I didn’t know I was laughing until the last blow landed, glancing off his cut cheekbone so his head went reeling to the right, spit and blood flying in a wide arc.
I stepped back, breathy laughter leaking from my mouth as Lucian struggled to stay standing then collapsed into the ropes.
Silenced echoed through the huge basement. I never knew quiet could be so big, impossibly loud. It pushed against my eardrums painfully, like pressure too deep underwater.
Lucian stared at me as he sagged heavily against the ropes, eyes so black they were blank, cheek cut and dripping blood, suited body slicked with sweat and apostrophes of spilt blood.
I knew I looked a mess, my chin split, bullet wound reopened and aching, seeping beneath the bandage.
But I felt incredible.
It wasn’t often a man got the opportunity to beat down two demons in the span of a week.
Black, sticky vengeance and righteous indignation roared through me.
Then, something shifted.
Lucian.
He waved away Leo and Carter who were behind him, outside the ropes, and rose to his own feet without wincing even though the tightness beside his eyes told of his pain. When he started forward on heavy steps, Walcott almost intercepted him, but I jerked my head slightly and watched my brother come to me.
If he took a swing, I was ready.
The idea that this fight might turn deadly was a real possibility.
Every muscle was strung taut as a bow, my fists quivering like notched arrows.
But Lucian didn’t take a swing at me.
He stopped a foot away, close enough I could smell him, the tang of sweat and musk of some no doubt ungodly expensive cologne. Close enough I could see the faint difference between the dark of his pupils and the dark of his irises, the sweat beading out of each pore.
I hadn’t been so close to him since I was a boy and suddenly, the proximity made me feel sick, nauseated to the very pit of my stomach.
He studied me for a long, quivering moment and then raised his hand, still shaky with adrenaline.
At first, I didn’t know what he was doing, just hovering between us. It didn’t make sense when I’d been expecting violence. As always, expecting the worst.
Then I realized he was offering a handshake.
A gesture of truce.
My bloody chin canted into the air as I gathered my anger and indignation around me like a shield. He read it in my eyes, my refusal to bend.
I wouldn’t have anything less than a spoken apology.
Lucian’s jaw spasmed as his hand still floated untethered between us. When he opened his mouth, it was with an audible creak, like opening an old, unused box.
“I’m sorry,” he said and the words were surprisingly quiet, soft. “I’m sorry for what Bryant did to you.” A hesitation that vibrated. “I’m sorry that I stood by and let it happen. And let Leo—” He shakes his head. “I’m sorry that I was a cold motherfucker afterward. I should have stood up for you. I should have stood up for all of you.”
The words struck my heart like a fucking gong, every inch of me shaking minutely. It rattled loose the last of the secrets and emotions I’d hidden away so long ago and they all spilled into my chest with a clatter that set my teeth on edge.
It made breathing difficult so my voice was strained when I demanded, “Are you genuine or is this only because you lost?”
He bared his teeth at me and it occurred to me that was something I would have done. We might have only been half-brothers, but the similarities between us were stronger than I’d remembered.
“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t mean it,” he grunted. “Why the fuck do you think I came?”
“I take your hand, it doesn’t mean we’re best friends,” I warned him. “It doesn’t mean we’re brothers in any way that counts.”
“No,” he agreed, cocking his head, the impression of a smile on his lips. “But you want to get there, we’ll get there.”
Without waiting for me, he snapped forward and grabbed one of my hands, enfolding it in his own. Before I could wrench away out of instinct, he was jerking me forward into a brutal hug. I slammed against his torso, shoulder aching, and his free hand gripped my neck, almost too tight. It was a claiming hug, almost the same way I’d hugged Bianca on the floor of her room at the Compound. As if I could absorb her, as if I could imprint all the words I didn’t know how to say from my skin to hers.
Automatically, I struggled to push away from him. I didn’t like to be caged and it was impossible not to feel trapped.
Lucian didn’t expect it, so I was able to push him off and clock him in the face, right in the mouth. He recoiled, neck twisting, but when he recovered, he did it calmly.
He faced me again, brought a thumb to the blood, and then, he laughed.
Bright, long and loud.
Laughing so hard, his eyes started to tear.
And it broke something inside me.
Something that needed breaking.
The idea that revenge always trumped forgiveness.
That violence ultimately won out over grace.
That everything Bryant had taught me––no––programmed in me was wrong.
It was all a fucking lie.
And this?
The laughter, the forgiveness of a bad blood between brothers, the coming together after so many years apart, that was exactly what Bryant wouldn’t want.
Because it felt good.
It felt good to feel an echo of Lucian’s laugh rumble through my chest. To hear it mimicked awkwardly at first and then louder in Carter and Leo. The Gentlemen didn’t laugh, this wasn’t their feud, their moment, but they smiled at us as if we were lunatics. As if they liked that we were lunatics.
“What a fucked-up family we are,” Carter said through his laughter, shaking his head and slinging an arm around Leo.
Leo stiffened, but his shoulders relaxed and he grinned again. “If those assholes are done beating each other up, let’s try being brothers again. I’m game if you are.”
“I’m game,” I said with a casual shrug, as if I wasn’t deeply and secretly relieved to have my brothers back the way I’d dreamed of since I was twelve years old with a fresh scar on my face.
Leo ducked out from Carter’s arm and stepped toward me, offering his hand to shake. I swallowed thickly as I gripped it.
He tugged hard, bringing me in to hug around our clasped hands as he thumped me on the back. When I tried to pull away after a moment, he surprised me by pressing his forehead to my skull to whisper in my ear, “I never would have left you, T. Never would have let him hurt you that way. I would never have gone on a fucking trip for school.” His voice was shattered as he spoke, aching with remorse I felt echoed in my own chest.
“Then where were you?”
“In the hospital.”
“For fucking what?”
“I’ll tell you another time. I wouldn’t have gone if I could avoid it. I didn’t have a choice.”
“Was it Bryant?”
“No.”
What the hell happened to him? Who else got to him? I guess now that we’re brothers again, there’s time to find out. I patted him on the back, slightly awkward, more than a little relieved that he hadn’t left us like that because he didn’t care. “I’m sorry to fucking hear that. I didn’t know.” I hesitated then asked, “You’re happy now?”