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“You wouldn’t have known me even five years ago,” he told him. “Hell happened. Death happened.”
“Sabella?”
“Doesn’t know.” Noah’s voice hardened. “And no one’s telling her. I wasn’t joking, kid. Nathan Malone stays dead.”
Rory stared everywhere but at him for long, tense moments.
“Damn you!” The boy got to his feet, anger churning in his face now. “You son of a bitch! You’re not Nathan. And you know how I know you’re not Nathan?”
Noah stared back at him remotely. Pushing the emotion back was the killer. Hell, he’d thought it would be easier than this. He had told Jordan, a walk in the park. This wasn’t the park, it was a bleak nightmare.
“I’ll tell you,” Rory snarled. “You’re not Nathan because Nathan wouldn’t be here.” He stabbed his finger at the floor of the shed. “He wouldn’t be here with me right now, he’d be taking care of his wife before someone else decided to do the job for him.”
Before Noah realized the lack of control festering inside him, before Rory could guess his intent, Noah lifted him by the throat from the chair and threw him against the wall. Pinning him there he snarled back in Rory’s face.
Rory looked as Nathan had once looked. He was built as Nathan had once been built. Or as Noah had. They could have been twins at one time. They could have been born of the same mother and father, rather than different mothers.
Rory was a younger Nathan. And Noah bet he remembered how to laugh.
“Have you touched her?” Ice seeped inside him. It filled his voice, filled his soul. “Did you comfort her?”
His hands tightened around Rory’s throat. He could see it. Rory touching her, holding her, as Sabella whispered Nathan’s name, whispered forever. His hold became tighter.
His Sabella. Sweet, soft, warm. Forever whispering in his ear. She had promised him forever. Was she giving it to Rory instead?
“Nathan?” Rory was choking as he stared back at him in shock.
Tears filled the boy’s eyes, darkened them. “Nathan,” he wheezed. “Oh God. Oh God. You’re alive. You bastard!”
Noah deflected the kick, the fists to the kidneys, and the younger man’s choked curses. He released the hold on his neck, twisted his arm behind his back and flattened his face to the table next to the wall.
“Did. You. Touch. My wife?”
“I should have,” Rory cried, half sob, half enraged bellow. “I should have. You son of a bitch. You son of a bitch. You’re just like him. Just like that heartless little bastard that made you.”
Rory laid his head on the table as Noah released him and his shoulders shook. He kept his forehead pressed into the wood, and a sob tore from his throat.
Noah flexed his hand, staring at it, his jaw tightening until he felt it would crack as he stretched his fingers and realized, they had been wrapped around his brother’s throat.
“Get out of here!” Rory straightened, keeping his back to him. “Get out.”
“I can’t do that, Rory.”
He turned furiously, his eyes blazing as he sneered back at Nathan. “Granddad cries when he talks about you. When he sees Sabella struggling with that fucking garage. Trying to survive. He tried to help her and that son of a bitch father of yours took damned near everything he had. And here you are.” He flipped his hand back to Nathan, fury filling his face. “The big tough warrior the old man had such pride in. Six years, Nathan. Six years and where the hell have you been?”
Noah lashed out, pushing him back in the chair as he glared back at him. “Watch it, boy,” he bit out. “Keep pushing and you’ll get more than you want.”
“I got more than I wanted when I felt you watching the place this afternoon,” he snarled, anger pushing past fear.
“I’m back, that’s all that matters.” Noah rubbed his hand over his short beard. “This isn’t as simple as why I didn’t come back. It’s not even as simple as having the option to come back for a damned long time. I’m here now, and I need information.”
“That’s what they make computers for.” Rory was three seconds from attacking him again and Noah knew it. The boy had that damned Irish pride and temper.
“Listen to me, you little shit!” He moved over him vengefully. “Look at my face. My body. Do you think this shit happened because I wanted to be someone else? Because I wanted my life fucked up the ass and back? Look, Rory. Look at the scars. You want to see my back? How about my legs? You want to see the hole they cut in my foot? Will that help?”
He jerked back, furious, enraged. So much for control. He hadn’t let his control snap in more than five years.
He inhaled roughly. He wasn’t going to let it snap now, not any further than it had already.
