Page 4 of Unbearable

Now that he looked a little closer, he noticed they had the same eyes that both men did. Usually, he wouldn’t think anything about that, except they had green eyes that almost glowed. He had never seen anyone else with eyes like that—except his sister.

“Are you going to give them our bank codes and Social Security numbers too?”Dover asked. His sister’s voice rang in his mind. What had started as a parlor trick when they were young had developed into something neither of them could explain.

“Aren’t you even a little bit curious?”he asked, looking at her.

“And if they’re running some elaborate con game? What if they’re just some thugs Brooke’s ex hired to kill you?”

“Then they would have killed me by now.”Fox rolled his eyes and turned back to their guests. “What proof do you have?” he asked out loud.

“This is Knox’s DNA profile,” one of the men said, laying down a piece of paper. “This one is mine.”

Fox looked at the papers. Knox Monroe was the big guy with the bum knee, and Memphis Prescott was the other one.

“This one is yours,” he added, placing another paper on the table.

They began to discuss what they did and who the rest of their party was, but Fox had tuned out. He pulled the three pieces of paper to him and studied them. He had no idea how toread them. He could see there were areas where all three tests matched.

“So, if you’re right, we’d be number five and six,” Fox said, interrupting something Memphis was saying about more siblings. Was that right? He had heard something about a red-headed sister and a college-age brother during the explanation.

Memphis opened his mouth to say something more when the door opened.

Brooke stopped in the doorway and took a perusal of the room. Her gaze was almost flirty with the two men on the couch. When it fell on Fox, her gaze turned into a smile. With Dover, her glare became glacial. Fox stood to greet her, but she ignored him. She was still trying to win the stare-off between her and Dover.

“We should go,” Memphis said, standing. “We’ll just leave those for you to study. Come on, Knox.” He heaved the large man to his feet and returned the chair to the table. “It was nice to meet everyone. Ma’am,” he added to Brooke, half dragging Knox into the hallway.

“How was your day?” Fox asked, giving Brooke a quick kiss on the cheek. “Where’s Ethan?”

“He’s with his dad tonight,” she answered.

Fox tried not to flinch. Ethan’s dad was a notorious drug dealer who worked up in Lowell. Fox hated it when she left the little boy with his father. He worried that Ethan wouldn’t come home one day because he was in the morgue.

“Doesn’t he have school tomorrow?” Fox asked.

“Hey, where’s Ethan?” Dover asked, walking back inside from the hallway.

“None of your business,” Brooke answered.

“With his dad,” Fox said at the same time.

“You left him with that crackhead?” Dover asked. “Are you fucking stupid?”

“Don’t you come into this apartment and start telling me who I can and can’t leave my son with,” Brooke seethed.

It was the same all the time. Fox watched the back and forth until he couldn’t take it anymore. Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes and focused on the small amount of calm still left in the room.

Soon both women seemed to have the fight siphoned right out of them. They wouldn’t apologize and make up, but at least they weren’t screaming at each other still. The yelling wouldn’t change the circumstances. Ethan was still going to be gone.

“I’m going home,” Dover suddenly announced. “Can I see you in the hall?” She didn’t wait to see if Fox would agree. She grabbed him by the front of the shirt and dragged him through the door. Pulling the door closed behind them, she started smacking Fox in the chest. “Stop fucking doing that,” she said.

“Doing what?” He wasn’t stupid. They both know what he was doing.

“Being a dick.”

“How is diffusing the situation before you come to blows being a dick? Why do you keep fighting with her? It does nothing but make this worse. You know why I can’t change anything.”

Dover took a deep breath this time before patting on his chest. “I know. How long do you think you can keep this up?”

“I don’t know. I don’t see any other option right now,” he answered.