Rory collapsed on the old chair in the corner and stared back at him. His gaze was dark with pain, anger.
"I thought you were my brother," he whispered. "Hell, I hoped you were."
Noah watched as his brother rubbed his hands over his face and shook his black head.
Noah removed the night vision glasses he wore. A new toy the unit was playing with. One he had taken advantage of. He stared back at Rory, realizing the color of the eyes he saw every morning in the mirror was wilder, bleaker, much darker and more dangerous than his brother's.
Rory blinked.
"Do you still sneak in here to smoke?" Noah asked, remembering how his brother used to slip a cigarette when he thought no one would catch him.
Only he and Rory had known that.
Rory's hand shook. He gripped the arms of the old chair and stared at Noah as though he could force himself to see what he needed to see.
"Who are you?" Rory finally breathed out painfully, his voice filled with more disappointment than Noah had expected. "And what the hell do you want?"
Noah shook his head. "I don't have time for games, Rory."
"You're not Nathan," Rory whispered.
"I'm not the Nathan you remember." He moved to the wardrobe in the back of the shed, opened the small door in the bottom and extracted the bottle of whiskey he knew his grandfather kept there.
He hid his spirits from his Erin, he would always grin when he slipped a sip. Even though his Erin was dead, his grandfather continued the tradition.
Uncorking the fine imported Irish spirit, he tipped the bottle to his lips and took a healthy drink. He didn't grimace as it went down, he savored it. Recapping it, he returned it to the drawer and turned back to Rory.
The boy was staring at him now as though he had seen a ghost.
"No one knows about Grandpop's stash," he whispered.
Noah nodded shortly. "You knew. I knew. Grant never knew."
Rory breathed out roughly. "You stopped calling Grant dad after you found out about me."
Noah lifted his shoulders in a shrug. "He couldn't be your dad, then he was no dad of mine."
Rory shook his head as though to shake the confusion clear. Nathan almost felt sorry for him. He didn't have time for pity though.
He grabbed an old wooden chair and pulled it to him. Straddling it. he stared back at his brother.
"You're not making sense," Rory said, his voice forceful. "You're not Nathan, but you know the things only he knew." The younger man's gaze looked him over desperately. "Who are you?"
"Nathan's ghost." He sighed. "I'm Noah Blake, Rory, and you can't ever forget that. From this second on, believe Nathan is dead, because that man is long gone. Only Noah exists."
And still Rory was trying to find Nathan within him. Noah watched the desperation in his brother's gaze, felt it lashing at his soul.
"I need your help, Rory."
"My help?" Rory shook his head again. "Hell, I don't even know who you are."
"You wouldn't have known me even five years ago," he told him. "Hell happened. Death happened."
"Sabella?"
"Doesn't know." Noah's voice hardened. "And no one's telling her. I wasn't joking, kid. Nathan Malone stays dead."
Rory stared everywhere but at him for long, tense moments.
"Damn you!" The boy got to his feet, anger churning in his face now. "You son of a bitch! You're not Nathan. And you know how I know you're not Nathan?"
Noah stared back at him remotely. Pushing the emotion back was the killer. Hell, he'd thought it would be easier than this. He had told Jordan, a walk in the park. This wasn't the park, it was a bleak nightmare.
"I'll tell you," Rory snarled. "You're not Nathan because Nathan wouldn't be here." He stabbed his finger at the floor of the shed. "He wouldn't be here with me right now, he'd be taking care of his wife before someone else decided to do the job for him."
Before Noah realized the lack of control festering inside him, before Rory could guess his intent, Noah lifted him by the throat from the chair and threw him against the wall. Pinning him there he snarled back in Rory's face.
Rory looked as Nathan had once looked. He was built as Nathan had once been built. Or as Noah had. They could have been twins at one time. They could have been born of the same mother and father, rather than different mothers.
Rory was a younger Nathan. And Noah bet he remembered how to laugh.
"Have you touched her?" Ice seeped inside him. It filled his voice, filled his soul. "Did you comfort her?"
His hands tightened around Rory's throat. He could see it. Rory touching her, holding her, as Sabella whispered Nathan's name, whispered forever. His hold became tighter.
His Sabella. Sweet, soft, warm. Forever whispering in his ear. She had promised him forever. Was she giving it to Rory instead?
"Nathan?" Rory was choking as he stared back at him in shock.
Tears filled the boy's eyes, darkened them. "Nathan," he wheezed. "Oh God. Oh God. You're alive. You bastard!"
Noah deflected the kick, the fists to the kidneys, and the younger man's choked curses. He released the hold on his neck, twisted his arm behind his back and flattened his face to the table next to the wall.
"Did. You. Touch. My wife?"
"I should have," Rory cried, half sob, half enraged bellow. "I should have. You son of a bitch. You son of a bitch. You're just like him. Just like that heartless little bastard that made you."
Rory laid his head on the table as Noah released him and his shoulders shook. He kept his forehead pressed into the wood, and a sob tore from his throat.
Noah flexed his hand, staring at it, his jaw tightening until he felt it would crack as he stretched his fingers and realized, they had been wrapped around his brother's throat.
"Get out of here!" Rory straightened, keeping his back to him. "Get out."
"I can't do that, Rory."
He turned furiously, his eyes blazing as he sneered back at Nathan. "Granddad cries when he talks about you. When he sees Sabella struggling with that f**king garage. Trying to survive. He tried to help her and that son of a bitch father of yours took damned near everything he had. And here you are." He flipped his hand back to Nathan, fury filling his face. "The big tough warrior the old man had such pride in. Six years, Nathan. Six years and where the hell have you been?"