Page 132 of The Oath We Give

SILAS

Redand blue police lights illuminate the front of Alistair Caldwell's childhood home.

I think this is the first time he's stepped foot on this property since he left Ponderosa Springs two years ago. There was nothing that lived inside those walls worth visiting. No matter how many times his mother and father tried to beg him to come home, come back and take his rightful place, so they had a son to pass their legacy onto.

As if they hadn't treated him like a body bag of spare parts since he was a born. As if they hadn't created him in a petri dish just in case something happened to his older brother Dorian.

If only they knew how much they'd regret choosing his older sibling as their heir.

"Fucking coward! Can't even come out and face me!?"

The thud of Easton Sinclair's body being slammed into the side of a police cruiser echoes as I climb out of the front seat of my car.

I glance over at Rook, the two of us a few steps behind Alistair and Thatcher.

What did the Caldwell family have to do with this? Of all places for Easton to show up, here is where he chooses?

Thatcher slides next to the officer with his arms around Easton, trying to force him into the back seat with the cuffs locked around his back.

"Mind if we have a few minutes before you take him in?" He lifts several hundred dollar bills up between his fingers, waiting for a few seconds for the older cop to take it from him, pocketing the cash.

"You've got twenty."

He slams the car door, before spinning Easton around to face us, letting his rest on the side of the vehicle as he steps away to give us our paid time.

Easton's eyes are bleary, skin pale and sweaty. I'm not sure how long it's been, but if I had to guess? It had been months since Easton Sinclair was sober.

The smell of booze rolls off him in vile waves, my stomach curling at the scent of filth and alcohol.

"Of course, you four would show up." He bares his teeth, "Wayne Caldwell call you to rescue him?"

"What the fuck are you doing here, Sinclair? Stephen send you here to try and fuck with us?" I ask.

"Why don't you ask Alistair?"

Easton Sinclair has always been predictable. He follows orders like a beaten dog and rarely derailed from the path laid out before him.

I didn't know this guy. He wasn't the person I’d grown up hating. This person? He was a stranger. Which made him far more dangerous now, before I could predict his next stupid move. Now? There was an air of uncertainty.

But it wasn't him that blindsided me.

It was the person I'd called a brother.

"Who told you."

Something changes when Alistair speaks. Everything becomes tight making it difficult to breath in, turning the hot-blooded energy into vindictive cold.

Thatcher's shoulders stiffen as he looks at our friend, eyebrows twitching with confusion and so quick, like a fleeting star, hurt passes through his eyes before he returns to passive Pierson.

"Stephen was nice enough to call me today, just to tell me that I've been carrying the wrong last name for my entire life, he felt like it was time." Easton spits the words out like they burn his tongue. Eyes sharp as knives, the pure hatred emanating from his gaze was palpable. Disdain and disgust pouring out towards Alistair.

"Your father doesn't even have the balls to come out and face the son he never claimed."

The around us thickens, charged with tension as the bond we'd spent years cultivating frayed. I could feel the thread connecting the four us snapping and coiling. A warning that we were on the verge of breaking something we might never be able to repair.

These are the moments when you are truly tested. Choosing to stand by someone ever after they'd deceived you.

A true test of loyalty.