Page 16 of Digital Desire

“You hit like a girl,” Will said as he slumped in the closest chair to catch his breath.

“Yeah well, at least I don’t look like one with all that flowery shit on my body. You’re a real prick, you know that?” Jack said as he wiped the smear of blood from his cut lip.

Will smiled in satisfaction at that. “Yeah, yeah so you keep telling me. Why are you here, Jack?” he asked with sudden exhaustion.

Jack looked him over as if studying a bug and finding it was poison. “To save your sorry ass from being killed when you went after a woman who doesn’t even want you.”

Will felt the hurt of his older brother’s words pierce him deeply, causing the festering scab that was their relationship to bleed even more. “Wow. I bet that felt good,” Will responded.

“Are you fucking kidding me? Do you think I want this shit all the time? I’m probably going to lose my job over you again. Again, you’ve ruined my life, and still, I run out to save your sorry ass.”

“You’re not going to lose your job,” Will said as he stood and moved to the bar.

“What the fuck do you know, you tosspot? Why don’t you go back to hacking shit and leave the real work to the men,” Jack snarled as he paced, running his hands through his hair.

“That’s the thing, Jack, you’ve never seen me as a man. All you see is the kid who fucked up, and you’re never going to get past that no matter how hard I try.”

“This is you trying?” he snorted with derision.

“I’ve done nothing but try since I got out of juvie. I keep trying to make amends to fix what I did wrong, and you just don’t want to know. It’s so much easier to blame me than to look too hard in the mirror and see your own failings.”

“Me? What the fuck did I do?”

“You fucking left me with him, with our sad fucking excuse for a father. Went off and joined the army and forgot me.”

“Is that what this is about? Me leaving you? Grow up, Will. People leave, they find jobs. It doesn’t mean those left behind go and hack a fucking bank to get some attention.”

Will crossed to the window and opened the balcony doors letting the air cool his skin and soothe his temper. “You’ll never see the truth, so if you want me out of your life, then I’m gone,” he said as he turned to Jack.

“Argh,” Jack boomed and punched the wall beside the balcony door leaving a hole in the plaster. He glared at Will with fury and something else—guilt. “You’re driving me fucking nuts. I didn’t say that. I just want you not to fuck with my career. Don’t break the fucking law or steal planes from the company I work for. Have you any idea what will happen when my boss finds out? He’s going to fire me. He trusts me to run Eidolon with integrity and efficiency, not run across the other side of the world to rescue my baby brother’s girlfriend. You know what, I should quit. It would be for the best. That way I might be able to get another job—maybe.”

Will watched Jack pull out his mobile phone and dial the number he knew by heart and held his breath. It was now or never—the time was coming. Jack held the phone to his ear, and in his pocket, Will’s phone began to ring. As if in slow motion, Jack turned and locked eyes with Will.

Will didn’t back down or move a muscle as Jack, his older brother and the man he had looked up to his entire life, seemed to take in a hundred different things at once.

“Give me your phone!” he stated with a deadly calm that would have many an opponent shaking in their boots. With a calm he didn’t feel inside, Will withdrew his phone and handed it to his brother knowing what he would see.

Jack held his eyes for a second longer before they dropped to the phone in his hand and that was when he lost it. “Motherfucker,” he bellowed as he dropped both phones to the ground and grabbed Will by the collar before shoving him against the glass railing of the balcony. Will didn’t fight back but held his hands up in supplication.

“All this fucking time and I’ve been answering to you, kowtowing to you after it was you who cost me my career in the armed forces.”

“It isn’t like that,” Will said as his heart thudded in his chest.

Jack shoved him away and looked at him with real hatred. “Save it, whatever you say will probably be bullshit anyway. At least this way I can quit in person. Consider this my resignation. I’ll get Madison back for Aubrey, and then I’m gone.”

Jack stormed off and Will knew to go after him was the wrong move even though he desperately wanted to. Walking to the bar as he heard the door to the room slam shut, he poured himself a healthy slug of whisky and necked it back, feeling the burn all the way down his gullet.

He had hoped that when it eventually came out, it would be in a controlled setting, but there was nothing for it now. Jack now knew that Will was the owner of Eidolon—he just needed to persuade his brother to keep on running it because despite their differences, he didn’t want anyone else.

Placing the glass on the side of the bar, Will walked to the door and opened it to find Aubrey poking her head out. Her eyes moved to him, and she frowned. God, she’s beautiful in those tiny shorts and top. But he thought she could have made a sack look like a designer gown. With her looks and figure, she could have easily been a model, but her sharp brain and fight for justice saw her become a police detective.

She was bloody good at it too. He hoped to see her return to her career when this settled, and he would pull any strings he could to see that happen.

“Is everything okay?” she asked as he moved towards her, his hands in his pockets to stop himself from reaching out and touching her.

He stopped when he was a foot from her not trusting himself to go closer unless she invited it. He needed her to take this next step. “Jack just got some news he wasn’t expecting, plus I punched him in the face.” He shrugged.

“Will!” she exclaimed as she crossed her arms.