Page 125 of Sterling Fight

“You idiot.” Sebastian seethes and my blood begins to boil. The twitching of a beast rumbles inside me. I hate being called names.

“Your most valuable thing . . . no, person . . . just left.” He points toward the house. “And you let her go.”

I could argue that I was going to lose Genie anyway, but it no longer felt true. She said she loved me. She’ll come back to me.

Slowly, panic mingles with the loss boiling in my veins. She’ll come back, right?

Sebastian is suddenly glaring at his phone and then it rings in his hand. He glances up at me while answering it and listens to someone speaking to him.

“Yeah, Vale,” Sebastian states, still staring at me. “I just told him he was stupid.”

The grief rumbling through me becomes anger. I drop the metal detector and rush my youngest brother. Knox catches me within inches of taking him down.

“I said not to call me that.”

To his credit, my brother Knox is strong. Bricklaying does that to a man, and he holds me back as best he can but I’m still trying to reach around him and get at Sebastian.

“Fuck you, man,” Sebastian yells at me.

“No, fuck you,” I scream but it’s not really my brother I feel like hollering at.

“What the fuck?” Ford’s voice carries over the yard and Clay is suddenly standing next to Sebastian.

“He started it,” Sebastian states pointing at me.

“Are we twelve again?” Ford turns on Sebastian.

“Everyone just calm the fuck down,” Clay warns while Knox is still holding me back and anticipating every move I make as I try to break right and then left to dodge him.

I’m better than this. In the ring, I’m more alert, more perceptive of my opponent’s intended moves. But these men are not my opposition. My brothers are not my enemy.

Eventually, I sag and then I’m folding down to the ground.

I fucking lost the ring. And now I’m losing Genie.

“What’s really the issue here?” Clay squats before me.

“I lost the ring,” I state again.

Clay shakes his head. “It’s not the ring. The ring is a thing, Judd.”

“It was Mom’s.”

“Yes, it was, and you’ve been wearing it as a way to keep her close.” Clay sighs, glancing up at my brothers behind me, before staring back at me. “But Mom is in here.” He taps his temple. “And here.” He pats his chest.

He lowers his voice. “And Genie, someone you can actually hold on to, just left without you.”

“I know.” I cover my face as I sit on the grass. My heart conflicted.

“You don’t need the ring, Judd. You have Genie instead.”

My mouth falls open ready to argue but Clay holds up his hand. “I know you have it in your head that Mom’s ring was meant for you. And maybe it was. Maybe it was her way of watching over you. But you don’t need it anymore. You’re where you belong. With someone who is right for you.”

Genie. It’s always been for Genie.

“But you all trusted me to hold onto it,” I whisper, glancing at my brother like the eight-year-old kid who’d just lost his mother.

“And now, we’re trusting you to love Genie.”