From Sanctum with Love (Masters and Mercenaries #10)(107)

Harrison shook his head. “Explain to him that he needs to talk to Big Tag. Until Big Tag fires me, I’m not off the case. That is one Dom I’m not about to piss off. Night all. I’ll be in contact in the morning.”

“Fuck,” Case said with a frown. “They can’t fire him. Can they?”

Kai was already moving, following his brother. “I’m sure they can. Go on ahead of us. I’ll get my brother home.”

“No can do,” Case shot back. “I promised Ian I would see you home safely. He put up the million for Jared’s bond.”

Shit. Although it made sense because how the hell had Jared been expected to do it in the middle of the night with no one helping him. “I’ll make sure Ian gets his money back.”

“He’s not worried about that, damn it. He’s worried about you. He’s worried about you and your brother. Sean brought my truck up here so I’ll pull it around and I’ll wait for you in the front. Talk to Jared and then you need to get your girl because she was pissed and right now she’s at Erin’s. I can only imagine how that’s going to go for you. Erin could be teaching her how to take your balls off.”

He didn’t have time to worry about that right now. One massive cluster f*ck at a time. It’s what his life had become. He needed to deal with his brother first and then he would figure out how screwed he was with Kori.

Kori, his sweet girl with so many walls he’d only barely managed to climb the first couple. She was likely erecting more. Higher walls. Stronger walls. These walls would be fortified against him.

Did he even deserve a second chance with her? He stalked out of the station and saw his brother staring down at his phone.

He’d walked away and left Jared alone. What would Ian have done if he’d found Sean with a woman Ian thought he’d loved? Would he have walked away and never spoken to his brother again? Or would he have beaten the shit out of Sean, dumped the girl, and started over again?

Because they were family.

For so long family had seemed like a cross to be borne, like a stone dragging him down. He couldn’t look at his brother without seeing their mother in her hospice bed, wasting away. There’d been nothing to do. No magic tricks, no amount of discipline and work had made her better. Tired. He’d been so f*cking tired. Tired of poverty. Tired of worry. Tired of the feeling in his gut that he was useless. He’d walked away the first chance he’d gotten and he hadn’t looked back.

“Jared?”

“I’m not leaving town,” Jared said, his voice tight. “I know your friend put up the cash for my bail. I’ll have it back to him in the morning. I’m going to a hotel. I won’t leave until my new lawyer says I can. You’re safe. Your friends are safe, so you can leave me the f*ck alone.”

What had happened? “I don’t think I deserve that. I’m trying to help you.”

Jared turned, his eyes staring right into Kai’s. “Are you? Or are you helping the FBI?”

He was going to kill Ethan Rush. “Jared, I have never once believed you did this.”

“Five women. Five women I liked. Five women I spent time with and talked to and thought they used me. They hadn’t. They couldn’t f*cking call because they were dead. Someone’s killing the women around me and you didn’t bother to mention that you were a part of an investigation into me. I thought you were finally ready to talk. I thought, wow, after all this time Kai’s going to show me the ropes. He’s willing to be part of my life in some way. I should have known the only way you would ever let me back in was for some revenge.”

“This isn’t about revenge, Jared. Goddamn it, you’re never going to believe me, but I was going to tell you about the investigation tomorrow. Today. I don’t know. I was going to lay it all out for you, but I owed some people first.”

“Of course. Everyone comes before me,” Jared agreed sullenly.

“Don’t pull that shit on me. I spent my whole childhood putting you first.”

“And didn’t I know it?” Jared shot back. “Do you think I didn’t hear you tell your friends how much a burden I was, how you wished I didn’t exist half the time?”

“I didn’t mean it. Or maybe I did, but I was a kid, Jared. I was a child trying to fill an adult role. I also loved you. Maybe I didn’t show it enough, but I loved you. You were my brother. I’m sorry for what happened that day with Hannah. I can see now that you were acting out, trying to get my attention, and the truth of the matter is you deserved my attention. After Mom died, I shut down. I left you with Aunt Glenna and I shouldn’t have. I should have found another way to make money.”

Jared’s eyes narrowed, the first hint of dark emotion he could remember seeing in his brother. “Yes, you left me with Aunt Glenna. Such a lovely woman. Did you know she pimped me out to her friends? She took all the money and the only way I could stay in the house was if I entertained her friends. It was subtle at first. Just talk to them for a while. No big deal. And then one of them made a move on me. I turned her down. Our sweet aunt explained that if I didn’t f*ck her friend she would kick me out.”

Kai felt like his whole world flipped over. “What?”

“She turned me into a whore,” Jared enunciated. “She did it to move up in her world. She said she was an event planner, but what she actually did was provide escort services for some of the wealthiest women on the West Coast. When she realized what a gold mine I was, she wasn’t about to let go.”