A shadow fell over Gabe’s workbench, stilling his hands. Gabe looked up from the frame he was chiseling. Despite the shit day he was having, he smiled when he saw Lucian standing there.

And he wasn’t alone.

Troy LeMere was with him and they hadn’t come empty-handed either.

Lucian placed an opened bottle of beer on the bench as Gabe tugged his earbuds out and turned off the music app on his phone. “Figured we’d find you here.”

Grinning, Gabe rose, giving his younger brother a one-arm hug and a clap on the back. The bastard had been gone for about three weeks. “Glad you’re back home.” He turned to Troy, giving him the same treatment. They all went way back, having forged a friendship on basketball courts. “And what did I do to deserve a face-to-face with you?”

Troy grinned as he dragged a hand over his shaved head. “It’s guys’ night?”

Gabe lifted a brow as he picked up the beer. “Guys’ night and you’re spending it at my workshop in the Warehouse District?”

The dark-skinned detective tipped his head back and laughed. “When you get married, that’s how guys’ nights go down.”

“True,” Lucian murmured, taking a swig of his beer.

“What?” Gabe laughed, leaning against the bench. “You aren’t married.”

“Yet,” Troy chimed in, sitting down on one of the stools. “I’m betting they’re married before the year’s out.”

Lucian said nothing, and Gabe shook his head. The last person Gabe ever expected to settle down was his younger brother, but look at him now—wrapped around Julia’s pinky finger and he didn’t even care. “Where is your pretty girl?” Gabe’s smile was daring as he took a drink. “I miss her.”

Lucian’s eyes narrowed. “You have no business missing her.”

He chuckled, loving nothing more than needling his brother when it came to Julia. “Seriously, though, where is she? You’re here and she’s usually wherever you are.”

“She was tired after traveling all day. She’s currently all curled up in my bed, waiting for me.” He eyed the dresser frame Gabe had been working on. “Why in the hell are you here on a Saturday night?”

Gabe shrugged, thinking it must be nice to have someone like Lucian and Troy did. Someone you wanted to get home to and looked forward to ending and beginning the day with. He’d had that with Emma. He’d fucked that up along with the help of his family.

He pushed thoughts of Emma out of his head. “Need to get the order done.”

“Uh-huh.” Troy kicked his long legs up on the bench. “Heard you weren’t in Baton Rouge for more than a few days. What changed?”

His grip tightened on the bottle. Both knew why he’d been going to Baton Rouge. “I needed to give them a little space. That’s the best thing to do.”

Lucian was quiet for a moment. “That’s got to be hard.”

“It is.” He drank half the bottle after admitting that. “You have no idea.”

“I don’t,” his brother agreed. “You know Dev’s going to want to step in.”

“Your brother has no sense of boundaries.” Troy scratched at the label on his bottle.

Gabe snorted. “Don’t we know.” He crossed his ankles. “I don’t care what Dev’s opinion is on the matter. I told him to stay out of it, and if he knows what’s smart for him, he will. This isn’t his life.”

“Dev will back off,” Lucian said. “But not for long. You know what he’ll do.”

Setting the bottle aside, Gabe folded his arms. He knew exactly what Dev was capable of. So did Lucian, and Gabe knew Troy had his suspicions, especially about what really went down with their fucking cousin Daniel—ones Troy wouldn’t vocalize, because once he did, he’d have to act on them. Troy was like a brother to them, but he was a cop, one who took his job seriously.

Gabe just hoped Troy’s duty to the badge never came between them.

“So.” Lucian drew the word out as he ran a hand through his blond hair. If it weren’t for the de Vincent eyes, people wouldn’t even think they were brothers. The fact that Lucian and his twin looked so different from Gabe and Dev had always been a red flag to them. Except, as it turned out, he and Dev had it backward. The whole damn family had. Only Lucian and Madeline were the children of Lawrence. Gabe and Dev had no idea who their father was.

“I learned something else when I got caught up with Dev,” Lucian said. “Heard your long-lost love was back.”

Everything about Gabe stiffened.

Everything.

“Fuck, Dev.” Gabe uncrossed his ankles, widening his stance. “Don’t say that.”

Confusion crept in Troy’s features. “Long-lost love?”

Lucian grinned. “Yep.”

“Do I even want to know who this is about?” Troy asked, lowering his beer.

Lucian chuckled at Gabe’s dark look and then he turned to Troy. “Remember Nikki? Livie and Richard’s daughter?”

Their friend’s eyes widened. “Yeah. She’s at college. Alabama, right?”

“Not anymore.” Lucian pushed away from the bench. “She’s filling in for her mom at the house.”

“I’m going to ask again,” Troy said. “Do I want to know why you’re calling her Gabe’s long-lost love? Because seriously.”

