AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Instead of answering, Brandon shook his head, cause heknew.
“What you’re doing, the way you’re treatingyour brotheris foul, and I’m not backing off that,” I told him. “It would be different if there wasanyevidence that he’d actually done something that caused harm, but there isn’t.”
Brandon scoffed. “So you’rereallycool withhim? The secrets, none of that matters to you?”
“It’s not that it doesn’t matter; it’s that he never pretended to be something he wasn’t,” I answered. “He wasneverforthcoming with why he was here, andIlet it go, because of what I had going on. There was a connection there that… overshadowed my discomfort. And yes, maybe my feelings for him are factoring into my willingness to give him the benefit of the doubt, but frommyend? I don’t have a reason—areal reason—to be angry with him. I justdon’t.”
He raised an eyebrow at me and nodded. “What ifThe Fallhadn’t happened? Hm? What if hehadkilled him? What then?”
“That’s not what actually happened, and you’re only leaning into hypotheticals to make your anger justified,” I replied. “But I’ll bite. If Onyxhadkilled Jesse, no relationship of any type would’ve happened between us, so there would be no conversation. If he pursued a relationship with me to get close to us, andthenkilled Jesse, I’d pull the trigger myself,” I answered. “No hesitation. But that’s not what happened. No hypothetical needed, no reason to reinvent reality when we areright here. And you are dead wrong.”
“You know what?Fuck it.I’m wrong,” Brandon countered, raising his voice again. “Everything you said—you’re right. Nyx avoided the truth, but he didn’t lie. He’s got more heart than half the niggas that wearPredatorink. He took a bullet overPredatorbusiness, just like you said. And he’s been ten toes down on figuring out who was responsible forThe Fall.All of that is true. And I don’t care. I’m still mad. I’m still pissed that he didn’t come right out with it, pissed he didn’t give us this truth that has unknown implications, and yeah, pissed that he’s tangible evidence that my father… did some shit like that,” he confessed, tossing up his hands. “I admit it. What now?”
“Now, we move forward,” I insisted, grabbing him by the shoulders. “Causethis?ThisI can respect. You can feel how you feel about the situation without defending the indefensible. And you can be pissed about what happened without aiming it at the wrong person. I know you want a villain to hate, but… Onyx is more of the victim in this particular story than anybody else could ever be. He deserves better than what you’re doing. Andyou’rebetter than this.”
“Am I though?” he countered, making my eyebrows shoot up. “Before today, maybe I would’ve thought so, would’ve thought my pops raised me better, but—”
“Absolutelynot,” I interrupted, refusing to let him lean into a train of thought like that. “What I said about there being a villain? That wasnotabout my Uncle Jesse,” I said. “It was about the men who forced him to do what he did.Theycreated this situation. All of it.Thatis who deserves the hate.”
Brandon pushed out a sigh, shaking his head before he met my gaze. There were very,veryfew times I’d seen any big emotional displays beyond joy or rage from him.
The glossy sheen of his eyes let me know we were on the verge of another one.
And I understood.
The entire situation was messed up, undeniably.
But the fact was that we weren’t really affected by any of this, especially in the present, beyond our hurt feelings. We’d grown up happy, healthy, and whole.
Loved.
So as much of an emotional tailspin as all this was, we could not lose sight of who the true predators were.
“You should’ve gotten your hugs from your mama,” I teased him, wrapping my arms around his neck to pull him close. I let my eyes close when he dropped his head to my shoulder, pushing out a heavy sigh that seemed to bear the weight of hours of emotional turmoil.
“Does this mean we’re good now?”
I laughed. “We’re never any other way very long.”
“Good,” he said, with another heavy breath before he straightened up. He scrubbed a hand over his face, nodding as he took a step back. “Okay. It’s time for that meeting with the others now.”
I nodded too, agreeing. “I’ll get right on it. What’s the agenda?”
“Well… we know there’s a connection betweenThe Gardenand theRenegados, right?”
“Right.”
“Okay.” He shrugged. “Then we start with the obvious.”
“Exactly what I was thinking,” I agreed. “It’s time to end Manuel Rojas.”
