Aiden went down hard. His back hit the floor, and his skull bounced on the carpet. Then he was up, lunging for me. I met him halfway, arm raised and ready to strike. He hit me with a shoulder to the gut and took me to the floor. Smart move. Aiden had wrestled in high school. He wasn't trained in combat like I was, but on the ground, he had a chance.

My awareness dissolved into swinging fists, kicking feet, and grappling arms. Aiden didn't have my skill, but he was driven by rage, all his pent up resentment and anger and unspoken emotion flooding out through his clenched fists as we rolled. He pinned me, getting in a good strike to my temple before I scissored my legs and threw him off, kicking him hard in the back.

I got him in a choke hold for a few seconds, managing to get enough breath to growl out, “Keep your fucking hands off Sophie,” before he twisted free and I took another fist to the jaw.

An unexpected strike to the shoulder had me looking up to see Sophie standing above us, her arms crossed over her chest, a furious look on her face. “You two are complete idiots. I’m not going to watch grown men act like children.”

She strode from the room as I stared after her. Aiden let out a roar and lunged at me, catching me distracted, his fist connecting with my cheekbone.

We’d fought before. We'd grown up side-by-side and shared a room most of our childhoods. But we’d never fought like this. Over a decade of pain and anger, of betrayal and disillusionment, of grief and love, spilled through me. Somewhere in the middle of it, I realized I wasn't even mad anymore.

Sophie didn't want Aiden. She was mine because she wanted to be mine, not because I declared it so. Aiden couldn't take her from me. Only Sophie could do that. If I hadn't been on such a hair trigger lately, I never would've gone for the bait.

Bait.

The word exploded in my head in a flash of understanding. God dammit. Amelia. Aiden hadn't written that note. I went limp and fell to my back just as icy water splashed over us. Shocked and sputtering, I looked up to see Mrs. W standing over us in the same posture as Sophie had, arms crossed over her chest, foot tapping, glower firmly in place. An empty water pitcher dangled from one finger.

“You boys are too old for this nonsense,” she said in a steely voice. “This is Tate's wedding, not a circus. Go sit out back on the patio and cool off. Don't think about coming back in this house until you've worked out your differences, do you understand me?”

“Yes, ma'am,” we said in unison. Aiden and I dragged our bruised bodies out of the dining room, ignoring the amused laughter of the rest of the family. I pushed my way through the French doors to the terrace and sat on the top step, the icy slate freezing my ass through my suit.

Georgia had been unseasonably cold over the holidays, but the frigid air felt good on my bruised and rapidly swelling face. Unwilling to completely give in I said, “You still have a pussy left hook.”

“Fuck you,” Aiden said, without heat. “Why the fuck did you hit me?”

I shrugged and winced at the unexpected pain in my shoulder. “Sophie found a note from you under her placemat,” I said.

“I didn't write Sophie a note. Why the hell would I do that?”

“Yeah, I figured that out while we were beating the shit out of each other.”

“Amelia.”

“Bingo,” I said.

A strangled laugh erupted from Aiden's throat, and he shook his head, pushing his hair back with the heel of his palm. “She told me if we didn't work things out she’d deal with us her own way.”

I let out a strangled laugh of my own and felt hot liquid warmth run from my split lip to my chin. Fuck. If my face looked anything like Aiden's, we were both a mess.

His dark hair was tangled and matted with sweat, falling over his forehead and almost hiding the swelling around his left eye. I could feel my own eyelid swelling to match his. By morning we'd have twin black eyes. And split lips. People had always said we looked alike.

I braced my elbows on my knees and stared down at the slate between my feet. Letting out a long breath, I said, “I'm sorry I left. I should've stayed. I should've manned up and stayed and helped you. I know you hated me for it. I know why you can't forgive me, and I understand.”

Beside me, I felt Aiden go still, and then his eyes on me. I couldn't look up. I couldn't stand to see the accusation, the blame in his eyes.

“What the fuck are you talking about? I don't hate you. What do you mean I can't forgive you? I'm fucking pissed you took so long to come home. And I'm pissed you almost got yourself fucking killed, but—”

I shot to my feet and faced him down, finally ready to take the judgment I was due.

“I didn't save them,” I shouted at the top of my lungs, the words tearing from my heart in raw pain and the sheer relief of draining a wound that had never healed. “I didn't save them. I was here. I was up in my room fucking sulking because I was grounded, and I didn't save them.”

My knees folded abruptly as if pulled by a string, and I sat back on the step, swamped with guilt and grief. Beside me, Aiden sucked in a breath and let it out.

“You had your headphones on,” he said, quietly. “They were in the library. You couldn't have heard anything.”

“I should've known,” I said. “I was here. I was upstairs. They died, and I didn't save them.”

“It wasn't your fault, Gage,” Aiden said, his voice a low rasp. “Is that why you didn't come home? Because you thought I blamed you? How could you think I would blame you?”