Completely unrepentant, Lucian laughed again. “When she was younger, she had it bad for Gabe. Used to follow him around the house and somehow connived him into swimming lessons.”

Nic hadn’t connived Gabe into those lessons. Like a dumbass, he offered after she almost killed herself in the pool. “Shut up, Lucian.”

Lucian wasn’t shutting up, because of course not. “Gabe just can’t help it. Women just get obsessed with him. I think it’s the hair.” He reached toward Gabe’s head.

Gabe leaned out of the way.

“Women? As in plural?” Troy asked.

Lucian nodded. “Yeah, you don’t know about Sabrina?”

“Dev’s fiancée?”

Gabe was about five seconds away from punching Lucian.

“Yep. One and the same. Did you know that Sabrina actually met Gabe in college? Met him first.” Lucian’s eyes glimmered with amusement. “Ever since then, she’s been chasing after Gabe’s dick like it’s the last one left in the world.”

Troy’s mouth dropped open. “But it ain’t the last dick. It ain’t even the last de Vincent dick.”

“Can you all stop talking about my dick?” Gabe grumbled.

They ignored him.

“Well, this dick didn’t want anything to do with her, rightfully so, because that woman is a bitch. Hate using that word, but it’s true. Anyways, she went for the next best dick. Dev.”

“No shit,” muttered Troy, shaking his head. “Does Dev know this?”

Lucian shrugged. “Not sure how he can’t. Don’t think he cares, though.”

“Dev doesn’t know she was on my ass all through college. She’s annoying, but she’s harmless,” Gabe said, lip curling in disgust. “And I’d honestly rather forget about all that. Sabrina’s marrying Dev. God help him, but she’s not my problem.”

“Except for when she hunts you down every time you’re home,” Lucian pointed out slyly.

Yeah, and that was another reason getting a place in Baton Rouge was at the top of his priority list. He was not going to live in the same house as Sabrina. Hell no.

“Okay.” Troy arched a brow. “So, let’s backtrack. What’s this shit about Nikki?”

Lucian was about as happy as a damn pig rolling in shit at this point. “The thing is, when Nikki was younger, no big deal. Right? Then Nikki started growing up, and well, I made it my life’s mission to remind Gabe that she may not have looked it at the time, but she was just a teenager.”

His gaze connected with his brother’s. Lucian quirked a brow, and irritation flared deep inside Gabe. People who didn’t know Lucian didn’t give him enough credit. The younger de Vincent missed nothing.

Troy’s gaze narrowed on Gabe. “Did you need reminding?”

“Fuck no,” he shot back. Despite what happened before Nic left for college, he hadn’t needed a reminder of her age. No matter how beautiful she was becoming back then, it was hands off and eyes off. “And stop calling her a teenager. Jesus. She’s fucking twenty-two now.”

Thank fuck.

“Well, I am reassured to hear that. Age of consent might be seventeen here to avoid a statutory charge, but that little piece of law ain’t going to stop a bullet in the back of the head.” Troy took a drink of his beer.

“Damn, bro. You’re a cop,” Lucian said with a laugh.

He raised a shoulder. “Hell. Richard may be all calm and shit, but I’ve looked into that man’s eyes. He’d straight up kill a motherfucker who messed with his daughter.”

Yeah, he would.

It wouldn’t have mattered to Richard that Nic had been eighteen. Shit, still wouldn’t matter now. Gabe twisted at the waist, picking up his beer. Why in the hell was he even thinking about a now?

Probably because the three times he jerked off this week alone, her fucking face appeared in the middle of it.

But there was a now.

Lucian grinned as he watched Gabe. “Well, she might be twenty-two now, but she’ll always be Little Nikki to me.”

“Christ,” Gabe muttered, rubbing at his chest. A moment passed. “Found Parker sniffing around her last week.”

“Fuck Parker,” muttered Troy.

Gabe nodded as guilt stirred in his gut. He was man enough to admit that he’d handled Nic wrong when it came to Parker. He’d been caught off guard when he’d seen her with him—that bastard all in her space and her laughing. He’d also been knocked off his game by his reaction to seeing them together.

He’d wanted to rip Parker’s throat out.

And he had no right to that feeling or to say anything to Nic about it. She’d been correct when she threw that in his face, and he was also man enough to know he owed her a damn apology for that . . . and for how he talked to her Thursday, in the gym.

What happened to you? She’d asked that and what had he said? You.

Jesus, he’d been a dick and that wasn’t him. He wasn’t that guy. Or at least he hadn’t been, but that was the guy he was turning into. That shit didn’t sit well with him. But he knew one damn thing. What had happened between them four years ago was no excuse. Neither was how his head was still twisted up over the shit with Emma a good enough excuse for how he talked to her.

