Page 97 of Pucked Around and Found Out

“The men outside,” I say, pulling myself upright, pulling myself back into the war. “They're yours. Not Steven's. Not loyalists waiting to find out who comes out on top. They're yours.”

Masen nods slowly. “They've always been mine. Steven thought he ran things. He ran the face of it, the political cover, the money laundering. The actual machinery—” He glances at me. “That was me. No one knew it was me, not Kellan or even Cas. Just Steven.”

“Which means when I take down the Kellar Cartel,” I say, watching his face, “I'm not taking down the ghost of our father. I’m taking you down.”

Something flashes in his eyes. Not fear. Something older and more complicated than fear.

The silence that follows is the loudest thing I've ever heard.

Halo appears in the doorway before Masen can answer, his face carved into that careful blankness that means the news isn't good.

“Movement on the perimeter.” His voice is quiet and certain. “Multiple vehicles. Lights off.” His eyes find mine. “It's not Alex's people.”

The cold moves through me like water.

I already know before I ask. I think some part of me has known since the second we pulled into this building, since the moment I crossed that threshold and felt the ghost of every nightmare this place ever gave me pressing against my skin.

“Devlin's men,” I say.

Halo nods once.

Of course.

Of course he's here. Because that is the immovable, infuriating, devastating constant of my life, that no matter what war I'm fighting, no matter what ground I manage to take or what ground I lose, Xaden Devlin is always somewhere just outside the frame of it, pulling at threads I don't know he can reach.

I press my hand flat against my stomach. One second. Just one.

Then I lift my chin.

I turn back to Masen and I look at my brother—really look at him—for the first time in longer than I can remember. The blood on his face. The exhaustion underneath the performance. The ghost of the boy who was seventeen years old and so desperate to be seen that he handed himself over to a monster and called it ambition.

“You have about thirty seconds to decide,” I tell him quietly. “You can sit there and wait for Xaden's men to come through that door and let him decide what happens to you. Or you can stand up, walk out of here beside me and tell me everything you know.” I hold his gaze and I make sure he hears every word. “I'm not offering you forgiveness. I'm not offering you absolution, a clean slate or any of that. What I'm offering you is a chance to do one right thing. Maybe the first right thing you've ever done.” My voice drops. “I'm offering you the chance to help me end this war and take down the bitch who helped our father and Xaden’s.”

Masen stares at me.

The sounds of cars outside grow closer.

Carnage steps up to my left. Halo to my right. Scott and his men fill the room behind me. And I stand here in the building that was supposed to finish me, in front of the brother who let it happen, and I wait.

Masen's throat moves.

Then slowly, painstakingly, like a man setting down something he's been carrying for half his life, the fight goes out of his shoulders.

“Get these restraints off me,” he says quietly.

I look at Scott.

Scott cuts the zip ties.

Masen rolls his wrists and stands. He's not as tall as I remember him being, or maybe I've just stopped making myself smaller around him. He looks at me for a moment with an expression I can't name and don't want to examine too closely, because if I do, I'll feel something I'm not equipped to feel right now.

“I know where every one of Steven's accounts are,” he says. “Every supplier, every contact, every dirty cop and politician on the payroll. Every piece of leverage he ever collected.” His jaw is tight. “All of it including his dealings with Meekan and Fiona Williams.”

I nod once. “Then let's go.”

He falls into step beside me.

And for the first time in two years, I walk out of my nightmare with my brother at my side.