Chapter 44

FORTY-FOUR

brAXTON

W e've been sitting in front of Montague Inc. for an hour now. Aella is behind me still, though we're not driving. Her hands are clasped over my stomach, and her head lies on my back. Her breathing is anything but steady, and I know tears are staining the cobra on the back of my jacket. She doesn't need my words, though. She needs my stoic silence and presence. My body heat.

Miles is next to us on his bike, gripping the hell out of the handles.

"We're sure we're ready for this?" he finally asks, breaking the tension with his sharp tone.

Aella finally peels off me, sniffling. "We have to close this chapter. No matter what comes of the meeting."

As if her word was all we needed before heading inside, we grumble and get off our bikes.

I reach a hand toward her, helping her off my bike.

As she gets off my ride, I eat up each movement her lithe body makes. Licking my lips, I tug her close and kiss her on her head, closing my eyes and breathing in her perfume.

"You've become our world, Bambi." It's the most I've ever given her verbally. While she knows I'm different from my emotions, she needs my words. It requires me to tell her the shit that's rumbling around in my overly connected brain.

"You two have become mine," she whispers back, pulling from my hug and looking up at me.

Her deep blue eyes trap me in their hue, and I swallow.

"Let's get this shit over with," Miles says, and Aella gives me a look I know all too well.

He won't tell her he's upset. He won't tug her into him to help cushion his nerves.

He needs her, and she knows it.

I nod, and she pulls away and goes to him, entwining her fingers with his and taking up the lead as we stride toward the building.

Aella leads us inside, toward her father's office, and the closer we get, the worse my nerves get.

Our mother, the woman we've been looking for since we were teens, is here. Even though a door lies between us, it's as if I can feel her somehow. Smell her.

But she left us.

Emotions war inside me, and I try to tamp them down.

The process of coming to terms with her being alive is still ongoing, and I don't know how I'll react to seeing her. How will my brain reconcile her image with what I know to be true ?

She left us.

"Ready?" Aella asks us.

We've been standing before her father's office door for a few moments. Readying.

She reaches forward and grabs the knob, even though neither of us agrees that we're ready to proceed.

I spot her once Miles steps inside, moving off to the left with Aella.

She's sat in a chair before Walter's desk, and her eyes are leaking tears.

Almost instantly, the hurt and anguish slam into my chest at the sight of her. But the same memories of her kissing us to see us off in the morning or dancing around the kitchen as she cooked breakfast won't let those feelings win.

She was our mother.

She is our mother.

A choked sob comes from my throat, and I take a moment to realize that it was me who made the sound.

"Braxton. God, look at you," she says, wiping her face and standing. She's fighting the urge to come towards me, and I'm thankful she's controlling it.

She knows I don't want to be touched with so much happening in my head. Just as she'd known back then. Mom always knew when it was okay to reach for me.

Just as Aella does.

"Miles," she turns toward my brother, who's gripping Aella for stability, "you're both so handsome and grown up."

We're no longer grown men covered in leather who smell of oil and gasoline. We're her boys .

Her boys loved and missed her for the entirety of our miserable lives.

"Mom," Miles chokes out, and a singular tear treks down my cheek. I swipe it away and meet Aella's sorrowful eyes.

"You left us with him," Miles says, and the room seems silent to the point of deafening everyone in it.

Her tears flow harder following his statement. It's not a question. No, it's a reminder of what she did to us. The hurt and the pain she left us while she was living her new life.

"I'm so sorry. I didn't think he'd do all this… I never knew he would continue to…"

"To beat us? To command his fucking club of vigilantes to find you? What, Mom? You thought he would just let you go?" I spout, crossing my arms over my chest in clear defense.

I've had weeks to prepare for this meeting. Sessions with the therapist helped me gain the confidence to walk in here today, ready to confront her. But I wasn't prepared for the anger flowing through me.

I thought I was more prepared than this.

"No, I didn't think he would do all this to find me. Though I worried he would be angry, I thought he would still have you boys to live for. To keep him sane."

Miles scoffs to my left. "Sane? That isn't a word I would use to describe him in the fucking slightest, Susan."

Using her name instead of her title does something to our mother. She winces, dropping her eyes away and looking at Walter for… Direction? Comfort ?

What exactly drove her into his arms?

Trails of money and drugs link him to the Jackals, and there's more than that I've gathered on him, too. Irrefutable evidence.

My tongue itches to lay into both of them, but I breathe and let my brain catch up to my emotions as I've been working on in therapy.

"I know I missed a lot," Susan says. "But I couldn't take it any longer. You two are stronger for having him as your father. For losing me. I wouldn't have survived it."

Her words make my ears throb in time with my pattering pulse.

Miles shifts on his feet, crossing his arms as he does when trying to maintain control. Not that she knows she's in any danger.

Would he kill our mother?

That I can't answer the question makes me nervous, and I watch him like a hawk.

"What, do you want us to thank you?" Miles snorts.

Susan's cheeks turn beet red. "No, that's not what I'm saying…"

"Maybe we should all take a beat to let our emotions settle," Walter interjects, and I snarl.

"Shut the fuck up." My eyes flare as they capture his gaze.

We take him aback.

