“Your boys? You have other sons?” he asks.
“Not quite.” I look over to my three guys standing there: Boomer, Blade, and Cyber. “But they’re the closest damn things to sons I’ve ever had.”
“Sam, Get us some drinks. Where the fuck is Doc?” Boomer shouts.
“I’ll call him,” Cyber says.
“Now, I’m not sure where the fuck you got the idea that I raped anyone or that I’m your father. As far as I’ve ever known, I never had any living children. You’re not my son, but I have a feeling…” I need to take a deep breath and as I exhale, I continue. “You are my nephew.” I look around to the men I’ve known a long time and want to bury my head in shame. A big part of the reason I am the man that I am is because of who my brother was.
“What do you mean?” he asks; his voice is a mix between a snarl of anger and angst.
“I don’t know if you’re my nephew or not, but the resemblance is uncanny.” Our family genes are strong as fuck if it’s true.
“That’s for sure, but there are a fucking ton of people who have doppelgangers. That’s no reason to attack him,” Harley insists. Dylan shows a slight bit of remorse, but it’s quickly covered up by the years of anger in this young man.
“When is your birthday?” I ask.
“June twenty-fifth,” he answers.
I snarl as a searing pain in my stomach grows. Suddenly, an overwhelming sense of guilt sucker punches me. “What year?” He hands me his ID and that’s all I needed to see.
Damn, that bitch didn’t do that, did she? “Since my brother and I were nearly identical, it’s possible that you took after us. He was two years older than me and married his high school sweetheart. They were always having problems from day one. Frankly, I’m surprised they bothered to marry at all, but they did.”
“Shotgun wedding?” Boomer tosses out.
“No. That’s why it was surprising. There was no need for a rushed wedding.”
“He was working for our father’s company when I’d gone into the military right out of high school, and his wife was pregnant. Seven months into the pregnancy, I got a call from my mother that my brother had been killed in a car accident after leaving his lover’s house. When I came home on an emergency leave for the funeral, she was no longer pregnant and claimed that the affair and his death caused the miscarriage.”
Sam brought us some drinks and I slammed down a shot of whiskey and asked for another. Dylan did the same. Everyone else sat around waiting in rapt attention for the rest of the juicy details, but it might all just be one fucking big lie.
“There was a little coffin buried with him that had you in it. Now, I’m not saying she’s lying, because he was cheating, which means if you are his son, that means you could have been a son of his girlfriend. He wasn’t a rapist. A cheating rat bastard, but a rapist? No. Where was this hospital that you were born in?”
When he says the hospital, I know damn well that she lied. She gave birth. I look at this man, and my heart aches for him. I know she didn’t raise him because I saw her throughout the years, and she never had a small kid by her side. In fact, she’s famously known for being childless and has gone through numerous husbands throughout the past few decades. Although my brother’s name has been all but forgotten from the list except to say he was a childish mistake.
“I’m sorry that I missed out on watching you grow up.”
“You’ve been like a father to each one of us,” Boomer adds, clasping his hand to my shoulder.
“Thanks.” The guys have always felt like my sons, but I never understood how much it meant in my life to have them there until recently. They’ve truly filled the empty void and looking at my supposed nephew, I can sympathize with his pain and empathize with his grief.
The sound of the front door swinging open can be heard, and someone says, “The doc is in.”
He reaches us, and everyone parts to let him get to the table where we’re sitting. “What the hell is going on now?” he asks, scowling and quickly surveying the room.
“Doc, nothing major. I need a DNA test done, please.” His head jerks between the two of us as we sit across the table from each other. “To see if he’s my nephew,” I add to make sure he understands.
“Wow, holy shit. Really? Because he fucking looks like you back in Kabul.”
“I know.” It’s fucking uncanny. The younger version of me continues to scowl as he sits there, hating the comments about our looks. He doesn’t believe me, and that’s fine because I can’t expect him to believe me.