“How long?” Ronan asked.
“Couple months,” Nick said.
“Please tell me you haven’t fucked us all for a piece of ass, Nick.”
Anger flared inside Nick’s chest, and he kept his gaze on some distant point across the courtyard, not trusting himself to look at his brother, not trusting himself not to lunge at Ronan, to wrestle him to the ground and fight it out like they had when they were kids.
There would come a time when he would make it clear that Ronan couldn’t talk about Alexa like that — like she was nothing — but right now Nick was in the wrong and he needed Ronan to listen.
“I’m in love with her,” Nick said.
Glass crashed across the courtyard and Nick sat up straighter, following the sound through the shadows, realizing Ronan had thrown the beer against the wall across the patio.
He stood, pacing away from Nick.
Nick rose to his feet, preparing to meet whatever punishment Ronan saw fit to dish out. If he had to take a beating, he wouldn’t fight. Not this time.
Ronan officially had a one-time-only pass to beat his ass.
But later, when it was done, Nick would have Ronan’s blessing with Alexa or Nick would be gone — from the house, from the business, from everything.
“Jesus christ,” Ronan growled. “You are one dumb motherfucker.”
“Maybe,” Nick said. “But it is what it is.”
He’d barely gotten the words out of his mouth when Ronan charged at him, a snarling monster coming at him through the shadows.
It took effort not to fight back, to let Ronan slam him against the side of the house next to the glass doors that led to the kitchen. Every muscle in his body itched to react, the instincts he’d honed at the police academy screaming at him to defend himself.
He balled his fists at his side, forced himself to meet Ronan’s eyes, flaring like blue fire through his rage.
“Do you know what you’ve done?” Ronan said through his teeth.
“She doesn’t know anything,” Nick said.
“She doesn’t…” Ronan shook his head. “Is that what she told you?”
“We don’t talk about work. We never have. She has as much to lose as we do,” Nick said.
“Bullshit,” Ronan said.
“She’s sleeping with the subject of an investigation at the AG’s office,” Nick said.
“So she gets fired. You go to jail, Nick. Dec goes to jail. I go to jail. I leave my wife and son behind with no one to take care of them.” He let go of Nick’s shirt, like he couldn’t stand to touch him. “Don’t fucking tell me she has as much to lose as we do.”
“Okay,” Nick said. “It’s not the same, but it’s still a risk. We’ve never talked about work — hers or mine. I don’t know anything more about the AG’s investigation into MIS than I did when I started seeing her, and she doesn’t know anything more about MIS, not from me anyway.”
“That’s really fucking comforting, Nick. Thanks a lot. I feel totally fine about this now.”
“I don’t expect you to feel fine about it,” Nick said. “I just couldn’t keep it from you anymore, not once I knew what it was. I was hoping you’d understand.”
Ronan looked at him like he was crazy. “Sorry to disappoint you.”
“Julia was the granddaughter of a client,” Nick said. “The sister of a victim. It was a conflict of interest from the beginning. Dec and I knew it, but we stood by you anyway.”
Ronan pointed at him. “That’s not the same thing.”
“It was still a conflict, one that put us all at risk in Italy and Greece when Dec and I knew you weren’t going to leave Julia behind if things went to shit.” Nick hesitated. “We put our lives on the line for you. You have to know that, Ronan, because we all know if Elise’s case hadn’t been connected to Julia, we would have cut our losses long before we did.”