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“I was thinking that I really didn’t want to get blown up,” Dom mumbled in a rough voice.
“See! This is what you get for going into this bodyguard bullshit. You have to worry about getting blown up for some little shit that isn’t worth a tenth of our life.”
“First, it was my life. Not our life. You don’t risk shit for anyone but yourself,” Dom said. “And second, I was there to save the life of a friend. Do you remember what those are? Friends? People you help and sacrifice for because you care about them.”
“Who gives a fuck about friends when you’ve got your own pack? A family that will do anything for its leader?” James rocked back, cackling.
Dom took a second to look down at the chair he was tied to. He frowned to see that someone had chosen zip ties over regular rope. There wasn’t a centimeter of give in the ties. The chair might have been wood, but it felt sturdy as fuck. Hell, it could have been made by Abe—it felt so damn solid. There was no wiggling his way out of it. He needed to be left alone so that he could work on his restraints. Shifting his legs, he nearly sighed in relief to find that they’d left them untied. He remained still. No point in giving them a reason to tie his legs.
Of course, that was all assuming James didn’t just put a bullet in his brain and call it a day.
“What the fuck do you want with me, James?” Dom demanded.
“You lied to me!”
“Only because you gave me no choice!” Dom roared back. His head throbbed and his stomach lurched, but he ignored both. Anger put fire in his veins, dulling the pain. “I didn’t want to kill people. I wanted out. I wanted a normal life. Normal job. Normal fucking relationship. How the hell were we gonna have that as crooks? Always on the run, always hiding.”
“You betrayed your family!” James jumped from his chair and tossed it aside so that he could get right in Dom’s face. “You left us.”
“Yeah, I left you and Dad because you wouldn’t listen. I wanted something better.”
“Nothing better than family.”
“This is a waste of time,” Dom muttered.
He knew it in his heart—there was no reaching his brother. They were both too hardheaded when it came to their ability to see no further than the idea they were clinging to in their brains. Growing up, they’d always been in sync. But by the time they were teenagers, he and James were constantly at odds. A part of him had hurt when they lost that closeness. James was his fucking twin. His identical twin. They should have always been in sync, thinking the same thing, feeling the same thing.
James sighed heavily, and Dom looked up to see him shaking his head. He walked over and grabbed the back of the metal folding chair to drag it back where he had been sitting before. “Dad was right.”
“What?” Dom snapped.
“Dad said you were a sheep, but I didn’t want to believe him.”
“Oh, fuck Dad.”
James’s hand shot out, crashing into Dom’s cheek and sending his head to the side. “Dad said you were soft. That’s why I always pulled the hard part of the job. That’s why you skipped around town, showing off that pretty face of ours as cover. You couldn’t be trusted to handle the dirty parts, to make the hard decisions.” James paused, his features twisting in disgust for a moment. “To pull the trigger.”
“People aren’t disposable, James.”
“I didn’t want to believe him,” his brother continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “My brother couldn’t be a sheep. He couldn’t be weak. He was my brother. My half. I believed that you were a wolf. I thought you were just waiting for that perfect moment to prove it to Dad.” James shook his head and plopped back down on the chair. “But you didn’t. You turned out to be a sheep and you ran.”
“I didn’t want your life. If I stayed, I would have been miserable and then dead.”
James grinned a bit wildly at Dom and his heart gave an ugly lurch in his chest. “Then tell me, John, have you been happy?”
“Yes,” he said without hesitation. Even without meeting Abe and falling for the man, he’d had a happy life in Cincinnati. He loved his job and he loved the men and women he worked with each day. He’d been incredibly happy…and now he hated to think it was all about to slip away from him. He really should have fucking called Rowe.
James chuckled and slapped Dom on the other side of his face. “Don’t worry, brother. I’m not done with you yet.”
“I’m not helping you with whatever the hell you’ve got planned while you’re in town.”
