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It wasn’t really often that Raeg drank, though, when he did, Falcon knew it was because whatever was bothering him wasn’t something he’d come to peace with easily.
“Why the hell does she keep coming back here?” Raeg growled, staring into the glass for a moment before once again turning his gaze to the night. “Her father let some bastard nearly rape her, beat her, and still, she’s run home every chance she’s had.”
The bitterness in his voice came from more than just the memory of Summer that long-ago night when Margot and Davis Allen had flown to Georgia to take her from her parents’ home and bring her to DC for the summer.
“I told you that was not as it was told,” Falcon reminded him. “Whatever happened that night, there was far more to it than her father allowing anything to happen. And this isn’t about Summer’s father. It’s about—”
“Don’t say it,” Raeg growled, his voice low. “Don’t give him that title or I won’t be able to control myself.”
Their father.
No, Roberto Falcone hadn’t been much of a father. A monster. A murdering bastard, but not much of a father.
“It’s been a lot of years, Raeg,” Falcon reminded him, just as he often reminded himself. “And the circumstances are far different. Summer is not an agent assigned to gain information from the young man she’d coerced into falling in love with her. She’s no danger or threat to us personally. You keep forgetting that.”
“And if he decides to see it different?” his brother asked. “Could you live with Summer’s death on your conscience, Falcon?”
No, he couldn’t. Not like that. Never like that.
“Let us deal with one problem at a time,” Falcon suggested. “We take care of Dragovich, then we’ll tackle the other. For now though, she’s in no danger from our past as long as Dragovich stalks her.”
Silence settled around them then. Falcon was beginning to believe his brother had nothing more to say when he watched Raeg slowly shake his head wearily.
“And when this is over?” Raeg asked. “When it’s time for us to walk away from her, will you be able to do that?”
It would kill him. It would rip his soul from his body and leave a ragged, gaping wound in its place.
“If that’s what I have to do,” Falcon assured him. “If it comes to that choice, Raeg, I’ll make it. I won’t do it unless we’re certain though. And I don’t think you can either.”
He’d walk away from her before he’d see her harmed by the man who had sired them. That didn’t mean he’d survive it. He’d let her go five months before, believing she’d be back, that she’d return to their lives as she’d always had before. When she hadn’t, he’d known they were losing her. He was losing her.
Finishing his drink, Raeg continued to stare into the night, his expression brooding. Falcon knew that the conflicts still raged inside, tormenting him. Both of them possessed that broodiness, a quiet, dark intensity that gripped them whenever they were forced to deal with emotions they couldn’t or wouldn’t accept.
Summer had always brought the broodiness out in them, Falcon had always thought with a grain of amusement. The woman was like a whirlwind of emotion, and she never failed to affect them with it.
“Eight years is a long time to ache for a woman,” Falcon told him softly. “I’m tired of longing for her, of trying to imagine she’s the woman we’re taking whenever we take a lover. I’m tired of wondering, of being tormented by the unknown where she’s concerned. And I’m tired of living in the past. Once this is over, I’ll go hunting him in earnest, Raeg. If I find him, he dies.”
The flash of regret Raeg couldn’t quite control flickered over his expression before it was pulled back. Falcon had always known that dealing with this issue had the potential to destroy both of them. Because of that, he’d let the situation go. Even after he’d acknowledged what Summer meant to him, still, he’d held back. Raeg hadn’t been ready to accept the fact that Summer belonged to them, that this woman that made him crazy belonged to them.
His brother knew it now though.
“He wouldn’t kill one of us,” Raeg sighed heavily. “But we’ll never get close enough to kill him either. Summer’s our weakness, Falcon, and he’ll know that.” There was no way they could hide it, and no way to stay with her. “He won’t allow that weakness to exist if we fuck up and reveal it to him. You know that as well as I do. Once Dragovich is taken care of here, I won’t risk her that way. I’ll leave.”
“And I’ll find him,” Falcon assured him, knowing he would have no other choice. “I won’t live my life beneath that threat any longer. It will be my life or his. And I will have nothing left to lose once I lose her. Neither of us will.”
Turning, Falcon made his way through the dimly lit house and back up the stairs to the warm bed and the even warmer woman awaiting him.
He’d waited too long for her. He knew that once this was over he would never be able to stay away from her again. That left only one other option. He’d have to find Roberto, and once he did, one of them would die, because there would be no peace, and no assurance of Summer’s safety otherwise. And that he simply could not tolerate.
* * *
Raeg remained silent as Falcon left the room, that parting shot echoing in the silence around him.
I knew this was coming.
He’d known for years that once he and Falcon had a taste of the woman who haunted them, there’d be no turning back. It would change them.
The fact that he was right didn’t comfort him in the least. The suspicion that the man who sired them was far closer than they believed couldn’t be shaken away either.
