AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Even Gable was there, though he looked rather inconspicuous in a hat tucked low over his eyes and long hair. His clothes were plain and blended in nicely.
I felt my chin start to quiver at the sight of him—the only one that I hadn’t seen that day—and I ran.
He caught me before he could even stand all the way and crashed back onto the couch with an oomph of escaping air.
“Gable,” I cried into his neck. “I’m so glad that you’re here.”
And alive.
I hadn’t seen him in so long that I couldn’t count the days.
“Ande,” his deep voice rumbled underneath me. “It’s okay, sweetheart.”
My brothers weren’t usually this nice.
A hug from them was like pulling teeth sometimes, but they allowed it begrudgingly because Addison and I loved it so much.
We were touchy feely people, and hugs were the most fun things to give to brothers who hated them.
I continued to sniffle into his neck, loving the hug, for so long that it became rude because I’d brought someone with me who didn’t necessarily know my family, but when I finally pulled myself together, it was to find Keene talking quietly to my other brothers.
“I can’t believe you brought the circus clown,” Gable muttered as he pulled me close into his side.
I leaned against his solid chest—he’d gotten bigger in the time that he’d been gone—and sniffled.
Keene was nodding at something that Quincy was saying, but his eyes kept periodically coming to me to make sure that I was okay.
Satisfied that I was, he’d go back to his conversation.
Something about a rescue organization.
“Don’t call him a clown,” I said. “And if you’re going to go for circus titles, he’s technically the ringmaster.”
“Well, I’m definitely not calling him that,” Gable grumbled.
I snickered, then sobered just as fast as I remembered why I was seeing him in the first place.
It didn’t mean that he was done with whatever undercover work he was doing. It meant that he was skipping out because our sister had died.
Any and all humor that I’d felt slipped away, and once again sadness filled my soul.
• • •
KEENE
10 minutes earlier
“What the fuck are you doing here with her?”
Quincy Carter, hard ass police officer for Dallas Police Department, very protective brother of Ande Carter. Noted.
I offered him my hand and said, “The two of us met at DFW—Dallas Fort Worth Airport—when we were both flying to a job. We didn’t realize that we kind of sort of knew each other until just today when I learned about Addison.”
Quincy took it, his face shuttering at the mention of Addison.
“Oh,” he grumbled.
I offered my hand to the two closest brothers. “I’m sorry to say I don’t remember who’s who.”
