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Stepping into the library, Rafe found his brother sitting on the sofa with a tablet in his hand. Probably reviewing some note or contract from his business manager. Marcus laid it facedown on a side table as he entered. His brother was dressed in a pair of jeans and a cashmere sweater that stretched over his broad shoulders. Since finding Ethan, Marcus looked more relaxed than Rafe had ever seen him. His frown lines were less evident, and he smiled a little quicker.
“Rafe,” Marcus said, sliding to the edge of the cushion. “I heard there was an incident at Blush. Are you okay?”
“Fine. Nothing I couldn’t handle,” Rafe muttered with a dismissive wave of one hand.
“I never doubted that.”
Rafe stared at his brother for a second, a snarky comment balanced on the tip of his tongue, but he held back. Marcus was telling the truth. He really did believe he could handle whatever popped up at the club. He was genuinely worried about Rafe’s well-being. Or rather, his mental state.
With a sigh, Rafe shoved his hands into the pockets of his slacks and paced to the far side of the room. He honestly didn’t know where to start.
“How are things progressing with Arsenault? Bel said that the missing vampire has turned up dead. Any leads on the culprit?”
“Nothing substantial. I’ve got some guesses, but nothing I’m comfortable sharing with Philippe yet.”
“Why not? Wouldn’t he want to know?”
Rafe turned his sneer on his brother. “Would you want to be told that someone in your clan was betraying you? How open would you be to me telling you that Winter is trying to kill Bel?”
The frown Rafe knew so well finally appeared on Marcus’s lips. “I see your point. You need solid proof.”
Rafe turned away from Marcus and continued to pace over to the floor-to-ceiling bookshelf covered in hardbacks. Marcus and his beloved books. Until Ethan came along, Rafe hadn’t understood why his brother felt the need for such an escape, why he had felt most comfortable hiding away from the rest of the world. His oldest brother had been very quiet about his sexuality. Rafe had suspected Marcus’s eye preferred the male form, but then Marcus was always about appearances and meeting society’s demands of normalcy. What a fucking waste.
Of course, Rafe had spent a lifetime indulging his sexual appetite and what had it gotten him? A lover that he would forever be separated from.
“What’s on your mind, Rafe? Would it help if I spoke to Arsenault?” Marcus offered. He broke into Rafe’s circling thoughts. For a moment, he’d forgotten his brother was in the room with him.
Rafe shook his head and turned to face Marcus. “I didn’t come to talk about Arsenault. I’m still considering some ideas on that front.”
Marcus’s handsome face drew up a little in his concern. “Is it Blush?”
“No, it’s the Variks I want to discuss.”
“Us?”
Rafe nodded and drew in a deep breath. This was not an area he felt comfortable discussing, but it was well overdue.
“The Ministry sees the Variks as a clan, correct?”
“For the most part,” Marcus hedged. “We’ve never completed the official paperwork, but the Varik family has been viewed as a single clan from almost the day we were reborn. Aiden is seen as the clan leader.”
“Yes, but we’ve never acted like a clan.”
“Something, if I recall correctly, you’ve always celebrated. Your voice has always been the loudest claiming we are simply a family. Not a clan.”
Rafe shoved one hand through his hair while fisting the other in his pocket. “Yes, and I’m coming to regret it. It was a selfish stance.”
“It was a stance that kept us out of politics. Out of the notice of other clans.”
“And how has that worked for us, dear brother?” Rafe snapped. “The Black Wolf clan plotted to take down the Ministry, and their first stop was to attack the Variks because they saw us as some threat. Mother is dead, and we were very nearly killed in the process. Because of politics.”
“There’s no accounting for the insane,” Marcus grumbled, but his words were low and even. He didn’t quickly lose his temper. Not like Winter. But then, Rafe had become very good at baiting all of his brothers when he was in the mood.
But he wasn’t in the mood now. He didn’t want Marcus to see him as the frivolous playboy, even if it was the image he’d carefully cultivated over the long years.
“Regardless of whether we are officially a clan, others will always see us as one. We will always be a threat because we have Aiden and because the four of us will always act as a single unit to protect the others. That’s a clan.”
“Six,” Marcus corrected.
“What?”
Marcus smiled at him. “Counting Aiden and Ethan, there are six of us now.”
“Ethan,” Rafe murmured. He returned Marcus’s smile, but he knew there was something dark to it considering the way that Marcus’s fell away, becoming a warning glare. “We say that he’s a Varik, but he wasn’t born to this family.”
