Chapter 14

Chapter

Fourteen

Phil

" Y ou're alive!" Blade's expression shifts from shock to pure joy, then he reaches toward the screen like he can touch me across the thousands of miles between us. Flame's grinning too, but he's staring at Crusher,

And Crusher…

"You were dead." Crusher swallows hard, and then grabs his head with both hands. "I saw it. I'm sure you were dead."

I don't know how to respond. I didn't plan to let the guys know I was alive until I got this fucker out of my head, but Zuben sucks at deceit. While on this call, he looked at me a dozen times, coming off shifty, and the guy is not shifty.

"Rasputin is definitely dead," I tell them, sticking to the easier subject. "I killed him myself."

"We thought he was dead the last time you killed him." Blade rubs his head. Clearly doubt has invaded his joy at seeing me. "Why so certain this time?"

"I saw his body age in seconds," I tell them. "I saw it turn to dust."

"Rasputin's death's not important right now." Flame grins.

"Of course it fucking is." Crusher turns toward him and glares. "What could be more important than Rasputin's death?"

"Um." Flame nods toward the screen. " Phil is alive ?"

Blade steps forward. "About that. I mean I'm thrilled and everything, but what happened? Why did you take so long to contact us? We thought you were dead. Ana is devastated ." A smile washes over his face. "I can't wait to tell her."

I lean forward. "She can't know!"

Blade startles as if my words slapped him.

"Phil," Flame says. "Lying to Ana isn't exactly an option for us at the moment."

Crusher is silent, stiff as a statue, as he studies my image on the screen—at least I assume that's where he's looking. His jaw is twitching, and veins are pulsing on his forehead.

"You were right to leave me on that rooftop," I tell him. Crusher's wracked with guilt.

His eyes narrow. "How do we know you're Phil? How do we know you're not Rasputin using the demon to impersonate Phil? How do we know you're not lying about everything?"

I suck in a breath. "It's me." I shake my head. "Ask me fucking anything."

"Rasputin fooled Ana into thinking he was Timur," Crusher says. "Someone she'd known and fed from for a hundred years. "His eyes narrow. "You can't fool me, demon. Not again."

Blade and Flame look at Crusher with alarm, but when they turn back toward the screen doubt has invaded their eyes, too. Fuck.

"It's not the same." I shake my head. "Ana sensed something was off with Timur. She told me. She wrote it off to the awkwardness of pretending they were mates. Plus, Ana never knew Timur, as well as you guys know me." I thump my chest.

"That's exactly what the demon would say." Crusher glares at the screen. "And Ana never said anything like that about Timur to me."

I lean forward onto the desk. "I've spent more time alone with her than you. Come on. You know me. Ask me something only I would know." Of all the things I anticipated about seeing my brothers again, proving who I am wasn't one of them.

Crusher's expression shifts, and I can't tell what he's thinking anymore.

"What do you like to drink?" Flame asks.

I tip my head to the side. "Whiskey. Preferably single malt scotches."

Crusher shakes his head. "Too easy."

"What type of explosive did you use when we left that meeting at Mariano's?" Blade asks.

"C-4. Collapsed the tunnel behind us."

"Also too easy," Crusher says, and his distrust slams into me like a shock wave. We've always trusted each other. One hundred percent. Ever since we were kids.

"Then fucking ask something else," I say more gruffly than I intend. But my tone changes Crusher's expression for a split second. Have I punctured his skepticism?

"Who killed our maker?" Crusher smirks, clearly thinking he's stumped me.

"I did," Phil answers.

Flame and Blade both gasp. Flame leans toward Blade, and whispers. "Shit. Crusher was right. It's not Phil."

"Explain." Crusher folds his arms over his chest.

"Phil didn't kill The Master," Blade says as if Crusher was asking him to explain and not me. "He was killed during a battle between rival syndicates."

"Caught in crossfire," Flame adds. "The Master took a stake to the heart, and following the code, Crusher left him behind." Flame hangs his head as if he still regrets what happened that night, even though what he thinks happened is a total lie. A lie concocted by Crusher to cover my actions.

"Phil," Crusher says stiffly. " You tell me what happened that night. And I mean every fucking detail ."

Blade stares at Crusher, and then turns back toward the screen.

I tip my head toward Zuben, still sitting like a fucking statue. I don't particularly want to confess to vampircide, in front of someone from DEFTA.

Zuben raises his hands from the table and turns toward me. "Nothing I hear exchanged between you four today will ever be repeated or used against you. You have my word."