I turn my eyes on Susan, who's shifting in her chair. "You missed more than you know. You missed Miles becoming president of Dad's toxic fucking club. You missed him turning it around for the better. You missed us framing our father for murder to get his ass put away for the damage he's caused and missed me finally getting diagnosed after years of not knowing why I was different. You also missed your lover's daughter getting kidnapped by both of us and falling in love with both. You've missed the nights we cried out for you when we were sick or hurting and the moments in our lives we'd have loved for you to be there. You can't take it back. No words will fix it, and no time will heal it. It'll always be there," I finally tell her.

Miles sighs as if I captured what he's feeling perfectly.

"So, you're saying this can never be fixed?" Susan asks, tears silently moving over her time-weathered cheeks.

I bite my cheek, not wanting to spew any more truths or emotions, as my brain is still trying to decide what I honestly think of her return.

I shrug.

"You don't have to like it, but you should respect it," Walter says, sticking his fucking nose where it doesn't belong again. The only reason he's still breathing is because of the woman clinging to Miles's side right now.

The careful look in Walter's eyes tells me he knows it, too.

"You just need to shut the fuck up," Aella says, dropping Miles's hand and stepping toward her father's desk.

"Excuse me, young lady?"

She scoffs, some of her newfound fire blazing up at his words. "Oh, shove it up your ass. Young lady." She leans over his desk. "We know who you are, Dad. We know what you do. Who do you work with, or for, should I say? You need to sit there and be silent. This isn't about you."

The way Walter looks at her as if he doesn't know her makes me so fucking proud. Because as much as this has been a journey about Miles and me finding our mother and gaining closure, it's about Aella, too.

I'm sure she was supposed to be in our world.

She's been on a journey of her own.

One that's changed her very makeup.

"I think this meeting is over. For now," Susan says, standing and rounding the desk. She grabs Walter's hand as if they stand together in guilt.

My stomach churns the longer I look at them, so I turn and stalk out of the fucking building. I'm not stopping until I'm on my bike with the engine revved.

I don't wait for Aella and Miles, even though I see them walking out as I kick off the ground and lift my feet to the bike pegs.

I need this.

As I drive away, the chapter slowly ends, like a fading sunset painting the sky with vibrant hues. This chapter, which has shaped my life and guided my actions for over ten years, now dissipates like a gentle breeze through an open window. The distant sound of tires on the road echoes in my ears, a constant reminder of the journey I am leaving behind. The familiar scent of gasoline fills the air, mingling with a tinge of nostalgia as I bid farewell to this significant part of my existence.

I discover that I have no desire to acquaint myself with her. The feeble justifications she offered cannot sway me, and they do not warrant any consideration. There is no obligation for me to mend ties with her. The same holds for both of us.

I can move on.

I need to move on.

A while later, I'm sitting on my bike, listening to the wind blow in Lover's Bluff, when I hear the far-off sound of a motorcycle approaching.

I know it's him, but I don't turn as he pulls up behind my bike and shuts his off.

When I finally look toward Miles, I'm surprised I find no Aella with him.

He shoves his hands in his pockets as he stands between my splayed thighs. I drop the stick I'd been tearing to bits for the last hour on the ground beside us and lean back to look up at him.

"Where's Aella?" I ask.

"Home."

So, Stoic Miles drags me home. Got it.

He sighs, the lines etched into his face disintegrating some. "Tell me what you're feeling."

I know this is Aella's influence.

Based on its nearly complete glow above us, I see the moon above will be full tomorrow night.

She has rocked our fucking world more than she even knows. More than we could ever tell her .

"Confused," I finally say. "Pissed-off. Hurt. Damaged. Betrayed."

As I give him each word I can muster for the things warring inside me, he nods at each in agreement.

"You take your time with everything you're working through, Brax. But don't shut us out of it."

Us.

He and Aella.

I smile because I can't fucking help myself.

"What?" he asks.

"Is there an us , Miles?"

The question hangs between us like a thick fog. Minutes pass as the sounds of the forest surrounding us seem to grow louder in the absence of our words.

He laughs and drops his gaze to his boots, shifting back and forth in them before looking back up at me with a cheeky grin, tugging his lips. "Fuck, Brax. You're going to make me do this now? After the fucking day we had?"

I nod. "I am."

If I'm going to process a fuckton of information, I might do it all at once.

"There's always been an us ," he admits, his green eyes boring into mine. "There always will be. Though we share her, you and I's bond is the center of my universe—the center of even our bond with her. I've wanted you since the night you boldly kissed me in your room. It was just too…"

"Taboo? We're not actual brothers, Miles. I hate to break it to you." I smirk ruefully .

"Still, Brax. It's not accepted in the lifestyle we're in. For all intents, we are brothers."

Though it makes me feel naughty, I do like to think of him as my brother when his lips are sliding over my… I inwardly try to focus on the conversation as images dance in my mind.

Now isn't the time for that field trip into my fucked-up psyche.

I keep the filthy smirk as I run my thumb over my lip and glare at him. He growls and reaches down, grabbing the front of my shirt and pulling me to stand.

Our noses touch, and our breathing melds. "Be fucking serious," he snarls.

"Too much is serious around us, Miles," I whisper, grasping the back of his head in my right hand, my left palming his hard cock within it. "I'm done with serious for the night."

"What do you want from me, then?" he murmurs against my lips.

"You sought me out, Brother. What is it you want from me?"

He breathes out a shaky breath.