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My brother.
The younger sibling I’m not even sure is real, the one I barely remember outside of the faded photograph of the two of us as kids. When Marcus found that picture in the little cigarette case I use as a wallet, I was desperate to get it back, to keep that part of myself away from him.
But I should’ve known that would be impossible. And once I told Marcus about my fruitless search to find my brother, he promised to help me do it. I remember the certainty in his voice when he said there must be some way to track down the answers I need—it bolstered my own flagging hope, giving me a fresh determination to wade through the red tape and bureaucratic bullshit of the Child Protective Services system.
“You found something? About my brother?”
The last word almost sticks in my throat. It’s still hard for me to say out loud, even to someone I trust as completely as Marcus. It’s like a raw patch in my soul, like someone ripped away a part of me a long time ago and the wound never healed over. I want to believe my brother is out there. That he’s safe and alive. But allowing myself to indulge in that hope sometimes feels like setting myself up for heartbreak.
“Yeah.” Marcus’s eyes gleam as he nods. Ste
am still swirls around us, partially obscuring the rest of the bathroom and making it feel like we’re the only two people in the world. “I got a name. Caleb Fairchild. It’s not a lot, but it’s something to start with. A thread to pull on.”
My stomach flutters.
Caleb.
I repeat the word out loud, tasting it on my tongue as Marcus watches me carefully. I say it several times, hoping each time that the sound of the name will spark some memory inside me, some connection.
“I… I think it sounds familiar,” I say slowly, hating how unsure I sound. I wanted an epiphany, and instead, all I got was a slow and creeping feeling of familiarity.
But I’ll take it.
Like Marcus said, it’s something. It’s a first step, and it’s much farther than I ever got in any of my searches.
“How did you figure out his name?” I catch Marcus’s gaze, shivering slightly. Now that the water is off, the steam is starting to dissipate, leaving the air cool. “I spent years trying to get anything on him—an old case file, letters of adoption, anything.”
Marcus glances at the goosebumps prickling down my arm. He steps back and opens the shower door, ushering me out. Stepping out behind me, he grabs a towel from the rack and wraps it around me. I lift my arms to let him secure it around my torso, loving the feeling of being utterly cared for by him.
“It was luck.” He shrugs. “And persistence. I’ve actually had a detective looking into it ever since the day we went to Victoria’s house. He did a comprehensive search for the surname Fairchild, and it led him to Caleb’s name. It wasn’t in a case file or a letter of adoption. He hasn’t found anything that concrete yet.”
My brows pull together. “Then where did the name show up?”
“It was actually in another kid’s file. A reference to a minor altercation between the two of them. Not much info beyond that, and no guarantee that it’s not another Fairchild entirely. But the timing lines up, and now that we have a first name, we can start tracking that down.”
“Thank you,” I whisper. It’s nowhere near enough to capture the emotions crashing around in my chest, but it's the best I can come up with at the moment. “Really. Thank you.”
Marcus’s face softens. He hasn’t grabbed a towel for himself yet, and he seems completely unabashed by his nakedness as he stands in front of me. He cups one side of my face in his large palm, his thumb sliding over my jawline. “I would do so much more than that for you, angel. I’d do fucking anything. And I’ll keep pursuing this, I promise.”
I lean into his touch, letting my eyes fall shut for a second.
I’m not used to this. To being protected and cared for. It’s a foreign feeling, and the part of me that was alone for so many years and expected to spend my whole life that way still sometimes has a hard time believing it.
But Marcus and his two best friends have left no room for doubt.
Over and over and over, I’ve seen undeniable evidence of how much they care about me—the lengths they’re willing to go to in order to keep me safe.
I’m not sure I deserve it, but I’m not going to fight it either.
Reaching up, I rest my hand over his, running my fingers over the ink of his knuckle tattoos. I can’t see the dark shapes, but I know they’re there. The month, date, and year of the night I was shot.
Maybe I do deserve these men. Maybe we deserve each other.
After all the shit each of us has gone through in our lives, maybe this is the universe’s way of showing us that things can be better. That hope exists, even in the shadows.
My eyes open again, and I gaze up at the hard lines of Marcus’s features. The words he said earlier slip past my lips, even more true now than they were the first time I said them.
“I love you.”