I'm good with that. Zuben is an upright guy, and Crusher gives no indication he wants Zuben to leave either. Besides, Zuben already knows, or at least suspects, enough to have us put behind bars for the rest of our lives.

I pull a chair next to Zuben's, drop into it and lean back. "That night, the mission had already gone to shit. We were badly outnumbered. Six of our guys had gone down, so The Master ordered us to scatter and regroup at The Institute. He told us our mission had failed, and that each of us had to save ourselves to protect the team."

At the other end of the call, Flame and Blade both settle down on the sofa, but Crusher remains standing, arms stiffly crossed over his chest.

"Flame and Blade immediately followed the orders," I say calmly, focussing on Crusher. "But you and I didn't leave."

Crusher remains still, but his forearm muscles twitch.

"Phil," Flame says leaning forward. "I saw you leave. What the fuck are you talking about? The three of us left. Only Crusher was there to see The Master take the stake."

I ignore Flame. The one who needs to hear the true account of what happened is the only one who already knows it—Crusher.

"I doubled back," I say to Crusher, "and when I got there, The Master had you pinned in a corner of the warehouse, a crossbow aimed at your chest."

"Bull shit," Flame says.

Without turning his head, Crusher stretches one arm to the side, his palm facing Flame and Blade, signaling them to keep quiet.

"The Master blamed you for the mission's failure." I point toward Crusher. "He not only blamed you, he intended to punish you for it." Crusher shows no indication he's even heard me, never mind agrees with what I've said. But we both know what happened that night.

"I heard every cruel thing The Master said to you," I tell Crusher. "He called you worthless garbage. Called you a coward, a failure. A bad leader. He blamed you for the deaths of our brothers who'd been staked. He claimed your intel said our target would be alone, even though I heard you warn him of the possible ambush."

Crusher blinks, and for a second I see the same pain in his eyes that I saw that night. The hurt, the utter betrayal, but mostly the shame. Crusher was always The Master's favorite, and to be chastised like that, to be blamed for something he couldn't control and wasn't his fault…

"The Master spewed insult after insult," I continue. "And then the insults turned into threats. Threats and detailed descriptions of how he planned to teach you a lesson."

A shudder runs through me, remembering the horrors he promised. "The Master always delivered on his threats. He planned to torture you, to ruin you, and to force the three of us to help him do it."

I shake my head. "He said he needed to set an example of you. That he'd make sure the three of us hated you. That we'd see you as weak. That eventually we'd learn to enjoy hurting you. He claimed you'd be good practice for torture skills, especially for Blade and Flame who too often showed mercy."

"What?" Flame's voice cracks. He stares at the screen, as if I'm speaking a foreign language he can't comprehend.

"You accepted the blame," I continue, keeping my attention on Crusher. "You begged The Master to kill you, but he said he'd never show you the mercy of an honorable death."

"That's enough!" Crusher lunges toward the screen. Then he turns to face away from the camera, away from Flame and Blade too.

"I crossed the warehouse in a single leap," I continue. "And I drove a stake through that fucker's heart."

Crusher's gaze snaps back toward the screen.

Flame and Blade mutter something, but my focus remains on Crusher. I'm no longer worried about proving who I am, I'm more worried that I'm not there to deal with the fallout of Crusher remembering that night in vivid detail.

That night, Crusher flew into a rage and tried to kill me after I killed our master. I didn't fight back. I bared my chest to him, and just as he had a stake poised to thrust between my ribs, Crusher snapped out of what seemed like a fugue state.

He crumpled to the floor, and we talked for hours. We agreed to never tell Blade or Flame the truth. That night, the two of us made a pact for the four of us to continue as The Master had taught us, but minus the cruelty and punishments. And without recruiting any new boys to train.

That night in the warehouse, Crusher and I set the guidelines for what's been our brotherhood, our lives, for the past two centuries.

"So," Flame says quietly, "when you guys came back to The Institute and told us The Master had been staked…"

"We staked him," Crusher turns toward Flame and Blade. "Phil and I together."

Flame nods, looking back and forth between Crusher and me. "You said he'd left instructions. Instructions that if he ever died you should release the trainees, close The Institute."

I laugh. "You think that narcissistic bastard made plans for after his death?"

"He thought he was invincible," Crusher adds. "He thought he'd live forever, especially after turning us into his personal killing machines."

My hands are aching, and I slowly unfurl fists I didn't realize I'd formed. "Finally believe it's me?"

Crusher nods, and then shakes his head. "Someone had better go get Ana."

"No." Slapping my hands on the table, I shoot to my feet. "Ana can't know I'm alive."