For how he knew he made her feel.

“What was Parker doing at the house?” Lucian asked, the easy grin gone from his face.

“Supposedly visiting Dev.” Gabe finished off his beer and tossed it into a nearby trashcan. “Richard was out of the house, so Parker was just roaming around.”

A muscle ticked in Lucian’s jaw. “What was he doing with Nikki?”

Gabe lifted a shoulder. “Talking.”

“Parker wouldn’t be visiting Nikki with just talking in mind,” Troy commented, and hell if Gabe didn’t already know that.

Lucian was quiet as he focused on one of the ornate chairs Gabe had finished, but still needed to paint. “Yeah,” he murmured.

Gabe frowned, sensing there was more. “What?”

A long moment passed. “I don’t know.” Lucian tossed his empty bottle. “Probably nothing, but there was this thing that happened. Forgot about it until just now. Shit.”

“Details?” Gabe turned to his brother.

“I think Nikki was around seventeen? She was in the pool house. I didn’t know she was out there. Not at first.” He paused. “Anyway, I’d gone in to grab a towel.”

Gabe stilled.

“I walked in and Parker was in there with Nikki. She was just in a towel—”

“What the fuck?” Gabe exploded. How in the hell was this the first time he was hearing this?

“Yeah.” Lucian dragged a hand through his hair and let it fall. “He said he’d just walked in, like a few seconds before me, and that was possible. I’d gone into the house to get changed and just came back out to go to the pool house. Nikki didn’t say anything to me. She looked embarrassed, but . . .”

“But what?” Troy leaned forward, dropping both feet onto the floor.

“But it didn’t sit right with me.” Lucian’s jaw worked. “When I asked him afterward about him being in there, he’d sworn he was only there for seconds. I told him to stay away from her at that point. I don’t think anything happened. I mean, I feel like Nikki would’ve said something, but I . . . yeah, I wish I’d done more.”

“Like knocking him the fuck out?” Troy asked. “Because I have a hard time believing it was just seconds he was in there. Shit. You walk in on a girl who’s in a towel and you’re not supposed to be in there? You turn into the Flash and get the hell out of there.”

Gabe was barely hearing what they were saying. He didn’t know about this. Had something happened in the pool house? And he remembered how Nikki had reacted earlier to his accusing her of throwing herself at Parker. There was no mistaking the shock and disgust and . . . and something else he’d seen in her eyes.

Shit.

Troy didn’t stay long, wanting to get back to his wife, and Gabe figured Lucian would be right behind him since it seemed like he didn’t spend more than a few hours apart from Julia.

Lucian didn’t leave, though. He took Troy’s seat, kicking his legs up on the workbench Gabe was leaning against. “How’ve you been?” he asked. “We haven’t really gotten a chance to talk after . . . everything happened.”

Gabe smirked. “Probably best, all things considered.”

“Except more shit kept happening,” Lucian replied, rocking his feet. “Everything with Emma—”

“Don’t want to talk about Emma,” he cut Lucian off.

“Maybe you should,” his brother said softly.

Jaw hardening, he picked up the chisel he’d been working with and walked it over to the table. Talking about Emma—damn, thinking about Emma always ended the same way.

Drinking about his weight in scotch.

He didn’t want to spend the night like that.

“I know it’s a no-fly zone for you, but you got to get that shit out of you.” He paused. “Or you’ll end up like Dev.”

Gabe snorted as he tossed the chisel on the table. Some days he wished he was more like Dev, who was about as caring as a rattlesnake with its head chopped off.

“I know something’s up. You wouldn’t be here on a Saturday night if there weren’t,” Lucian continued. “You’d be at the Red Stallion, finding yourself a woman to spend the night with. Maybe two.”

He faced his brother. “Are you playing therapist tonight?”

Lucian grinned. “What’s going on? You don’t keep me in the dark. Maybe Dev. But not me.”

That was true. There were few secrets between him and Lucian. He walked over to the stool he’d been using and dropped onto it, running his hands over his face. He needed to keep his mouth shut. That was the best thing to do, but he knew his brother. He’d end up annoying the living fuck out of him until he told him what was up.

He exhaled heavily, letting his hands hang between his knees. “It has to do with Nic.”

Surprise flickered across Lucian’s face. “It does?”

“Something happened between us.”

Lucian’s stare sharpened. A heartbeat passed. “What happened between you two?” A terse pause. “And when?”

Letting his head fall back, Gabe stretched his back. “Fuck. I can’t believe I’m even going to talk about this.”

“Whatever it is, you better get talking, because my head is going in a lot of different places.”

He lowered his chin. “It’s probably going in the right direction.”

Lucian’s eyes widened slightly and then he murmured, “Shit.”

