Page 24 of Craft Brew

Nic snatched the lighter out of Vaughn’s hand. Worth the burn.

And worth whatever force Vaughn’s goons brought against him, the both of them lunging forward.

Vaughn spread his arms, blocking their advance. Calm, as if his little threat and flurry of action had never occurred. But it was more than enough for Nic to cut this parlay short, no matter what leads he’d hoped to get out of this. He just wanted the gangster out of his fucking brewery. “What do you want?” he demanded.

“What your father took from me.”

“And what was that?”

He smiled again, only this time the flirtatious invitation was gone, replaced by one hundred percent shark. “Everything.”

Seven

“Fourteen total?” Jamie shouted up the stairs.

“Fifteen.” Cam rounded the corner from his mother’s bedroom, last book in hand. “Thank fuck it was one of the shorter series.”

Jamie stared at the stack of books at his feet. “Shorter?”

Chuckling, Cam loped down the stairs, meeting him in the foyer by the front door. “There’s one up there in her boxes that’s fifty plus.”

“When we were younger, she always had a book in her hand.”

“We couldn’t afford cable and rabbit ears didn’t always work, so these”—he set the last book on top of the stack—“were her—our—soap operas. She’d read them aloud to us.”

Jamie glanced back up at him, worry in his too-blue eyes. “Are you sure you want to do this? Open up these wounds?”

“I opened these wounds four months ago.” When he’d gone undercover on a case, exercising the breaking and entering skills he’d learned as a teen working with Bobby, first at a chop shop and then for the criminal enterprise operating out of it.

“That was just you,” Jamie said. “This is your whole family.”

“For once, pretty boy is right,” Keith interjected, stalking in from the kitchen. “You really gonna put us all through this again?”

“She begged me.”

“I know what she asked. She told me to let you.”

“Keith . . .” Cam took a step toward him, then stopped when his brother held up a hand between them.

“I was eleven when we buried our sister’s empty casket. None of us need you bringing that up again just to appease your guilty conscience.”

Cam stumbled back. Keith wasn’t saying anything he hadn’t thought himself, but to hear it out loud and with so much hurt in his brother’s voice . . .

“You sure about that?” Jamie said.

Keith shot him an angry glare, snarling. “You stay out of this.”

And Cam shot forward again. “Don’t you dare talk to him that way. He’s as much a part of this family as the rest of us.”

“But he’s not. Why’s he even here?”

“Because I need all my brothers with me.” Cam jabbed Keith’s chest with his index finger. “Including you.”

Keith’s eyes widened. “You made the extended leave happen?”

Cam removed his finger from Keith’s chest and waved it between him and Jamie. “We made that extended leave happen.”

“Then please, brother”—he clasped Cam’s shoulder and the anger in his blue eyes morphed into pleading—“don’t make me spend my extra time here remembering the worst thing that’s ever happened to me and this family.”