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“I’m dying on the side of the road,” Charlie says. “So is Thatcher. Choose who to save.”
She blinks back tears, a sharp breath escaping. “I’m not playing this game.”
I will.
“She’d choose you,” I tell him strongly. “My brother, Thatcher—he’d want her to choose you.”
Jane’s face twists.
Charlie doesn’t even pause. “I’m dying on the side of the road. So is Moffy. Choose—”
“Charlie!” Maximoff yells.
Jane is winded, and I place a hand on her back. My stomach knots a thousand different ways.
“Yes?” Charlie arches a brow.
Maximoff growls, “You’re being a sadistic asshole.”
“I’m fine. I’m fine,” Jane mutters repeatedly, a hand to her face. This is a combination of emotional hell she’s felt.
They’re all breaking, and my instinct is to carry her out of here.
One more minute of this shit, and I will.
“Sadistic.” Charlie nods slowly. “You want to see sadistic?” He addresses the room. “Just so everyone is aware—this isn’t Banks Moretti.” He points at me.
I’m rigid.
“NO!” Jane screams bloody murder. “Charlie!”
I come up behind and hold her around the waist.
It’s over.
Charlie wipes away a quick, fallen tear off his cheek. He broke her fucking heart, and I think he broke his own too.
Her legs buckle and she falls in my arms. “Jane, Jane,” I whisper in her ear. “It’s okay.”
She shakes her head. Guilt—God, I understand her guilt.
But I won’t let it drag her down. “It was gonna happen,” I whisper. “Sooner or later.” We can’t blame him.
We can’t blame anyone but ourselves, and then, at the end of day—I’m good at carrying the blame.
She takes a strong breath and straightens up in my hold around her waist. Her hands sliding along my arms.
Charlie leaves for the kitchen, and his twin brother sprints after him. Beckett glances back at me before he disappears, an apology in his eyes. And I know he’s trying to give one for Charlie.
I’d do the same for Banks.
I recognize that Charlie didn’t announce that I’m Thatcher, but the damage is done. He said enough, and Tony knows.
He’s staring haunted at me. He deduces after some muttering with others that he was one of the few people to not know.
And then he lets out a breath of disbelief and rises off the rear couch. “You’ve got to be shitting me—all this time…” He shakes his head, emotion in his eyes that I didn’t expect to meet.
I thought he’d threaten my job. My brother’s job.
First.
Foremost.
He rubs his mouth and spits out, “The good sons. You know that’s what everyone calls you two in the family—the fucking good sons.” He laughs. “What a crock of fucking shit. If only they knew…maybe then I wouldn’t have to hear from my grandma ‘why can’t you be more like those twos, huh?’—or from my uncles, askin’ why I didn’t go to war like the Moretti brothers. Tellin’ me I should be a soldier, a leader like Thatcher. Tellin’ me to go play football like you. And then my sister Nicola, tellin’ me to be good like you.”
I fixate on his jealousy.
I thought he was just insecure and punched down on me to make himself feel better. I didn’t know…
Honestly, I didn’t think anyone could be jealous of me. I was poor. I was an identical twin who got mixed up with another fucking person constantly. I wasn’t popular in the traditional sense.
I felt like no one knew me.
No one saw me.
Except my brothers. My family.
My family.
Realization sinks deep. His family is my family. Ramellas, Morettis, Piscitellis.
He gestures to me. “How is it that you could lie to me for weeks about who you are?”
“You made it too easy,” I say honestly.
I must be the worst son on the planet, because I can’t apologize to him.
Tony sees my hate for him. More clearly than I think he ever has. He hangs his head, looks from side to side before looking at me. His eyes more reddened. “You really thought you could get away with it?”
“Yeah.”
For one week.
Tony just keeps shaking his head. He exits into the parlor, not giving me the satisfaction of knowing what the hell he plans to do. But I can’t see an outcome where he doesn’t rat me out to the Alpha lead.
It’s over.
Banks and I—we’re fucked.
38
BANKS MORETTI
27 Extended Days Pretending to Be Thatcher
Security’s townhouse is empty at oh-two-hundred—a rare thing and this beauty belongs solely to me. Really though, I fucking hate being alone.
So being the only SFO bodyguard in Philly sucks major ass. I miss my brother, and I’m waiting for those unlucky souls to make it back home.
Until then, I lounge on the leather couch, feet kicked up on the coffee table. Cold beer in one hand, my cell balances on my knee. Set to speakerphone.
“Am I…in clear?” Akara’s voice fractures over the line.
“Negative. You’re breaking up.” I swallow more beer.
He hasn’t been able to call in weeks because of the wind chill. It’s finally died down this morning. Enough for Akara to stand in the blistering cold with a sat-phone. Static cracks against the line.
I’ve already been informed of the two shit pies.
Tony knows about the twin switch. Yippee-ki-ya, motherfucker—I’m not excited, but I take the bad and just keep going. We’ll see what happens.
I also just heard about the plan—a ten-hour hike to the village’s inn—and how Thatcher is set to go. If the weather stays like it is, the group of six might be able to move out tomorrow. Apparently a storm has delayed the journey for seven days.
I wish I could be there to stay back with Jane. My brother must be losing his fucking mind to have to leave her behind with Tony.
“How about now?” Akara asks.
“You’re clear.”
He starts venting about the Rooster, and I think I mishear Akara.
My feet drop to floor, blown forward. Glaring at my phone. “He what?”
“He jerked away after touching the hair on her leg.”
I hold the phone to my mouth. “Fuuuuck this knuckle-fuckbag.” My blood is boiling.
Akara laughs. “Shit. I needed that.” He means the laugh.
“What’s he looking for, a two-holed plastic doll?” I shake my head. “He made her feel like shit, didn’t he?” I take a harsher
swig of beer.
I can’t stand men like that.
“Sulli said Jane made her feel better about it.” He lets out a rougher breath. “He’s getting on my last nerve.”
Akara has insane self-restraint, which makes him a great lead. He knows the Rooster is untouchable. As the boyfriend to a client, we’re not allowed to glare at him.
Can’t air our opinions about him.
Can’t punch him—which I’d love to do—sorry, Mom.
Unless he’s abusive or a threat to her safety in some other way, we’re supposed to be impartial. I’d like to impartially declare that I’m not a fan.
“Are you gonna tell Sulli what he said to you?” Right before they boarded the plane, this Richie Rich had words with my best friend.
“I can’t. He came to me in confidence. As her bodyguard, I have to respect a request from her boyfriend.” Tension ekes on the line. “She really likes him—and I’m not sabotaging this. He’s her first kiss.”
From what Akara told me, their first kiss was a good moment. Good experiences are hard to come by. My first kiss was shit on wheels. We wouldn’t want to morph the good thing into something bad.
I tuck hair behind my ear. “You think she’ll be that mad at him if she hears his request?”
“She’ll break up with him.” He’s that assured.
I don’t tell him to go and do it.
Selfishly, we’d both love for them to break up, but our opinions on the guy don’t hold weight to hers, and that’s how it should be. We’re not the ones making out with him.
Akara sighs out his frustration. “I can’t fucking believe he told me to stop being her friend.”
That wasn’t exactly the request.
I smile into a swig of beer. “He told you to stop flirting.” I can feel Akara’s glare all the way from Scotland.
“Sul and I have never flirted.”
They’ve flirted.
Hell, I’ve flirted with the girl. She’s funny, competitive, a fucking smokeshow, and also very, very virginal but I wouldn’t call her naïve. I’m just not sure she understands when men are hitting on her versus when they’re just being friendly.
