“Did you forget I’m a lawyer?”
“Just because you went to law school twenty-something years ago doesn’t mean you’re a lawyer,” Alex grumbled in that tone I knew too well.
“Doesn’t mean I can’t answer whatever is on your mind.”
What the hell was going on with these two? If I knew Alex’s mannerisms and tone, this guy had to even better than me. Wouldn’t he?
The other man’s eyes strayed in my direction, lingering there for a moment before I was apparently dismissed again. He didn’t have Alex’s purple eyes; he had blue ones just like Selene’s. “It’s been a while since you’ve come to this floor. What do you need?”
“What’s going on?” a feminine voice asked just as a tall woman came through the door holding a tablet in one hand. Dressed in a classic black suit that hugged her curvy body, she paused just inside and lifted her gaze before smiling just a little, and I mean just a little. “Hello, Alexander.”
So people did call him Alexander. Who was this?
“Hi, Athena,” he greeted her back with the same level of enthusiasm as she had: almost none.
This was another family member, wasn’t it?
No hug? No kiss?
I hadn’t imagined the big hugs he’d given Selene, Leon, and his sister, The fucking Primordial. Those had been genuine with affection. I’d been able to sense the love there. Those hugs had been so much more than I ever would have thought he was capable of. He’d said something about liking touch too… so this, this was surprising.
Just behind her, another man came hustling through the door.
And holy shit.
While Alex was so handsome it was hard to look away from him even when he pissed me off, this other man… Wow. And that was saying a lot considering Alex. This new man’s features were narrower, were sharper and just… wow. Literally: wow. I had to press my lips together to make sure my mouth wasn’t hanging open.
A fucking poke to the back of my head had me turning to glare at Alex who was frowning down at me.
I poked him back but in the rib.
“Baby brother!” the most gorgeous man in the world called out, but I was too busy giving Alex a lingering stink eye to notice him again until the moment the other guy threw his arms around him.
“Hi, Odi,” Alex muttered, still high on contentment from the sound of it.
Not.
“You’ve been gone for weeks, can’t call me, and then you show up and don’t tell me you’re back?” the man apparently named Odi said, rocking him from side to side in a bear hug. Odi was only an inch or two shorter than Alex, but wider at the shoulders. “You’re going to hurt my feelings.”
“Doubt that,” Alex muttered, but I was pretty sure I saw his hand pat his brother’s lower back.
Maybe they did have superior genes to have such a good-looking family. How the hell was it possible? I watched them rock a minute longer before the extra good-looking one slid his arm over his baby brother’s shoulders—I was going to be giggling over that for a while, probably in his face—and pecked him on the cheek.
That was going to be burned into my brain for literally the rest of my life.
“What are you here for, Lexi?” the Odi man asked. “I heard you down the hall.”
Alex’s arms were still at his sides as he said, “I need to speak to someone in Legal.”
It was the woman who said, one eye on her phone, “We’re all lawyers here.”
I tried to do the math on how much law school for three people was and almost gagged.
That had to be that Akita Corporation money there.
“I need a real one,” Alex replied.
“What did you do?” the first man asked as his thumbs flew across the screen of his phone. “I knew something happened when you went off-grid without telling anyone where you were.” He briefly glanced up, making a face I didn’t like. “I thought you were over this irresponsible shit.”
Oh boy, I didn’t even need to look at Alex to know that comment didn’t go down well, and one quick glance at him confirmed it. A tendon in his throat was about ready to jump out of his skin and attack the guy. “I’m not irresponsible, and I didn’t do shit.”
And what the hell were they getting on his case over?
The first brother, the oldest looking one, wasn’t done. He raised the single bitchiest eyebrow I’d ever seen, and I’d seen some eyebrows with attitude issues. “Disappearing for over a month isn’t exactly ‘responsible’ though, is it?”
Ah, fuck it.
I wasn’t a good girl, and I never would be. I was a decent girl, let’s be real. And that was exactly what I was going to tell Alex when he pitched a fit over me butting in after he’d asked me not to. But if I couldn’t stand up for him, who could I stand up for?
Last night I’d been ready to sneak Ex-Lax into his food, and now…
This guy didn’t get to talk shit about him in my presence, even if they were family.
“He went ‘missing’ because he was injured,” I piped up, “and we aren’t here because of him. We’re here because he was being responsible and helping me. So…” I lifted my shoulders.
Three different heads focused on me.
I gave them, or at least the snobby one, my bitchiest blink.
“Explain,” he demanded suddenly.
Oh, I could feel Alex’s energy radiating from him. I was picking something up from all of them, but most from him. The hair on my arms started to tingle, and if any of them noticed it, or maybe they were just used to it, no one seemed to blink twice. And I was really grateful my bra was padded because my nipples were the first thing to react when he got like this.
“I don’t need to discuss this with you,” Alex replied in the bossy Super voice I’d heard so early on in our acquaintance. “What I need is to talk to someone in the legal department.”
The woman screwed up her face. “Your business is our business. It’s family business, Alex.” She shot me a side-look like she wasn’t sure how much to say, but too late now, motherfucker.
“If it affects you to the point where you were injured, then it affects us,” the woman said. “What does that even mean? What happened?”
“None of your business,” Alex answered as he set a hand on the chair I was sitting in.
It was nice to see there were some people he didn’t hold back with either.
“Everything about you is our business,” Athena said, totally serious.
“Wrong.”
I peeked over at the extra handsome one and found him staring at me.
My face went hot.
All three faces focused in my direction again for a second, but Alex didn’t give them shit. From his expression, he wasn’t going to either. I knew that level of stubborn, and I knew it well. I’d been dealing with it for the last however many weeks.
“We’re going to hear what you talk to Legal about anyway,” the woman said after a long beat of silence, her attention still on me. “If you need help, we can help you. You don’t need to be difficult. Tell us what happened.”
He looked at me for a moment before lifting his gaze to his siblings. “My back was broken. My power drained,” he told them, getting straight to the point. There was definitely more to that sentence that he was trying to express, and I knew they instantly understood what he meant because three sets of nostrils flared. “Gracie took care of me. While I was recuperating, a group of people who have been looking for her, found us. They burned down her house and took us; we left once I was well enough. Leon and Selene picked us up from my cabin in Colorado, and we got back a few days ago. Alana is already aware of the situation,” Alex said matter-of-factly. “Gracie can’t go back to her life because they’ll be looking for her. I need to speak to Legal to see what we can do about her situation.”