Page 98 of Feral King

“I’ll be there. I’ll support you.”

I let the words settle. I don’t react. Reacting is exactly what Alexander wants. He wants to see surprise or relief, maybe even gratitude. Any of those would give him leverage.

I give him nothing other than a flat expression as I wait for him to continue.

“Listen. I know you don’t trust me,” he says. “I know I’ve given you every reason not to. The board challenge, the Dobrov thing… I know how it looks.”

“It looks like a man who’s been building a coalition against his own brother for the better part of a year.”

“It looks like a man who was scared.” The words come out suddenly, his voice quieter than what I would expect from him. “Julian, you left. For three years. No return date and the barest of explanations. You were justgone.”

“I was building alliances, forging deals.”

“Right, that’s what you said. But nothing beyond that.”

“I told you what I knew when I knew it. And I didn’t want to make promises about deals that hadn’t been cemented yet.”

“Fine, I get that. But dropping off the map for months at a time wasn’t good. I knew that I was only in charge for a little while. But alittlewhile eventually became alongwhile, and people started talking. Rumors began to spread about how our group was without a real leader. So, I decided to become one.”

I say nothing, letting him go on.

“Maybe it wasn’t the right thing to do. But trying to hold together something that I wasn’t built to hold together was overwhelming. Every day I sat in that chair feeling like an imposter. And every day I sat there, I heard Dad’s voice telling me that I wasn’t good or smart enough.”

The mention of our father changes the temperature in the room.

“Dad never said that to you.”

“He didn’t have to. It was obvious in the way he treated me. And you in comparison.” Alexander leans forward, his elbows on his knees. “You remember that summer at the lake house? You were a grown man, and I was maybe nine or ten. You were teaching me how to fish at the lake, and I couldn’t get the cast right.”

I remember. It was July. The lake water in the morning was flat as glass, mist coming off the surface. I remember Alexander’s small hands fumbling with the reel, his face getting redder and redder every time he had to start over.

“You kept tangling the line, getting frustrated.”

“Right. And you just stood there, patient as hell, showing me how to do it again and again.”

“You got it, eventually.”

“Because you didn’t give up on me. You stood there for what felt like hours.” He almost smiles as he recalls the memory. “Then Dad came down to the dock and watched us. Didn’t say a word. He just stood there with his coffee and watched. Afterward—you probably don’t even rememberthis—he pulled you aside and said something. I’ve always wondered what it was.”

I remember exactly what it was.

Take care of your brother, Julian. He’ll need you more than he knows.

I don’t tell Alexander that. Not because it would hurt him, but because it would give him something more to use against me.

“You were a kid,” I say instead.

“Yeah. A kid.” He sits back, looks away for a long moment. “And then I wasn’t. And somewhere between the fishing and the boardrooms and losing Dad, we stopped being brothers and started being rivals.”

I say nothing, letting him go on, still trying to determine how much of this is a performance.

He runs his hand through his hair and shakes his head. “I don’t know when it happened exactly. But I know I’m the one who let it. I tried to tell myself for so long that it was your fault things turned out this way. But it’s not.

He changes the subject. “Do you remember the Christmas when Dad gave us the chess set? The really nice one?”

“Yes. The pieces were hand-carved from wood.”

He laughs. “I was so goddamn mad. Not only was it a boring gift, but it was a gift for both of us. Sharing with my grown-up brother was unthinkable.” His expression turns thoughtful once again. “You remember why Dad said he got it for us, right?”