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ZANE

I drove all night, following the directions Eddie had supplied, stopping only once for coffee at a truck stop in a town I’d never heard of. I grabbed my phone from the dashboard, the security camera surveillance playing in real time through the app. I’d kept one eye on the road and one eye on my mother, sleeping in her bed, the entire night.

Eddie had held up his part of the bargain, and his goons had stayed at a distance, lingering outside with their knives.

But they hadn’t left.

And so I’d driven until I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer.

The truck stop had a café with cracked leather booths, and I sank into one wearily, my eyes so glued to the screen I didn’t even notice the waitress arrive to take my order until she cleared her throat. I finally looked up, shifting the phone beneath the table and away from the waitress’s prying eyes.

Her expression said she’d already noticed what was on my screen, though, and she gave me a leery look, which I couldn’t even blame her for, because in any other situation, watching a woman sleep through a surveillance camera was creepy as fuck.

Something Eddie would have done for fun.

I felt compelled to explain I wasn’t some sort of creeper or stalker, but what was the point?

“Coffee. Strong. Please. To go.” After working all day, and driving all night, I was too tired to contemplate putting words into full sentences.

“No problem. Sugar?”

I honestly didn’t care.

The sun rose outside the dirty windows, and I knew I couldn’t wait any longer. Mom would wake soon and freak out when she realized I wasn’t there.

I minimized the surveillance app and called my mother, drumming my fingers on the tabletop and praying the waitress would be fast. I didn’t even know what I was going to say when Mom answered. She’d made so much progress. She’d even started seeing a therapist who she met with via Zoom. It hadn’t helped with her dreams, but it had helped her to leave the house at all.

This was going to set her right back to the beginning. I just knew it.

Her phone rang out, and a sick feeling swirled in my stomach. I called again, but the same thing happened. The third time I risked the wrath of the other people in the restaurant and put the call on loudspeaker so I could watch the footage at the same time.

Mom was up and moving around, but her phone was nowhere to be seen. I peered at the nightstand in her bedroom, where she charged it diligently each night, but it wasn’t there.

Another call came through, and this time, I recognized the number. I wanted to smash my head against the wall. “What?”

“Why are you so codependent on our mother that you call her multiple times in the space of a minute?”

“You took her phone then?”

Eddie laughed. “I didn’t. I’m laid up in a hospital bed with a very painful gunshot wound that required surgery and a fuck ton of stitches to fix. I couldn’t steal so much as a Snickers bar from the vending machine.” He smacked his lips, like he was devouring a candy bar right then. “My guys might have slipped inside and borrowed it though.”

I despised the idea of those men being in the house while she’d slept. And that I hadn’t even noticed them.

“That’s how easy you’ve made it for me, Zaney boy. Did you really think a couple of cameras and some bars on the windows would be enough?”

I said nothing.

“How far away are you?”

“An hour.”

“Hurry up. Clock’s ticking. I don’t like to be kept waiting.”

I left the diner without waiting for my order. The shot of adrenaline that came from knowing my mother was completely cut off from the outside world and a sitting duck was enough to get me to the hospital in the city. The final hour of the drive a blurry rush of cars and nausea.

I parked illegally near the entrance and jogged inside the building, stopping only at reception to ask where Eddie’s room was. The woman behind the desk gave me directions, and I followed them up to the third floor, eyeing every phone and security guard as I went, trying to come up with some sort of plan where Eddie went to jail for the rest of his life and I got to walk away with mine.

Except every scenario I ran, all played out the same way. I called the cops and sent them to check on my mom. They’d do a quick check of the perimeter, see nothing was amiss, and then leave.

And Eddie would be pissed off enough to hurt her.

Or I told these security guards what my brother was and how he was dangerous. And they laughed in my face, because how dangerous could a man be when he was in a hospital gown that showed his ass?

No matter what scenario I tried in my head, they all ended with Eddie on top. My mom hurt. And me caught in the fucking middle.

Forever Eddie’s pawn.

I found his room and had to force my feet to enter it. Two beds filled the space, each with a flimsy green curtain offering some degree of visual privacy from the other patient but did nothing to muffle the obnoxious sound of Eddie’s voice loudly barking orders down the phone.

I drew the curtain back.

Eddie’s gaze slid to mine. “Gotta go. My ride just showed up. Finally.”

I ground my teeth, biting down hard.

He raised an eyebrow. “What? No hug for your brother? No concern for the life-threatening injury I sustained?”

He was a cockroach. The kind that would still be alive even after a nuclear explosion. He didn’t look any different than the last time I’d seen him. Still tall and thick as a tree trunk. His ugly prison tattoos still marring his skin. His eyes still beady and sharp and full of cruelty.

I just wanted to get as far away from him as possible. “I’m here. Now what do you want?”

“I told you. I need a lift home.”

