I didn’t have the words. Not anymore. I had shared the ones I did have, but I had one last thing to give him.

“You’re not a coward, Jordan. I’d bet my life on that.”

His eyes were so pained as he stared at me, like I was a life preserver, then he blinked and it was gone. He turned, his focus returning to the backyard.

Yep. He was gone.

Blaise was pissed. That was obvious as soon as I headed inside psych. I ignored him. He didn’t get to saddle up and get on his high horse about Harper. Whatever he did, he already did it. It was our turn last night. Zeke was actually in class today, sitting next to Blaise. I glanced down their row. Aspen was on Blaise’s other side, but Zeke’s fraternity brothers stretched out in the row from Zeke onward.

No Harper.

I hadn’t fully trusted any of them, so I called 9-1-1 from Harper’s own phone, knowing it’d take them a beat before they got to his location. We were long gone by the time we saw squads lighting up the sky. They hadn’t even gone past us, we were already turning for a north road toward the house. Harper would or could still be in the hospital. I told him to keep his mouth shut, that we had someone on his dad, but entitled dicks tended to do what was best for them. Sometimes they didn’t enjoy eating bitter feelings. Egos and pride sometimes got involved, too.

So, we would see what happened.

“Hey.” Zellman slid into the seat by me.

I’d picked the far back and left for a reason. We were well and truly isolated from the class.

Zellman dropped his bag between his legs on the floor and looked around. “No Jordan?”

“Would you have showed up?”

He considered my question and didn’t respond. Yeah. He got it.

But he glanced over, seeing the attention we were getting. It wasn’t just Blaise glaring, but the rest of the frat guys were all glaring, too. “That’s interesting.”

Yeah.

Zellman added, “They know it was us.”

Also, yeah.

“That’s not good.”

A third yeah from me.

Zeke was the only one not looking at us, but he was throwing furtive looks at his frat brothers, then also sending Blaise dark looks right after.

“Your brother is pissed because we cut him out from the beatdown. The guys sitting two seats from him and stretching out are all pissed because we beat down their boy. Note the irony of their seating arrangements.”

I shot Zellman a grin. “Thank you, Professor Greenly.”

He puffed up his chest. “No problem.” Then added after pulling out his notebook, “Your brother doesn’t care he’s putting his best friend in a spot, huh?”

That was the basic gist I overheard last night. “Whatever Harper did, it was bad enough that Blaise wants him out from Zeke’s house.”

“You think?”

I nodded. “I don’t know my brother that well, but I have picked up that if he hates you, he really hates you.”

Zellman grunted. “Huh. Still shitty he’s not backing off, even enough to have Zeke’s back.”

“Nah. He’ll have it. The problem is that he’s not getting that Zeke needs to let him have his back, not just doing it when the guy doesn’t know you’re doing it. That’s not entering my brother’s head.”

Zellman glanced at me, giving me a pointed look. “Maybe you need to educate him.”

I shot him a look back. “You educate him.”

He grinned.

I scowled.

Then the professor came in, and it wasn’t worth being discussed anymore.

FROM: Tazsters

TO: Cross

SUBJECT: I need an update. Pronto.

If you don’t tell me what is going on, I’m calling Blaise.

Bombs primed and ready, brother buddy of mine.

I’m very violent in these emails, I’ve noticed lately.

I’m liking it.

LOVE YOU SO MUCH BECAUSE WE SHARED A WOMB TOGETHER!

I’M TYPING THAT TO HALF ANNOY YOU, BUT ALSO TO MAKE YOU SMILE AND I KNOW I DID BECAUSE I CAN FEEL IT SINCE WE’RE TWINS!

Love you, for real.

THE BEST TWIN

BREN

I stopped to pick up motorcycle gloves on the way to work.

My knuckles were sore and cracked, but this would have to do. I didn’t want to get reprimanded at my job for shit they didn’t understand. I was just hoping no one would comment on it. If we were in the field, I didn’t think they would. All day in the office, though, was a whole different story.

