They had been big for their ages, well developed, almost men, physically, but lost, uncertain, even for their ages. The death of their parents the year before had shaken them. The arrival of the Bitch from Hell, their mother’s older sister, Davinda, had nearly destroyed them.
whatever had happened had revolved around her.
Some nights, it was never predictable; Chase would wake up and go to check on his brother, and Cam would just be gone. Davinda never seemed to have answers to where he was, but she always knew. Chase had seen it in her eyes, she always knew. And as each year passed, the boy that was his brother had changed. The day they turned eighteen, Cam disappeared from school and showed up at the local sheriff’s department. Chase never knew what he had told Sheriff Bridges, but that evening the sheriff arrived, took the Bitch into another room, and then waited silently in the hall while she packed and left their lives forever.
He had gone through her luggage before she left. Through her purse. He had made certain she left with nothing but her belongings. When she had left, he clapped Cam on the shoulder, muttered an apology, and left.
Cam had never told Chase what happened. Four months later, he joined the military and just left. Ten years later, he had been captured, then nearly killed during an ambush that had occurred after he and his team escaped their captors. The man that had returned five years ago had changed, to the point that Chase sometimes wondered who Cam even was.
The only times he even felt as though his brother were alive inside were the times they shared their lovers. Cam was different then. That stony, dark control loosened, and the hunger inside him was given freedom, to a small degree.
Well, it used to be a small degree. Since Jaci had walked back into their lives, Chase had come closer than he ever had to learning what had changed the boy so severely that it had created the man Cam had become.
With Jaci, the hunger was closer to the surface, and for the first time since they were fifteen, Chase had begun to glimpse his brother’s nightmares.
They’d done that a lot when they were boys—sensed each others nightmares. Not their dreams or fantasies, or even their fears, just their nightmares. And the nightmares Chase had begun sensing was sending chills down his spine.
God help Davinda Morris, because if she was still alive, Chase knew he would have to seek her out and kill her himself. whatever she had done to Cam had come close to destroying him. And now it was coming close to destroying Cam’s last chance with Jaci.
Chase had known, even seven years before, that Jaci was Cam’s weakness. He had felt it each time Cam had seen Jaci, talked to her, heard her laughter.
It wasn’t a sexual or even an emotional knowledge. Just a sense that the darkness inside his brother had eased, and it had eased because of Jaci.
As he stood there, staring into the gloomy, rain-swept morning, he wondered if his brother would ever release the hold he had on his secrets, because he had a feeling he saw something in Jaci that Cam refused to see. She would never allow what Cam needed for the sake of pleasure alone. For Jaci, it would always be emotional, and it would always be tied to Cam and her trust in him. Without that trust, she would never allow it.
“Have you tried checking into your aunt’s past?” Ian stepped into the room, his voice quiet. He knew Chase and Cam well enough, had seen Cam in the throes of that darkness, to know what was going on.
It was a problem that plagued both of them.
“Only about every year.” Chase sighed. “He’s not talking, and evidently I’m not looking in the right places.”
He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall beside the wide, tall window that stared out into the covered parking area.
“I’ve investigated the sex clubs, both above- and underground. I’ve had every sexual predator known at the time investigated. I’ve had investigators working on Davinda’s past as well her friends’. Nothing. No records, no hints of abuse. I’m missing something, Ian. I just can’t figure out what.”
He’d figured it was sexual abuse years before, but in the years since his brother had joined the military, and after, he’d never found proof of it.
Ian moved across the room and pulled a chair from the table. Lights were out, the room was shadowed, lit occasionally with the hard, jagged flashes of lightning.
Straddling the chair, Ian stared back as Chase turned to watch him.
“If she walks away from him, I’ll lose my brother forever,” he said. “It’s been coming for more than a year. That much I can feel. He’ll leave, join a private paramilitary group, and the next thing I know, I’ll be burying him. He was talking about it last year. Hints here and there.” He shrugged. “The military nearly destroyed what was left of his compassion. The killing. Seeing the hell nations can visit on each other.” He shook his head as he breathed out wearily. “He’s cold inside, Ian. Almost pure ice.”
“A man can’t hinge his survival on a woman, Chase,” Ian said compassionately. “I think you’re wrong about him. He’s stronger than that.”
“He’s too f**king strong.” Chase rubbed at his chin wearily. “That’s the problem. Too controlled. Too secretive. Too determined to make certain I don’t blame myself for whatever happened to him. What makes him think that hiding it changes anything? I still blame myself.”
He was the oldest by minutes only, but it was his job to protect his brother.
“He’s not a boy anymore, and neither are you,” Ian told him. “And Jaci’s not his savior. If the ice is starting to crack, then it would have anyway. And I think it has. Cam was restless before Courtney mentioned her name. He needed the sharing more often, he brooded more often. I think Jaci being here will only push him into it faster.”
“If he’ll let her,” Chase said uncertainly. “What if he doesn’t?”
“Then there’s no way you can fix it,” Ian pointed out. “He’s a man, Chase, not a boy. You can’t make him do anything he refuses to do. All we can do is be here if he needs to discuss it. But my guess is, you might never know. Some things a man just can’t share with another man, even his brother. But maybe, if Jaci has to have answers to accept him, then maybe he’ll tell her. Maybe he can heal with her. That’s all we can ask for.”
To that, Chase shook his head. There wasn’t much else he could say.
“Sometimes a man takes too much responsibility on his shoulders, Chase.” Ian stood up before continuing. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his slacks and watched Chase somberly. “I think you and Cam both do that way too often. Give him a chance to work this out.” He smiled then. “He might be better at it than you want to give him credit for.”