Page 107 of Hunted

Arnold leaves and I run my free hand through my hair.

“Have you spoken to him since the airport?” Darla asks.

“We’ve texted a couple of times. He keeps trying to get me to meet him in person, but I’ve been pushing it off. I told him I needed time.”

“Well, if you need me to get rid of him for you, just say the word.”

I smirk down at my little wild thing, then pull her in for a hug. “Okay, if I say Steve, you can help me get rid of him.”

“You got it.”

“Brian Callahan,” Arnold, says, announcing the guest before he enters like this is Victorian England and not modern-day America.

“West,” Brian says, stopping in his tracks when he sees me embracing Darla. She moves to my side, but we keep an arm around each other as we look at him.

“I told you I needed some more time.”

“I know! I’m sorry, but it’s important.” He glances around at the other three men in the room, then his eyes land on Darla before moving back to me. “Uh, could we go somewhere and talk alone?”

“No.” His eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “These four are my family. Whatever you have to say to me, you can say in front of them.” There’s aflash of hurt in his eyes when I use the word family, but he’s the one that abandoned me, not the other way around.

“It’s just this is a sensitive issue—”

“He said no,” Reece says, surprising me. He crosses his arms over his chest, and he moves to stand closer to me, leaning against the counter that separates Brian and me.

“We don’t keep secrets from each other, and we don’t trust you to be alone with him,” Darla pipes up, her fingers digging into my waist.

“You haven’t earned that right yet,” Kingsley says, moving to Darla’s side along with Bower. A strange sense of warmth fills me at not only their words but their actions.

Losing my brother had been just as painful as the plane crash itself, and knowing my new family won’t judge me like that, brings me a sense of comfort and security I haven’t had in a very long time, if ever.

“It’s about what happened… you know… five years ago.”

“Go on,” I tell him.

“It’s kind of a long story. Should we sit down or something?” he asks, finally taking a moment to look around the large living area and kitchen. “Whose house is this, anyway?”

“It belongs to all of us,” Reece says without missing a beat as he walks past Brian to the living room. “Come, let’s have a seat in here. Would you like a drink?”

“Some water would be good, thank you,” Brian says, taking a seat on one of the large armchairs, allowing me to sit in the middle of the couch opposite him. Bower and King sit on either side of me, and I pull Darla into my lap, her back to my chest and place her legs between mine so she doesn’t accidentally flash Brian.

Reece brings over bottles of water for everyone, then sits in the other armchair.

Brian’s eyes slightly narrow, as he watches Darla and me. I can tell he wants to know about our relationship but is probably afraid to ask anything right now. Good, it’s none of his business.

“So, what did you want to tell me?” I ask, impatience slipping into my tone. I just want this over with so I can get back to what I was doing before he decided to drop in like we were on speaking terms and he hadn’t abandoned me for five years.

Brian takes a long sip of water, then presses his fingertips together—an old nervous tic I haven’t seen since we were teenagers, and he had to confess to denting Dad’s new truck. Or when he announced he was enlisting.

“Like I said at the airport,” he begins, his voice low and cautious, “I’ve been looking into your plane crash, the one from when you were a marine. Officially, there’s almost nothing I could access without tripping alarms. The first two systems I poked around in had restricted access, and they were locked down hard. Which struck me as odd, considering your file was marked non-sensitive. Just a basic ‘pilot error’ case, or so they said.”

I open my mouth, ready to rebuttal, but he holds up a hand.

“I know it wasn’t pilot error, West. I should have listened to you back then.” His jaw tics. There's regret there, I think… and maybe a bit of guilt?

He leans forward, bracing his forearms on his knees, his voice dropping. “I didn’t want to pull my family into anything dangerous, so I had to get creative. I used a few anonymous channels and paid someone onthe dark web who specializes in digital recovery; military leaks, buried comms, that sort of thing. Took weeks, but he came through.”

Darla shifts slightly on my lap, and I tighten my arms around her without thinking. My pulse thuds in my ears.