I started to stand up.

Drake reached over, tugging me back down.

“Drake!”

He let go, holding his hand up over his head.

The guard settled back, but still frowned at us.

Drake grinned. “No touching. You can only hug kids in here. Listen, I’m going to get out of here. I cut a deal when I came in, but when I get out, I’m a Red. Forever. They have different rules for prison guys joining up, so it’s not official official. It will be. I’m telling you this so you know that you got another guy on the inside, and I’ll do what I can to look out for you. You know something on us, but I’ll vouch for you and Pops will, too. That will hold weight. I’m not saying this for any other reason except so that you know. That’s it. Contrary to your low opinion of me, I do do things sometimes for other people. I’ve loved two girls in my life and …” He motioned to me, not meeting my gaze anymore. He was looking at the floor, half-turned away from me. Then he finished, “And the other one has my eyes so there you go. Have a good life, Bren.”

He was off the seat and heading for the door before I registered what he said.

And when I did, he was through the door.

“How was it seeing Drake today?”

Cross asked me that as I slid into bed that night.

I just got back thirty minutes ago, since the drive there and back took most of the trip.

Drake’s words stayed with me, and I didn’t know how I felt about them.

But I said, “He joined the Red Demons, did everything for protection.”

Cross faltered, his head rearing up. His eyebrows arched. “He did?”

I got under the covers and something settled in me, settled in my chest.

I was home.

I don’t know why I felt it now, but it was a wave and I knew—everything would be fine.

I nodded. “He did it for Drayana and he said he’s going to look out for me when he gets out of prison and joins the Red Demons full time.”

“Hmmm.”

I was waiting, expecting.

Cross didn’t say anything.

“You’re not going to ask why?”

He looked up, meeting my gaze and there was a knowing in his gaze. It took my breath away. He said, a sad smile pulling at his mouth, “I already know why, Bren. We loved you at the same time.”

“I love you.”

Another smile, but less sad. “I know that, too. I’m the one who got you.” He leaned forward, his forehead coming to rest against mine, and he said softly, tenderly, “I’m the one you’re going to call husband. I’m the one who gets to call you wife. I’m the one who will have children with you. I’m the one who gets your forever. And he knows it. He’s always known it, just like I’ve always known it.”

Not letting me respond back, he touched under my chin and dipped his head.

His mouth found mine, and he didn’t let me speak for a long time.

BREN

Years later

To say that I never saw my dad after the Red Demons came to our house would’ve been a slight exaggeration, but the truth was that I didn’t see him much after that. Over the next weeks and months, I went back to working for Coug r Lanes, passed my test, and became a full-acting bounty hunter.

I saw my dad a few times.

It was on my end. I reached out, asked if he wanted to do dinner.

He was still in Cain, and was working at a local garage repair shop on the outskirts. After I got more familiar with Cain, and more specifically, the underbelly of Cain, I knew that shop was one of the businesses owned and ran by the Red Demons.

Still.

It was clean, or that was the rumor.

A few times we had to hunt down one of their workers, guys who weren’t a Red Demon, and on those occasions, we went to the shop. I saw my dad. Pleasantries were exchanged.

He’d ask how I was doing, how Channing was doing. I answered, and reciprocated.

It was surface talk, nothing deep. I knew he wanted a closer relationship, but I couldn’t.

I just… I couldn’t.

After working through my self-imposed guilt over what he did, thinking he did it for me, thinking he did time for me, I didn’t harbor any resentment toward him. I was more ‘nothing’ toward him. There were some good memories, but not many. I loved my mom. I missed my mom, but I had Channing. Channing was my blood family, and once I came to that decision, I decided I was okay not having dinner with Derrick so much.

I was told recently that he took a job promotion within the same franchise to a shop closer to Roussou. And I adhered to what I promised Maxwell. Any time a Red Demon member popped up on our grid, I recused myself from the hunt. Brock was fine with that. So was Gramps. Hawk too. They all understood, and once that member was apprehended, I returned to the fold.

