“So I don’t forget again.”
"Again." Andreas smiles. He actually freaking smiles. “Ah, I see.”
“You see what?” I cry, snatching my list back from him. "Why are you even in my office? Yours isn't even on this floor."
“I see nothing.” He holds his hands up in a gesture of surrender, but he’s still smiling. Ugh. Older brothers are infuriatingly smug. They think they know everything, even though they’re usually wrong about most things. And he still didn't tell me why he's in my office.
“What’s going on with you and Catriona?” I ask him. If he can be nosy, so can I.
“I’m marrying her.” He shrugs.
“Does she know this?”
“We’re working on it.”
I laugh quietly, shaking my head. She’s been staying with us for the last few days. I guess her brother isn’t a good person and has gotten involved in some bad things with a rival MC. I don’t really know the details, and I try not to ask too many questions. But I like Catriona. She reminds me of me in a lot of ways. She's been through a lot, and it's made her a little bit hesitant to trust others.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Shoot,” Andreas says.
“Do you think our father ever regretted any of the things he did?” I whisper. “Do you think he regretted what he did to Mama?”
Once upon a time, she loved him deeply. He used her love to tie her to him… and then took her family’s company from them after swearing that he wouldn't. They never spoke to her again, and the love she had for our father died. He wouldn't let her leave, though. Oh no. He couldn't have that.
He used me and Andreas to keep her in a loveless marriage. She was forced to play the perfect wife to a man who cared about no one but himself. Everyone he touched, he hurt. Even now, a year after his death, we're still cleaning up his messes.
Pain flashes across my brother’s face, an endless well of it, before he manages to school his expression again. He sighs softly. “I don’t know. But if he didn’t, I think the bastard will have an eternity to learn to regret all the shit he did and the people he hurt.”
I nod thoughtfully, staring down at my hands. Maybe he’s right. I don’t know. As soon as I turned eighteen, I ran and didn’t look back. I was never in the same room with my father long enough to ask if he regretted any of the choices he made or the things he did. But being back here… I can’t help but think about it.
I want nothing more than to forget the way I was raised and the man who tried to sell me off, but he's everywhere, like a ghost who refuses to lie quietly. It's making me a little nuts, I think.
“Not every man you meet will be like him,” Andreas says, his voice soft. “There was something fundamentally fucked-up with our father. He wasn’t capable of loving anyone. To him, people were tools to be used. But not everyone is like that, baby sister. Not everyone is like Jimmy Gatlin or the other men our father associated with, either. Cash Montoya isn’t like that. I very much doubt his brother is, either.”
I jerk my head up, pinning Andreas with a sharp gaze. “Who said anything about Zane?”
“Just a guess.”
“Stop guessing,” I mumble. “I don’t like it.”
He grins at me. “Noted.”
“You don’t think I should fire him.”
“I think you should give him a chance. I hear he’s a hell of a lawyer, and that’s what you need right now.” He gives me the same look he’s been giving me for exactly my entire life. The one that says he knows me and sees right through my crap. “We both know you’re liable to get yourself into more trouble before this whole thing is done and over with if you have to face that fucker without a good lawyer.”
“Just the sight of him makes me want to vomit.” I shudder. “He’s so smug and entitled. He called me a stuck-up bitch like I owed him a civil conversation just because people were around. Whodoesthat?”
“Motherfuckers like Jimmy Gatlin,” Andreas growls, pure venom in his voice. “He’s lucky I wasn’t there. They’d have been filming him picking his fucking teeth up off the airport floor for coming near you.”
“If he comes near me again, he might just have to pick them up anyway. Going back to jail would almost be worth it.”
Andreas chuckles, climbing to his feet. “Shit. I’ll bail you out.” He pauses, eyeing me critically. “Give Zane a chance.” A little grin tips his lips up at the corners. “And give him hell, baby sister.”
“Plan on it,” I say. “He called melittle rebel.” I leave out the part about him threatening to spank me, pretty sure Andreas doesn’t need to know that part. He’s overprotective. He’ll flip his lid if I tell him Zane’s already threatening to spank me. He’ll definitely flip if he hears that I don’t entirely hate the thought.
That’s what really freaks me out. I don’t entirely hate the thought.