Page 24 of Until August

“If you need anything, you know where to find me, brother.”

“Thanks. Thanks for everything,” I added.

“You don’t have to fucking thank me. I owe you my life. Not sure that piece of crap truck is a fair exchange.” The pickup—Peaches—was an old Ford, faded orange, with a bench seat. Nash had it since high school, and I couldn’t believe he’d kept it all these years. “Just wish I could have done more five years ago.”

“Nothing you could’ve done.”

“It still pisses me the fuck off that Damon did you so dirty. Fucking Judas.”

We’d had this conversation before. Many times. And I wasn’t sure why he’d brought it up again today. Until I remembered the date.

Eighteen years ago today, Nash, Damon, and I took a blood oath and swore to always protect and defend each other. We met in a group home when we were fifteen and became brothers, not by blood but in the ways that matter most.

Until one of my brothers betrayed me.

Two years ago today, Damon overdosed on heroin. I still wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

What I’d done was wrong. I knew that. But to find out that Damon had ratted me out had cut me to the core. Now he was six feet under, and I’d never get the chance to ask him how the hell he could have looked me in the eye and called me a friend while stabbing me in the back.

“Water under the bridge,” I said, wishing I actually believed that. I’d probably still be hanging on to this grudge until the day I died.

“Guess so. You see Sasha yet?”

Sasha. Another sore subject. “Yeah, I saw her. She won’t let me anywhere near Sage.”

“The fuck? That ain’t right.”

“I guess she has her reasons.” Meanwhile, my son thought I’d abandoned him. “I’ll turn things around. It’ll just take some time.” I sounded more confident than I felt, but Nash had his own problems, so he didn’t need to deal with mine. “Catch you later.”

“Yeah. See you, bro.”

I ended the call and tossed my phone on the seat, thinking about Damon as I drove. He’d battled with drug addiction for years. When he got evicted from his apartment, Sasha and I took him in, gave him a place to sleep, and fed him. I’d even given him a job as a kitchen porter at my restaurant.

Meanwhile, he’d been working with the cops as an informant to save his own skin.

But before all that, Damon was the guy who would literally give you the shirt off his own back.

He was the guy who sat next to me in the hospital waiting room while they performed open heart surgery on my son. He’d wept with Sasha when the doctor told us the surgery had gone well.

And then he’d ruined my life.

Even all these years later, it still hurt that he’d chosen drugs over loyalty. That was what it came down to—he’d sold out his own brother, and then he didn’t even have the decency to apologize for what he’d done or face me man to man.

But I didn’t want to think about Damon, so I shoved him out of my mind.

When I turned onto the exit for Costa del Rey, my thoughts wandered to Nicola.

What could she have done to elicit that kind of reaction from Frankie?

And how would she react when she learned the truth about me?

CHAPTERNINE

August

I arrived early,but the service entrance was unlocked, so I strode down the hallway and followed the classic rock music to the kitchen. Nicola was stirring something in a saucepan and talking to a guy whose back was to me. He was around my height but with leaner muscles.

When Nicola saw me, she stopped talking, and I got the feeling they’d been talking about me.