Better When He's Brave
Page 32

I asked if he had ever been married or if he had any kids, and he just snorted, which led to a round of coughing that lasted five minutes. He told me he had been screwed over by a woman once and since then had never trusted the fairer sex again. He explained that he had met a beautiful Irish lass while he was stationed in Turkey. She pursued him, seduced him, and then used him and his status with the military to gain access to weapons she would never have been able to get her hands on otherwise. She used his name and rank to smuggle guns across secure borders, betraying him and ruining his career along the way. He called her a terrorist and then finally, after what felt like hours, mentioned the kid.
A few years after he had been kicked out of the army and sent home disgraced and shamed, the woman contacted him to let him know that he had a son. She wanted money and she wanted his name so that her baby boy could have dual citizenship. The disgraced soldier agreed because despite how she had screwed him, he still loved the beautiful Irish gal and thought raising their son right was the way to win her heart.
Only the boy showed up and the man knew from the start something was wrong with him. He tried to love him, tried to show him guidance, but every summer they spent together the boy seemed to be worse. The man wanted to blame the mother; after all, she was a killer and a terrible person in her own right, but the boy seemed rotten to his very core. He was wild. He was disrespectful. He was cruel to animals and the staff that kept the man’s ranch running. He was explosively violent, but what really worried the man was how effortlessly the boy could turn it on and off. He told me when the boy joined the military he thought maybe he would finally turn it around.
Only to his dismay he saw that arming an already unstable young man and teaching him how to kill just made him more violent and dangerous. He told me that his last contact with the man he had always thought was his son was about four years ago. The boy had come home for the holidays right after getting out of the marines and switching to the Border Patrol. The man was looking forward to reconnecting with his son, but what happened had scarred him forever and ripped them apart instead.
According to the man, the boy went missing not long after Christmas dinner. No one thought much about it until they noticed one of the young women who helped take care of the house was also gone. Sure, it could just be two young lovers escaping for a quiet moment alone, but the man knew better, so he went to find his troubled son.
The boy had the girl pinned down in the barn, a knife to her neck and seconds away from ruining her for life. The man pulled the boy off the girl, they struggled, and the man ended up getting a knife to the gut for his troubles.
“I knew you were too weak and pathetic to be my father,” the boy said as he stood over the man scoffing. With that, the son kicked him in the ribs and disappeared out of the man’s life forever, leaving the poor bastard that had raised him to bleed out where he lay. Only the man was a fighter and had survived the destruction both the mother and son had leveled at him. He was all too happy to tell me all about it.
While he talked my skin pulled tight across my body and I felt a tick start to work in my jaw. All those pieces that had been missing started to land in my lap and I suddenly couldn’t see anything but a familiar black gaze dancing in front of my eyes. I cleared my throat and asked the man if he had any idea who the kid’s real dad was and the man replied, “Someone just as twisted, brutal, and messed up as he was.”
I thanked the man for his time, sat back in my chair, and kicked my desk hard enough that it moved two inches across the floor.
“Son of a bitch!” I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of the connection sooner. Just like Novak had tried to sink his claws into Bax in order to groom him into his own vision, he had done the exact same thing with his other illegitimate spawn out there in the world.
Roark had to be Novak’s son, and of course the criminal mastermind hadn’t had a thing to do with him until he was old enough to be useful. When Roark joined the Border Patrol, Novak swooped in and got his hands on his already tainted offspring. He had done the same with Bax, ignoring my brother until his skill at stealing cars proved useful. It all clicked into place and it made my heart start to pound.
Roark wasn’t trying to exact some kind of righteous vengeance because Race and Nassir were taking over Novak’s business; he was paying them back for killing his father. The father—it was now obvious—that he shared with my younger brother. Bax was undoubtedly going to be in Roark’s crosshairs since he most definitely had a hand in ending Novak’s life. It all had dread settling heavily in my stomach I needed to call my brother ASAP and warn him to watch his back. Just as I was getting ready to dial Bax’s number I saw his face light up the screen of my phone. I knew he was going to be pissed about the situation with Reeve, but I needed him on my side and I needed him to know just how careful he would have to be considering he was one of Roark’s targets.
“Hey.”
“So you’re alive. I was starting to wonder.”
I rolled my eyes at his tone and could practically see him squinting through the cigarette smoke as I heard him exhale.
“Shit’s been crazy.”
“I heard. Nassir was more than happy to tell me all about the shootout at the club and the fact you disappeared with that bitch into the back for an unspecified amount of time. I know you put her up at Race’s, but I didn’t know you were sleeping with the enemy.”
I grunted at him as I crossed the parking lot. “Meet me at the diner by the station. I need to eat and I’ll fill you in. I have a lot of stuff I need to talk to you about.”
“You’re done avoiding me?” I could just imagine the way the black star he had tattooed by his eye was twitching in aggravation.
“Listen, I just got you to trust me after everything that went down five years ago. I don’t want this girl and what I have to do with her to mess that up. I didn’t know how to make you understand that right now she is important and not have you mess with it. Besides, we have much bigger problems on our hands than where I’m sticking my dick.”
“She almost got my girl killed.”
I sighed because I could still hear how much that tore him up in his voice. “I understand that, Shane. I really do, but sometimes we have to do things we don’t like and don’t agree with because the end game is bigger than us and our own. Do you get me?”