“Why wouldn't you blame me?” I asked. “I blame myself. If I’d heard something, if I'd gone downstairs, if I hadn't been sulking in my room like—”

“Like a teenager? Which is what you were. A teenager. Not super Gage special forces soldier. You were eighteen and unarmed. If you'd been downstairs, you probably would have died with them. Did you ever think about that?” Aiden asked.

“Maybe,” I conceded.

I had thought about it, but that logic had never felt like absolution. Maybe Aiden was right, and I would've been killed along with my aunt and uncle. But maybe if I'd been there things would've changed. We didn't know what had happened to them, only that they'd been shot in the library in a crime almost identical to the one that had taken my parents lives so many years before.

In both cases, the deaths were written off as murder/suicides and dismissed, but we knew someone had killed them. We just didn't know why. Without answers, I couldn't stop wondering how I might have changed things.

“I'm sorry I've been an ass since you've been home,” Aiden said. “I want you to come back to the company. I do. I just—” he stopped and swallowed hard. “I understand why you left, Gage. It was hard here without you, but I understood. You found them. You walked in the library in this house, and you found them dead. I get why you needed to get away. I thought you would come home after a few years, but I figured you just needed more time. And then they told us you were missing and probably dead and—”

Aiden's voice choked off. I tried to speak and found my throat was locked shut.

We sat there in silence, fighting to get our emotions under control. Finally, Aiden reached out and punched me in the shoulder. Pain exploded, far out of proportion to his strike. I must've landed on it wrong when we'd hit the floor in the dining room. Shit, we were immature assholes, even in our thirties.

“I should've come home a long time ago,” I said when I thought I could speak again. Fighting off the tightness in my throat, I said, “I should've known you wouldn't blame me. I just… I couldn't stop dreaming about them. I still do.”

“Gage,” Aiden said, “it's been twelve years. You can't let it take over your life like this.”

“I know,” I interrupted, “I know. It's not just that, it's the last six months, and everything I did, everything I saw the years before that. It's a lot of shit all rolled up in my head so I can't sleep, and I'm on edge all the time—”

“Yeah, no shit,” Aiden said, and I laughed. “You were always Mr. Cool, and now you're jumping me at a wedding?”

“Yeah,” I said. It wasn't funny, not really, but I laughed anyway. “Cooper set me up with someone to talk to. My first appointment is next week.”

I shook my head and looked out over the back lawn into the moonlit trees behind the house. On the other side of those trees, through the dark woods, was my parents’ house, sitting empty and abandoned. I shook my head again.

“I can't tell you how many times I've sat like this with guys dealing with the same shit and told them all the right things. There's no shame in it. It helps to talk to someone. Don't just bottle it up and ignore it. Then it's me, and I'd rather go without sleep than admit I can't handle it on my own.”

“You always were a stubborn fuck.”

“You going to let me come back to work?”

“Whenever you want,” Aiden said with a hint of a smile. It might've been a grin if his mouth hadn’t been as torn up as mine.

“I've been studying up with Charlie,” I admitted.

“I know,” Aiden said, surprising me. “She tore me a new one, told me what a royal asshole I was, and how hard you’ve been working. The stuff on the jump drive came from me, not Charlie. Once you get through that, you're probably ready to start easing your way in.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I said.

We sat there in the dark for a few minutes before Aiden said, “So what's up with you and Sophie?”

“I'm in love with her,” I said, liking the way the words sounded when I spoke them out loud. Trying it again, I said a little louder, “I'm in love with her.”

“I hope she's in love with you,” Aiden said, slowly rising to his feet, moving as carefully as an old man with achy joints. I'm pretty sure I looked exactly the same as I stood up beside him. “She was pissed as hell when she stormed out of the dining room.”

Sophie was still pissed as hell when I knocked on the door of her room. She swung it open from beneath my rapping knuckles and glared up at me, her usually sweet face twisted into a scowl, her green eyes fiery with anger.

“What do you want?”

Looking down into those burning emerald eyes I could only think of one thing to say. “I love you, Sophie. I love you with everything I am and everything I will be. I'm sorry I acted like an adolescent and tried to beat up my cousin in the dining room, and I'm sorry if I embarrassed you with my behavior. Will you please let me in so I can show you exactly how sorry I am?”

Tears filled her eyes, turning the green fire to cool smoke. She blinked, and they ran down her cheeks. Reaching up, she traced a finger over the tight, hot skin on my cheekbone.

“You love me?” she asked, wonder in her voice.

I caught her hand in mine and kissed her fingertip. “I love you,” I said again.

The tears flowed faster down her cheeks, her eyes flicking back and forth as she took in the wounds on my face, her heart in her eyes.

“I love you too,” she whispered.

“Can I come in?” I asked.

She stepped back and opened the door to let me into her room. Her pale eyebrows knit together as she studied my stiff gait and she said, “You need a hot shower and an ice pack. Or two. Maybe an ice bath.”

I shut the door behind me and turned the lock.

“All I need is you.”