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“We do it my way. Or we don’t do it at all.”
I chewed the inside of my cheek and gave a slight nod. “Well, my way obviously doesn’t work…” I admitted, defeated. I raised the white flag of surrender and let it blow in the breeze. My reign had come to a halt—and it had been a long time coming.
Now, he looked at me the way he used to, showing the same pride he showed in Raven.
That soothed the pain a bit. “And if we do nothing, those girls will never be free. They’ll continue to be prisoners, just changing owners.” I dropped my chin and stared at my hands for a while. “I’m not sure if I’m fit for the drug business anymore anyway. I let greed get the best of me. I almost lost the most important thing that matters to me—you.” I lifted my gaze and looked at my brother, feeling the emotion start to bubble in my chest but never make it up my throat. Those nights on the streets. Those dumpster dives. Those moments when we only had each other. Despite the pain and suffering we’d experienced, those memories meant the world to me. “I want revenge for what Napoleon has done. He humiliated me. He took what’s mine. He killed my men. And then he touched my brother. I want him dead.”
With soft eyes, he nodded in agreement.
“And if I rescue those women…maybe our mother won’t hate me so much, won’t be so disappointed in the monster I’ve become.” Ever since Melanie had come into my life, I’d tried not to think about our mother. Once my actions were accounted for, the guilt gnawed at me. She wouldn’t be proud of the wealth I’d reclaimed for our family—because of the way I’d done it. It felt like an insult to her memory. I’d cared so much about getting revenge against our father that I’d stopped caring about honoring our mother’s memory.
His voice came out as a whisper. “She doesn’t hate you, Fender.”
“She should. I became a worse version of our father. I became everything that I hate.”
He was quiet for a while, regarding me with brotherly affection. “So, you’re with me?”
I watched him, seeing a man I admired, seeing someone I should have aspired to. He’d always looked up to me because I was older, because I was the reason we’d survived on the streets. But he was the one I should have admired—because he’d always retained his humanity. “You know I’m always with you, brother.” I shared my thoughts in my silence, shared the way I felt about him without words, because we’d never exchanged words like that. It was better left unspoken—because love couldn’t really be described in words anyway. “I guess that means I’m about to retire.” I shrugged off the intense moment and changed the subject. “What do people do in retirement?”
He gave a slight smile. “No idea. Have a couple kids? Go on trips? You’re asking the wrong person.”
“Well, what are you going to do?”
He shrugged. “I haven’t thought about it.”
“I guess we get old…and fat.”
Magnus released a short laugh, the joke making him look like a teenager again. “I don’t think the girls will stick around if we let that happen.”
The happiness on his face made me smile, because these moments had been so rare for the last decade. In fact, I wasn’t sure if they’d ever happened at all. It was all business and nothing else. I’d cared so much about building wealth that I’d neglected the one relationship I actually valued. Now he had someone who valued him the way I should have valued him. “You’ve got a good woman, Magnus. She’s earned my respect.”
His smile disappeared, his look turning serious once again. Visibly touched, he stared for a while, like my approval meant the world to him, when it shouldn’t matter at all. “Thanks. Means a lot to me.”
Everything changed the moment I knew what Raven had done. She was there for my brother when I wasn’t. She saved his life when my negligence would have gotten him killed. The only reason he was in front of me now was because of her bravery, her devotion, and her love. I wished I could take back every insult I’d given her, whether it was to her face or behind her back. She didn’t deserve it. Whether they stayed together or not, I would always look after her, always be there for her for anything she needed. Forever. “I owe her my life…since she saved yours.”
We laid out our plans. Made some calls. Prepared for an attack that would wipe them out for good. With men and guns, we would approach the camp from the rear, kill the new guards in their sleep.
They wouldn’t expect a retaliation so quickly, so we had the element of surprise.
