Page 24 of Midnight Between Us (The Timberbridge Brothers #4)

And maybe it’s time I stop pretending that survival is the same as redemption. It’s not. Getting out of that trunk half-alive didn’t absolve me of all the damage I left behind. It just gave me a second chance to look it in the eye.

Which is precisely what I intend to do.

If she’ll let me.

“I knew I would find you here.” I hear his voice and when I turn around, I see him. Atlas.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” I snap at him, not because I don’t want to see him but because he’s putting himself in danger just by entering this place.

He snorts. “Fucking friendly as usual.”

“If you wanted friendly, you should’ve visited Hopper.”

“Yeah, left my baby and wife on their ranch so I could come to check on you,” he says, lowering himself beside me with a grunt. His gaze drops to my leg. “Heard you don’t want to use the crutches.”

“They’re fucking useless.”

“No.” His voice cuts through the morning stillness. “You think you deserve the pain. Like getting your ass handed to you was some kind of penance. Like it proves, you were right to keep pushing everyone away.”

He pauses. Then adds, quieter now, but with something raw beneath it—something that doesn’t let up, “I keep telling Simone you need therapy. Someone to talk to. About our childhood. About that bastard, we used to call Dad.”

He’s not wrong.

I’ve spent a lifetime pretending that part of me doesn’t exist. That it can no longer touch me because he’s not around, because I’m older because . . . it’s simply, over so why rehash the past?

I remember being seven years old with a scraped-up knee and a stomach full of dread, standing between him and Hopper like I could stop a hurricane with a bare hand.

I remember hiding Ledger under the stairs when he was too little to understand why the yelling turned mean.

I remember taking hits that weren’t mine because if it was me—if I was loud, if I fought back—it meant the others got to stay safe.

I remember learning to hurt before I learned how to ask for help.

So yeah, maybe he’s right.

Perhaps I believe the pain is the price of survival.

Perhaps I believe I don’t get to walk away clean when Simone was the one who kept trying to hold me together, and I chose silence instead.

Because that’s what I do—lock it down, grit my teeth, and pretend it doesn’t burn. Pretending I don’t ache for the woman who still shows up, even when she won’t look me in the eye. Pretending that her absence hasn’t hollowed something out of me I don’t know how to get back.

But none of that means I’ll admit it out loud.

So I shrug, eyes on the lake. “Therapy’s for people who have problems. I’m fucking fine, just a little battered.”

He sighs. “No, Keir. Therapy’s for people who deserve peace.”

I could say therapy is for the weak, but honestly I respect the fuck out of people who go and reach out for help. They are aware of the problem and attempt to solve it.

“There’s nothing to fix, Atlas,” I growl because this isn’t what I need. I don’t need my youngest brother trying to give me some fucking lecture about life while I’m trying to figure out why the fuck I’m still alive.

“You died twice.”

I glare at him because he’s seriously pissing me off. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Cassian said you’re withholding information that might help us.”

Right, Cassian was the name of that agent who came to visit. Then it hits me, “Did you say help us? How are you involved in this fuckery?”

“Really, fuckery?”

“Atlas, answer the question.”

He snorts. “You really think I’m afraid of you?” He runs a hand through his hair. “Seriously, man. Get yourself some therapy and if you want—” he stops himself and I don’t like that one bit.

“If I want what?”

He shrugs and glances toward the house. “At least get some closure—give Simone some peace. Both of you deserve it, you know.”

I scoff. “I don’t deserve shit.”

“There it goes, the self-loathing. You should work on that.” He takes his phone out and after several taps, he shows it to me. It’s the image of a little girl. “Not that you care, but that’s Everly, your niece.”

“You’re a father.” I want to say congratulations or maybe ask him how . . . how can you be one when you had such a fucked-up example.

How do you dare to believe when you might be cursed for simply being a fucking Timberbridge.

“I can’t imagine my life without her or Blythe,” he states. “But if I hadn’t worked on myself, I wouldn’t have been able to have this. A life, my family . . . you might think you don’t deserve it, but you do.”

I shake my head because arguing with him seems futile. “Why don’t you go back to your happy life?”

He sighs. “I will, but not until you tell me what you’re hiding.”

“Are you an agent too?” I ask, because that’s what he implied earlier, wasn’t it?

He bobs his head a couple of times and tells me about his life.

During college, he found a guy who was like family.

They took him in, just as they do with many strays.

He had odd jobs, including working for a high-intelligence security company.

My little brother isn’t just a tattoo artist. He’s now consulting for the company Simone works for.

Not only that, but he also gives me a run down about the Hollow Syndicate.

“If they’re watching, they’ll know if you go to my office,” I say right away, afraid that he’ll put himself in danger.

“Unless, we go to your office as workers to dismantle everything because the company decided to fire you and get rid of your shit,” he states. “It’d actually be a win-win. We go in, pick up your shit, take it to some dumpster and if we’re lucky someone will follow us.”

“You want them to follow you.”

“Fuck, yes. It’s the perfect bait.”

He’s so happy that somehow that convinces me to tell him where exactly he can find the safe. Will this help them? I don’t know, but I trust him. Once he helps me walk back to the house, he leaves me in a small library.

“Read a book instead of looking for trouble outside.”

I shake my head. “Be careful. Whoever is behind this, won’t stop until they get Old Birchwood Timber.”

“Aww, look at you, giving a shit about your little brother.” He salutes me. “I’ll be fine.”

Yeah, that’s exactly what I said and I barely lived to tell the story.