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“Surprise, isn’t it?” Devon said. “I didn’t know either until he died. He was Dad’s father.” He scratched his stubble. “Dad is dead, by the way. Years ago. Cancer.”
I’d read that in the newspaper story, and it left me as cold then as it did now. Dad had walked out when I was four and Devon was two, and we’d never heard from him again. Dani and I were almost equivalent in the shitty-father department—though hers won by being in prison for murder.
“Okay,” I said. “So Dad is dead, and our grandfather, who was rich, never bothered to give us a fucking phone call.”
“We come from a line of assholes,” Devon said. “But good old Granddad knew we existed. We’re both listed by name in the will, which is one hundred percent legit. He also knew you’d disappeared, because it says in the will that you have to un-disappear before you get your money.”
Even my grandfather, who I never met, knew what an irresponsible asshole I was. I had my brother here; it was time to face this, or never. “Devon,” I said, “I know I left you. I was a fucking coward.”
The depths of his green eyes showed a flicker of surprise. “You think I’m mad about that?” he said.
“You should be.”
“Put away the guilt, Cavan,” he said. “No one expected you to stay home and play Leave it to Beaver, least of all me. You were eighteen, and Mom was butchered. You left. You think I don’t know why?”
“It was more complicated than that,” I said.
“Because you argued with Mom about leaving Patrick hours before he killed her?” Devon replied.
I stared at him in shock. “How the fuck did you know that?”
“Patrick’s murder trial.” Devon’s face was hard as marble, but I knew him. Even after ten years, I knew my brother. The harder he looked, the more he was clamping down control. “The neighbors heard you and Mom arguing. It was evidence at the trial that he was abusing her, that we were afraid he would hurt her. The pattern. The cause. The evidence was clear, but that argument played its part in putting Patrick away.”
I swallowed hard. I hadn’t even stuck around for the murder trial; I had no idea that the argument that dogged my life for ten years had been part of the evidence. None at all.
“I just felt like I should have done something,” I said. “Done more. That Mom would be alive if I’d done more.”
“Maybe she would,” Devon said harshly. “And maybe she wouldn’t. She had a pattern. You know that, and I know that. Maybe you would have rescued her that day, only to have her go back to him one or two days down the road. Maybe we both could have rescued Mom from Patrick, and she would have found someone else exactly the same.” Devon put his hands on the table, palms down, and leaned forward. “I’ve thought about it for the past ten years as much as you have. You think I haven’t? You think I haven’t wondered what I could have done, what I should have done? How it could have been different? I wonder it every day. But we were kids, and we had no help, no one to turn to. It was all on us, and we failed.”
“I’m older than you,” I said. “I should have known more. Done more.”
Devon shook his head. “I think there was no way we could have won,” he told me. “I think the deck was stacked against us from the day we were born, and all you and I could do was fight for one more day, and another.”
I looked down at his hands on the table. His left hand had an elaborate tattoo inked on the back that said No Time.
I understood those two fucking words. As clearly as if I’d inked them onto my own skin. All those years tattooing other people, and this was the first tattoo I’d truly understood from the inside out. That feeling of wanting something to show on your skin that you felt in your bones every waking moment.
Mom had no time. No one gets much time. When it comes down to it, the moment is all you’ve got.
It was why I’d rescued Dani. Why I’d married her. Why I was sitting here now.
“We survived the best we could,” Devon continued. “You ended up with the Black Dog, and I drove for a bunch of assholes who paid me not to ask what I was delivering, and why, until I finally got caught. We kept it together every day for ten years with spit and string. I even did a two-year stretch. And then our grandfather died and handed us a new chance. Here we are, you and me, still alive, right now, in this minute. We have what we need. The question is, what are we gonna do with it?”
I looked into his eyes, and I knew the answer. He was right; I’d been given a chance, just like he had. I didn’t know much about what he’d done with his chance, but I knew two things: he had a woman who mattered to him, and he’d come to find me. Those were two things Devon had done with the gift he’d been given.
Me? I had my own ideas. I’d start by un-disappearing and claiming my money, like I was supposed to. I’d get my brother back. I’d get Dani back, even if she hated me now. I wouldn’t stop until I was done, because there was no one to stop me. Not anymore.
The door of the bar opened and a man walked in. He was in his thirties, with dirty blond hair worn slightly long. He wore jeans, motorcycle boots, a white shirt unbuttoned at the throat, and a black sport jacket. He arrowed toward us, his gaze on our table.
“Devon,” he said. “We have a problem.”
“Ben,” Devon said. He nodded at me. “This is my brother, Cavan. Cavan, this is my lawyer, Ben.”
I felt my eyebrows rise. This was the lawyer? Then again, he’d been a biker lawyer. He pretty much looked the part—like a guy who could either sue you or kick your teeth in, or maybe both.
“Hey,” I said.
Ben’s gray-green eyes fixed on me with a mixture of amusement and suspicion. “We’ve been looking for you,” he said. “You’re not easy to find. I had no idea you ended up with the Black Dog, or I’d have found you months ago.”
