Page 50 of Between Brothers

I don’t know what possessed me to do it, but I drew her into the sanctuary of my arms and held her firmly against me.

I shushed and stroked her hair, until she stopped trembling and clung to me as well.

“Say I believe you…” she weakly began, before sniffing and raising her tone, “I can’t let him do it. You know that, right?”

“He won’t do it. I left Rigs with Paxton. What is he going to do, walk around with a witness?” I shook my head and twisted my lips into a scowl of disbelief for her benefit. “He will be thrown off by the wrench I threw in his plans. Kingston is a control freak. He will have called it all off. We just have to make sure he can’t strategize again before…”

“Before what? How do you come back from this?” Kennedy laughed, the tears flowing freely.

“He can’t,” I conceded.

“Royal,” My mother quietly heaved my name, and I closed my eyes like it might shield me from the confrontation to come.

I didn’t know how to tell her that I’d sat through such plotting, and I doubted that she’d believe that I did it all in order to thwart their ambitions.

Who the hell would?

“Let’s just go inside,” I quietly urged, still unwilling to turn and face her.

Chapter Nineteen

Make Me a Believer

Kennedy

I wasn’t trembling anymore, not outwardly. Inside, I felt like a snow globe that had been shaken too hard. The pieces would land someday, but they sure didn’t seem in any hurry now.

Exhaustion had only been a word in my vocabulary before today. I’d never exerted myself the way I did beating on Royal Crowe.

I sat across from him at his mother’s kitchen table, unsure if I wanted to pick up the butterknife and bury it in his eye socket or trust him. His own mother stared at him like she didn’t know him anymore, when he started spewing their bullshit plan to unseat my father.

“He thinks of you all as his brothers,” I coldly reminded him.

Roy gave a heavy nod.

“He’d do anything for you guys. Literally, nothing would be too much to ask. He’d move mountains and ruin lives to protect your sorry asses.” I had to stop myself before the venom flowed freely.

He was helping me, after all.

I scoffed and tore my gaze away, unable to look at him anymore.

“Call him again,” his mother, Penny, urged. “Call your father.”

“His phone is off. It’s gonna stay off until the smoke clears. This isn’t his first rodeo.”

“How do you know that?” Penny asked, but her weary gaze told me she knew full well how.

“It’s basic, Mom.”

“‘Basic?’” The word hung between the two of them, her expression an open plea for understanding.

“You don’t keep your cellphone on when you’re committing felonies. You don’t take it with you, don’t keep the battery in it, and you damn sure don’t use the thing to talk about what you did.” Royal shrugged, “I’ve known that since I was old enough to tie my shoe.”

“That’s the kind of shit he was teaching you back then, with his overnight visits?” she exclaimed.

He raised his brows, but made no other indication of having heard her.

“Call Kate,” she urged, her nail dancing off the table like she was onto something. “Kate would never–”