He gave me a weak middle finger.
“Jesus,” I grumbled. “I didn’t want you to be beholden or whatever the fuck to me. We’re family. We’re brothers. One of us wins, we both win.” It also meant if one of us lost, we both did. And that was what the last few years had been. A loss.
Fuck. I hated losing.
“Didn’t want the money,” he said, his words slurring. “Wanted to build things on my own.”
“You could’ve put it away for retirement or some shit,” I complained. The same old cocktail of feelings was trying to rise in me. Rejection. Failure. Righteous fury. “You deserved some good. After the shit we went through, then Liza J losing Pop. You deserved more than a cop salary from some shitty town.”
“Our shitty town,” he corrected. “Made it ours. You in your way. Me in mine.”
Maybe he was right. But that didn’t matter. What did matter was the fact that if he would have taken the cash, he wouldn’t be here in this hospital room. My little brother would be making a difference some other way. Without toeing the line. Without paying the price.
“Should have kept the money. If you had, you wouldn’t be lying here like roadkill.”
Nash shook his head slowly against the pillow. “I was always gonna be the good guy.”
“Shut up and go to sleep,” I told him.
“We went through some shit. But I always had my big brother. Always knew I could count on you. Didn’t need your money on top of that.”
Nash’s shoulders sagged. Sleep took him under its spell, leaving me to sit in silent vigil.
The automatic doors opened, spilling me and a cloud of air conditioning into the humidity of the breaking dawn. I’d stayed by Nash’s bedside, letting my rage simmer. Knowing what came next.
I wanted to punch a hole through the building’s facade. I wanted to bring a tidal wave of retribution down on the person responsible.
Idly, I picked up one of the smooth rocks from a flower bed and ran my fingers over it, wanting to send it flying. To break something on the outside instead of feeling all the cracks on the inside.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
I closed my fingers around the rock and squeezed.
“What are you doing here, Lucy?”
Lucian leaned against the limestone column just beyond the hospital entrance, the end of a cigarette glowing brighter as he sucked in a drag.
He only allowed himself one cigarette a day. I guess this counted.
“What do you think I’m doing?”
“Holding up the building? Hitting on sexy surgeons?”
He flicked ash to the ground, eyes locked on me. “How is he?”
I thought of the pain, the exhaustion. The side of my brother I’d never seen before. “Okay. Or at least he’s gonna be.”
“Who did it?” The cool, dispassionate tone didn’t fool me.
We were down to business now. Lucian may not have been blood, but he was a Morgan in every way that counted. And he wanted justice as badly as I did.
“Cops don’t know. Grave said the car was stolen. Nash hasn’t given them a description of the suspect yet.”
“Does he remember what happened?”
I shrugged and squinted up at the sky that was turning pink and purple as the sun worked its way off the horizon. “I don’t know, man. He was pretty fucked up on anesthesia and whatever they put in his IV.”
“I’ll start digging,” Lucian assured me.
“Let me know what you find. I’m not getting cut out of this.”
“Of course not.” He studied me for a beat. “You look like shit. You should get some sleep.”
“People keep telling me that.”
Lucian, on the other hand, looked like he’d just walked out of the board room in a slick suit sans tie.
“Maybe you should listen,” he said.
“He almost died, Luce. After I was an asshole to him, he almost bled out in a fucking ditch.”
Lucian stubbed out his cigarette in the concrete ashtray. “We’ll make it right.”
I nodded. I knew we would. This wouldn’t stand. And the man who’d put a bullet in my brother would pay.
“And you’ll make the rest of it right too,” he said, words clipped. “You both wasted enough fucking time. It’s done now.” Only Lucian Rollins could make a statement like that and will it into reality.
I thought of Naomi’s proclamation. Maybe we had been idiots wasting time we thought we’d had. “It’s done,” I agreed.