As it was, I walked in and Shetland was behind the bowling register. He waved me over, sliding a piece of paper to me. “Go out and get those coffees. You’re going to spend the rest of the day manning the bowling lanes, and we’ll bring out a list for lunch. You can clock out at six.”

That’s all he said.

I stood there, staring at the list, but I wasn’t really seeing it.

They didn’t want me in the field or in the office all day. I was trying to quell my instant alarm because it shouldn’t be about me, right? If it was, then that meant Harper had talked last night, and they’d already been looped in?

But no.

Well.

Yes.

They would’ve kept me out of the office all day, keeping me close, but not in, and then I’d be fodder for when the cops came to arrest me. A trickle of alarm and sweat went down my spine at the same time. Maybe I should call Channing? He wouldn’t turn me in. He’d rip me a new one, but he wouldn’t send the cops after me.

“What are you doing? Go get the coffee. We were up till three tracking a bounty across state lines. We need our caffeine.”

“Right.” Coffee first, then figure out if I was being paranoid or not.

My phone rang when I was coming back from getting their lunch.

The morning had been slow at the bowling alley. After handing off the cartons of coffee when I first arrived, the door had closed and I’d been left alone behind the bar and register. That part of the job was easy. A few large groups had come in. One was a family with three little kids. The most help they needed was laying down the gutter ball stoppers. The other group was a bunch of retired ladies, all wearing tutus and crowns. One threw glitter on me and said, “You’re now a sparkly princess.”

She thought that was cute. I didn’t think it was.

Seeing it was Channing calling now, I hit the speakerphone when I was in the truck. “What’s up?”

“What’s happening there?”

No greeting. Just the abrupt question, and hearing my brother’s no-nonsense tone, everything went on alert in me now.

I shoved down a knot forming in my stomach. “What are you talking about?”

“Dad called, said there was a big bust by you. You know anything about that?”

Relief hit me hard and I almost swooned, I was so lightheaded. He wasn’t asking about Harper, or my maybe impending police arrest. He was talking about my job job.

“Oh.” I laughed, my voice hitching. “I have no idea.” I frowned, the alarm being moved over, but an unsettling sensation taking its place. “They kept me handling the bowling lanes today.”

Silence.

I was getting sick of these damn silences.

“They didn’t let you in?”

“What?”

“Their offices. Did you go in at all?”

Okay. Now my stomach was starting to roll. It was never a good sign when it began to roll.

“No. They kept me out all day.” Dad. “What’s going on?”

Was Dad involved?

“Shit.”

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing. Don’t worry. Stay in schoo—”

“Channing!” But he’d already hung up. I stared at the phone and growled. “I’m not in school, you asshole.”

I was being kept out of the action again. I was getting really, really, super really sick of it.

I could…

No. I couldn’t.

But …

No. No. No.

A super-duper bad idea, and I couldn’t believe I just thought the words super-duper.

So not a good idea.

But …

He did give me his phone number, so that meant he had a cell phone. And I bet he would tell me? Wouldn’t he?

Would he?

Gah. Now I didn’t know.

Dark Bren. What would she do?

Did I really want to think like her again? After how many orgasms Cross gave me to push the dark Bren down…did I really want to awaken her? Oh, man. She’d call. She wouldn’t give a fuck. Then she’d probably go off and skewer someone who looked at her wrong. Then she’d end up in jail, so yeah, I was kinda in the same place as last night since any minute now I was expecting the cops to roll up.

I pushed down the nerves, ignored how my arms were shaking, and dialed his number.

It rang.

And rang.

And rang.

Then he picked up. “Bren?”

My mouth was suddenly dry, and my throat cracked. “Dad?”

BREN

There was a raid on a Red Demons’ warehouse.

That’s what my dad explained. He wasn’t involved, but a lot of the Red Demons were, and there were thirty warrants out for their arrest. Thirty. Only four had been captured in the raid, and two were big wigs in their entire network. One was my dad’s friend, the President of the Red Demons, Maxwell Raith, and their Vice President, Ghost. I was assuming that wasn’t his real name, but it’s what my dad said. Max and Ghost. They were the important ones and the ones who every cop and every bounty hunter in the tri-state area were all gunning for.