We both knew that was not why I was there. “You could have got an Uber.”

“An Uber driver can’t be trusted with my empire.”

I bit back a laugh. “Your empire? You mean your low-level drug deals that are so insignificant the police can’t even be bothered to arrest you?” I pressed my lips together, knowing it was stupid to poke the bear, but he was so fucking full of himself.

Eddie’s eyes narrowed. “Things have changed since you’ve been gone. I have a business to run. A crew to oversee. Deals to be made.”

“And yet you can’t call a taxi?”

“And yet,” he mocked, “I called in my brother to take over while I’m out of commission.”

I was rapidly losing patience. Exhaustion plagued me. My eyes were as dry and gritty as sandpaper. “Call in one of your crew then.” I made air quotes with my fingers. “Get one of them to take over. Just leave me and Mom the hell alone.”

Eddie shook his head. “Can’t do that. Need someone smart. Someone I can trust.”

“Someone you can manipulate, you mean.”

Eddie’s grin widened. “See? Smart. My guys are all misfits. They do as they’re told, but only because they’re too dumb not to… But you, on the other hand… You’re smart and easily played because you have something to lose. You’re like a little puppet dancing around at just the tiniest jerk of my fingers. All I have to do is threaten the old bitch, and you do whatever I say.”

Anger boiled through me, thick and fast. This was the string he always pulled with me. He’d learned a long time ago that hurting me didn’t work. I’d take the beating. Take his torture. I could endure whatever he dished out.

But I couldn’t handle him hurting others. The cat when we were kids. Mom.

Fawn.

I squeezed my eyes closed, thinking about her broken body lying at the bottom of the stairs. Staring into my brother’s eyes now, I realized her death might have actually been a mercy. Because nothing had changed with Eddie. There had been no mellowing with age. If anything, the hate and evil in his eyes only burned brighter.

Or maybe that was just lit up right now because he enjoyed tormenting me.

I leaned in close. “I’m not running your business for you. Not now. Not ever.”

Eddie shrugged. “So I’ll just tell the guys to let themselves in then? I’m sure Mom will be ready to welcome them with a nice cup of tea…”

The anger simmering inside me bubbled up, and though each word made me sick to my stomach, I spat them out anyway. “And then what, Eddie? You kill her. Put her out of her goddamn misery, and then what?”

We both heard the shake in my voice. Saw my fingers trembling. A sharp, stabbing pain hit me in the gut over the terror my mother would feel as she died. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t stand the thought of her being hurt because I’d said and done the wrong thing, and my psychopath brother had taken his frustration out on her.

But I couldn’t be his puppet either. And so I called his bluff and played my ace card. “Without her to hurt, you have nothing.”

Eddie pulled over his crutches and slowly pushed himself to standing. Even with all his weight on one leg, he was still half a head taller than me, despite the fact I wasn’t short by anyone’s standards at a few inches over six feet. Even with a hospital stay, he had a bulk about him I’d never achieved, despite the hard, manual labor I did each day.

We just weren’t built the same. Not on the inside. Or the outside.

His gaze burned me. “Even if I believed your bravado, little brother. Which for the record, I don’t. Not for one second because you always were the old bitch’s favorite, I already know you’re going to do exactly what I ask.”

I waited. Not bothering to reply because Eddie liked the sound of his own voice more than anything else.

He chuckled that dark laugh that played out each night in my own nightmares. “You have a nephew, Zaney boy.”

Of all the things that could have come out of his mouth, that was the absolute last thing I expected. But then horror rushed me. A tidal wave of terror for the innocent child growing up with my brother as his father.

Eddie knew he had me. He knew my weakness and how to play it like a goddamn violin. I’d always cared too much. Felt other people’s pain like it was my own.

All I could think about was the boy I’d once been, constantly tormented and abused by my older brother.

Eddie cocked his head to one side, gleefully watching my reaction to his bomb drop. “Did I mention who his mother is?”

“She’s clearly insane if she’s having babies with you.”

Eddie’s gaze burned mine. “You can ask her yourself when you drive me home.”

I shook my head, trying to force out the thoughts of the kid. Trying not to picture his face as mine.

Eddie shrugged. “Shame. Peach was so looking forward to seeing you again.”

My blood turned cold in an instant. I’d only ever heard my brother call one woman Peach, and that woman was long dead. Her body broken at the bottom of a staircase, the sweet light in her eyes extinguished by one shove from my brother.

Anger speared through my blood at the very thought of Fawn. “You’re a liar.”

Eddie lifted his hand to study his nails. “Maybe. But what if I’m not? What if she’s been with me all this time, little brother? The woman you’ve spent your whole life getting hard over. What if she’s been my peach all this time?”

“No.”

The sweet-as-sugar act dissolved. “Get your fucking keys, Zane. Time for you to meet the family.”