I got a lot of hours manning the bowling lanes, which Trundle loved. He kept asking me how to get ‘the Jessie girl,’ or ‘those other three chicks who come in with the Tree Willow Girl’ to give him a chance. I told him to focus on girls his own age, but he was ambitious.

That was his response every time.

As for those girls mentioned, all of them had stints in our house.

Zellman dated Angeline for a year. They broke up, got back together, broke up, and we were experiencing déjà vu from his relationship with Sunday. They were currently on a break, but that’d last till tonight. Party. Booze. And the heated looks both were giving the other when the other wasn’t looking told us that Z would have a girlfriend again, only to break up probably the next day.

The whiplash was real from them.

As for Jordan, he got a little bit more diverse.

He and Tabatha tried, and they lasted for six months.

They genuinely grew apart.

Tabatha got more ambitious in her sorority, and she started dating a pre-law guy, or so we were told through the sorority/fraternity gossip mill that was named Zeke. Tabatha’s new guy was rumored to have a high potential to run for Congress one day, and Tabatha seemed happy. Her dad’s loan went away with the disappearance of Harper, Sr., and I never heard another word about either Harper again.

I made peace with what I knew.

Back to Jordan.

He dated Jade and they lasted longer. A year and a half. They seemed happy-ish. Jordan didn’t talk much about Jade. She was nice, but quiet toward the end, and it wasn’t long after they broke up that we realized why.

He and Jessinda Hinckley got hot and heavy, almost immediately.

They’d been together since and were now on their second-year anniversary. And the two were dynamo, almost literally. Jordan never moved out from our house, so Jessinda was over, a lot, and the two fought, a lot. They also made up, a lot, and the heavy pants and wall thumping (even from the basement) became like background noise at times.

But Jordan was happy.

Spying Zellman and how he was grinning at Angeline, or Angeline’s ass, he seemed like he was going to be happy tonight.

Everyone was over at the house because they were graduating. We were having an out-and-out rowdy party. Sometime during the summer, Jordan and Jessinda were planning on moving to where she was going to law school in Los Angeles. Zellman hadn’t talked about the future with Angeline, but it was known that he’d be going wherever Jordan was going.

As for Cross and me, we were following right behind.

My brother had a solid network of bounty hunters, and with my own reputation expanding, I got a job down there. Cross was going to attend graduate school. Turns out, he enjoyed architecture, and was heading to get a masters in the field.

Jordan got a business degree, so he’d be getting a business job and starting the advancement process in whatever company he applied for. He decided not to join his dad’s company, instead letting his sister take the reins for after their dad retired. It seemed to make everyone happy.

As for Zellman, he got a communications degree, though he was going to study for his fugitive apprehensive licensing test.

Yes.

He was going to be a bounty hunter right alongside me.

BREN

“Bad news.” That was my greeting from Hawk the second I walked into work, as she was holding out my coffee.

I took a breath, just inhaling and had to decline. “Not today.” I eyed her warily as she frowned before handing off the coffee to Bonbon. Yeah, that’d been a shock to me, too, when we learned our new employee had passed her test. She was a certified bounty hunter, and I’d never been more terrified in my life, for the bail jumps.

“And what’s the bad news?”

“We got a Red Demon on the boards today.”

I groaned. That meant I was staying in the office, and seriously, not today. I was needing some action.

“But,” she piped up, smiling, and after working with Hawk for this last year, that smile never got old. She was my second or third type of family. I didn’t want to decipher the different groups, but I knew Hawk would take a bullet for me and the feeling was reciprocated. “We got a call from your brother. The guy they’ve been chasing popped up down here. They’re heading down, but wanted to see if a couple of us could help out.”

“That’s more like it.” There was a whole blooming feeling in my chest.

Hawk’s smile just got wider. “I thought so. Also, your brother said since he’s sending Congo. That you’re more than able to call in some of your own crew members.”