that I can be seen in the wrong. This is a black and white issue and what Alex did deserve punishment. My brothers should block him out.”

  I already know that won’t happen. None of them are like that. Instead, they will try their best to draw us all together, to keep us as a family, no matter what I think about it. I suppose I can’t blame them for not wanting to fully hate Alex, but I’m never going to be okay with him again. I meant what I said, we’re through.

  “I just…” I toss my hands in the air, seriously irritated. “I’m just angry and… and sad.” That word hits me like a thump in the chest. “Really sad. I can’t believe this has happened to me. I can’t believe that Alex would go so far to hurt me. Even if that wasn’t his intention, that’s what he’s done. I don’t know if he gets it.”

  I stare at Rachel, all of a sudden realizing that this affects us too. In a way that I haven’t thought of before. Perhaps the reason that Rachel is so quiet is because I have been ranting for ages about my ex. And there is a reason for that. This does hurt because of what Alex did, but it’s also showed me what I already know. That I probably should have had some time before jumping from one relationship to the next, just to be fully ready for Rachel. To be the person that she deserves. I moved far too quickly to find my happiness with Rachel.

  Should I end things with her now to take a step back? Is this the time that me and Rachel need a breather? But I don’t want one. I know how I feel about her, and sure I have a little baggage, but who is to say that we can’t work through that together? She’s certainly been a rock for me recently through all of this. I need her now more than ever anyway. She’s all that I have. My family will need me to make things up with Alex to make our relationship work, which I’m not prepared to do, which makes Rachel the only person to really get me.

  My heart crushes agonizingly as I think about giving her up too. I have already lost so much. Do I really deserve to lose more? I have a glimpse of joy here. I don’t want to give it up.

  “I’m sorry,” I say while flopping on the couch next to Rachel. “I’m boring you, aren’t I?”

  “No, not at all.” She wraps her arms around me and pulls me close. “I just wish that I could help.”

  “You’re helping just by being here. You have no idea how much you’re helping me.”

  I lean in to her, an exhaustion washing over me now. It has been a seriously long day after a horribly long night and I’m shattered. I just want to lie here with Rachel forever. I don’t even want to consider the rest of the world. No one else matters to me when I am in Rachel’s arms.

  “Do you want to go to bed?” she asks, her breath tickling over my skin in a wave.
<
br />   “Yes, I do, I really do. I want to go to bed and not have to move ever again. I don’t even want to think about work tomorrow. It’s times like this when I wish I didn’t have to work with my brothers. Brad and Oliver and going to be all over me tomorrow, trying to persuade me to talk to Alex and I don’t want to.”

  “You think you will ever want to?” Rachel holds out a hand to me which I take.

  “I don’t know,” I admit. “Right now, I don’t think so, but who the hell knows?”

  “Okay. Well, that’s understandable. It’s very raw right now, isn’t it? You have plenty of time to decide.”

  I just want to forget it, to forget him, to live in the present now. So, I continue walking towards Rachel’s bedroom and collapse on the bed. She climbs in next to me and holds me tight, just comforting me with her touch. We lie in silence, breathing in unison, both as lost in our thoughts as one another. I have lived with certain beliefs for my whole life, beliefs that I never thought would be shattered. The foundation of my existence has been stripped away from me and I don’t know where I’m going to land now. I knew that Alex’s issue was going to be huge, I suspected it before I went to talk to him, but I didn’t know that it was going to wreck my existence. I didn’t know that I would end up with nothing because of my brother’s actions.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Rachel

  I watch Angelo walk away from my home, my heart pounding in my throat. Last night listening to him breaking his heart over what has been going on was so incredibly hard for me. It made it impossible not to reveal the truth, that I have known about the affair for a very long time and could have told him at any point. All that talk about betrayal and hard ship killed me from the inside out. I didn’t know what to do.

  Now, watching him walk away from me, I’m overwhelmed with the sensation that I have done all kinds of things wrong. I suppose it was the perfect time to confess and I bottled it again.