Threading his fingers together, he did something he never thought he would ever do—told someone else the story of that night. “Right before Nic left for college, she came to the house. Her parents had already left for the evening, and I have no idea where you and Dev were, but you guys weren’t there. I’d been drinking. A lot that night. I was drunk but honest? I would’ve let her in anyway. It wasn’t the first time she came to my apartment. It was different, though. It was at night.”

Lucian became very, very still.

“I let her in, and I don’t know how it happened,” he said, closing his eyes. That was a mistake, because what he did remember from that night came back in flashes. Teasing her like he normally would. Then her telling him that she was going to miss him when she left for college. At some point she started to cry when she talked about not seeing him, and he’d hugged her. Somehow, and he couldn’t even figure out how, she ended up in his lap . . . and then under him. “But it happened.”

“I’m assuming that by it, you mean you two hugged it out?”

Gabe barked out a short laugh, but it was without humor. “We had sex.”

The only other time Gabe had seen his brother shocked was when they’d learned the truth about their mother and father. This was the second time he’d seen Lucian shocked into silence.

Lucian pulled his feet off the bench, dropping them heavily to the floor. His mouth opened, but he didn’t speak.

He needed to keep going. “When I woke up hours later and she was in my bed, at first, I had no clue—” He cut himself off, swallowing. “I flipped the fuck out on her. Nic bailed out of there so fast, and the first time I’d seen her since that night was when she showed up to work.”

“Fuck,” Lucian said.

“Yeah. That about sums it up.”

Lucian stared at him. “I’m actually at a loss for words. That never happens.”

“That’s not making me feel better about this.”

“Not trying to make you feel better.” Lucian shook his head. “She was eighteen when she left for college, right?”

“Yes. But that doesn’t make a—”

“Bullshit. That makes a difference. Not a huge one, but it makes a difference.” His jaw worked. “You were drunk?”

“I was shit-faced. Nic swears she didn’t realize how drunk I was and I . . . I believe her.”

His brother blinked slowly. “Exactly how drunk were you that you ended up having sex with Livie and Richard’s eighteen-year-old daughter?”

“Drunk enough to not care,” he replied honestly, and fuck, saying it out loud was like some kind of weight lifted from his shoulders. He hadn’t been an unwilling participant. Honest? He’d been willing. “That’s how drunk.”

“Shit, man.” Lucian leaned back. “And you and Nic talked about this?”

“Last week when I saw her. I was pissed. She never gave me a chance to talk to her about it before. And I tried. Called her. Texted her after she left, to make sure she was okay—”

“Shit. Was she?”

“Yeah,” he replied with heavy meaning. “For four years, I couldn’t fathom what the hell she was thinking. Damn. Even when I think about it now, I get pissed, because she just left and ignored me and I had no idea if I . . .” He drew in a deep breath. “I know she spent these years not realizing I wasn’t that drunk and I spent these years trying to forget it even happened, grateful that her father hasn’t found out yet and shot me.”

Lucian snickered at that, because he knew it was the truth. “I wouldn’t be worried about that, though. He loves you. It’s her mom who would do it.”

A small smile pulled at Gabe’s mouth. “Yeah, you’re right about that.”

“They’d never think you’d do something like that, though. Me? Hell. They’d probably be surprised I didn’t try something. But you? Nah. They’d never think it. You’re the good one out of us.”

Gabe lifted a brow.

“It’s true.”

A moment passed before Lucian blinked and rubbed his face. “Wow. Well, shit, man. I don’t know what to say. I mean, that is fucked-up. For both of you. Got to be awkward now.”

“Yeah, doesn’t help that I’ve been nothing but a dick to her since she’s returned. Fucking yelled at her last week when I saw her with Parker. Accused her of throwing herself at him. Then I just . . . yeah, I haven’t been nice to her.”

Lucian’s gaze zeroed in on him. “Do you think you should be nice to her?”

Gabe thought about it, really thought about it. “For the last four years, I wanted to simultaneously strangle her and ask her if she was okay. I’ve hated her for what could’ve come from that night, but I got to take responsibility for it, too. Not like she slipped and fell on my dick. I was drunk, Lucian. But I knew it was her. I knew what I was doing.” He let out a ragged breath. “That makes me a shit person, doesn’t it?”

“No. I don’t think so. It just makes the situation complicated.”

“Complicated” didn’t feel like a strong enough word to describe everything in his head, but he knew one thing. He didn’t hate Nic now. He didn’t know what the hell that meant, but he didn’t hate her.

“Well, you know what I think?” Lucian said.

“I’m afraid to ask.”

“I think you know what you need to do.” And then Lucian surprised the shit out of him, because he grinned in a way that set off about five hundred warning bells in Gabe. “Yeah, I think you do.”