Marc fought the urge to check the screen on his phone. Had the call to Royce gone through? He kept the cell as close to his leg as possible to block the light, but it meant that he couldn’t tell if Royce had answered, or if it had simply gone straight to voice mail. It would be just his luck that Royce ignored his call. The man who owned his heart had made it painfully clear over the past several days that the happiness they’d enjoyed was over, and that Royce was all too ready to move on.

Your ass was great, and you suck like a dream, but we’re done.

Okay, it really wasn’t time for thoughts like that. Richard had a gun on him, and his hand was shaking terribly as he ordered Marc into the passenger seat of the BMW. He couldn’t believe how badly he’d underestimated Richard.

“Get in the car!” Richard shouted, pulling Marc’s attention firmly away from Royce and his wounded heart. Marc looked across the roof of the car to see his oldest brother still pointing the gun at him. His face shone with sweat under the driveway light despite the cold chill in the air. He didn’t look good at all, but then Marc hoped his brother would look like shit when holding a family member at gunpoint. It wasn’t something a sane, healthy person would do.

Marc slowly opened the passenger door and slid into the seat at the same time as Richard. He pulled on his seat belt while Richard jerkily switched hands with the gun, so he could turn on the car.

“Did you poison yourself?” Marc asked. He shifted carefully, keeping the phone at his side. The ambient light of the BMW helped to offset the soft glow coming from the phone. The light gave him hope that Royce had answered the call, that he was listening, and that he was rushing toward Marc even now. He wished Royce was with him already. Not so he could overpower Richard and send him off to jail, but he wanted Royce’s confidence in him. He needed to feel Royce’s strength at his back.

“Shut up.”

“If you’re planning to kill me, then I deserve to know. Did you fucking poison yourself? Why?”

“Why do you think?” Richard snarled. He quickly looked over his shoulder as he whipped the sedan around in the driveway. Stomping his foot on the gas pedal, he lurched forward, nearly fumbling the gun as the car surged down the driveway. “You brought that fucking bodyguard in, pretending he’s some big love. He never left your goddamn side over the past month. How the hell else was I supposed to get a moment alone with you?”

“Yeah, and after someone tried three times to kill me, maybe it was a good idea not to be alone,” Marc countered. He glanced out the window at the motley dance of dark shadow and thin lamplight as Richard rushed them down his street. The asphalt glistened, still gilded with water from rain earlier in the evening. Tires squealed as they hit the first turn, and his heart skipped a beat. It wasn’t too long ago that he’d crashed on this same road after his brakes had failed. He had no desire to repeat that moment. “Why are you trying to kill me? Do you really hate me that much?”

“Yes,” Richard hissed. “I’ve fucking hated you from the moment you were born. Everything was perfect. Just the three of us. It was the right balance. Our parents were happy, and then you fucking come along like some unwanted stray, demanding attention. And to top it off, you’re fucking gay. Goddamn embarrassment. Flaunting your depraved lifestyle all around the world.”

“First off, I didn’t ask to be born, and I didn’t ask to be gay. That’s fucking life.”

“Shut up!” Richard rubbed his chest with the gun still clutched tightly in one hand. The car swerved over the double yellow line, but he quickly jerked it back into their lane. “You’ve corrupted Lilah. She’s got such a soft heart. Thinks she needs to protect you because you’re the fucking baby.”

Marc blinked and looked away from his brother. A knot formed in his throat as he thought about his sister. He’d tried so many times to breach the distance between them, and at times, it seemed like it was working. But then, a few days later, she’d be back to giving him the cold shoulder and biting attitude. Had it been Richard whispering in her ear over the years, turning her against him?

“So, you’ve just finally had enough. Decided to kill me because I never should have been born?”

“As much as the world would be better off without you,” Richard said. He paused to wipe some of the sweat off his face with a shaking hand. “I’m not killing you because I hate you.”

“Then why—”

“I need your goddamn money!”

“What?”

“Your fucking money!” Richard yelled. The car veered into the opposite lane again, and Richard barely managed to jerk it back into the right lane before hitting an oncoming car. Marc gripped the handle above the window and sucked in a shaking breath. Richard was going to kill him, and possibly someone else, with his driving.

“Why?”

“I took a big hit with the last recession. I leveraged everything we had. Borrowed money from the company. The local market hasn’t bounced back as quickly, and I made more bets to try to cover the money I took from the company. Everything has gone to shit.”

Marc exhaled, sitting back in the passenger seat. He had no idea his brother had gotten into financial trouble. He had a huge house, and his two kids attended private school. He and his wife drove expensive cars and went on lavish vacations. “What about your inheritance from—”

“Do you think I’d be sitting here with a gun on you if I still had that? It’s gone! It’s all gone!”

“And killing me is the answer you came up with? You couldn’t just ask me for a loan? Or all of your siblings for a loan?”

“I need 450 million.”

“What?”

“Yeah, that’s a little more than a loan. Lilah is fucking broke, and I have no idea if Gabe’s got any money. But you…you’ve amassed a nice little nest egg. Last I checked, you were worth at least 800 million and that’s if I’m forced to auction off your entire art collection in a rush. If we go slowly, I could probably get close to a billion for all your assets.”

“I’ve got a fucking will, Richard. My estate would be broken up among the three of you along with large chunks going to charity. You wouldn’t get enough to cover all of the 450 million you need.”

“Yeah, but I’d get more than enough to cover up some of the mess and then skip town. There are a lot of places in the world where you can disappear and live comfortably on just a few million.”

“You’d leave your wife? Your kids?”

Richard remained silent as he rubbed his chest again. He swayed slightly in the seat, and it was like he was struggling to keep the car in the lane as they went around another hard turn. Tires squealed on the pavement, and the BMW drifted to the edge of the lane, getting too damn close to the railing.

“I’m your brother, Richard. I would have helped you if you’d just said something. I’ll help you now.”

“I don’t need help.” The words had barely left his lips when a pained gasp cut across the car. Richard dropped the gun he’d been desperately clutching in his left hand and grabbed at his chest. A second later, Richard’s body jerked, and the car skidded off toward the guardrail.

Marc didn’t have time to reach for his brother. He knew what was happening. The poisoning and stress had damaged his heart further, and he was having a heart attack like the doctor had warned. He tried to reach for the wheel to pull the car back into their lane, but it was too late. The BMW crashed through the guardrail on the far side of the road and plunged down the steep hillside toward the thick grove of trees.

The last thing Marc remembered was crying out for Royce.

* * *

Everything fucking hurt. Head, chest, hands…fuck, his eyeballs even felt dry and scratchy. Marc turned his head and slowly opened his eyes. He blinked and squinted against the painfully bright light before they finally focused enough on a figure standing at the foot of his bed. Royce…

No, Rowe. Rowe Ward was standing at the foot of his bed with his arms crossed over his chest and a bleak look on his face. He didn’t want to see Rowe. Didn’t want to deal with the man’s old anger and disappointment. He wanted Royce.

But as he thought of the man he’d fallen in love with, a flood of memories rushed over him. Royce had found him on the hillside, pulled him out of the battered and twisted metal. He thought he’d seen tears on his face, but maybe it had been raining. There was an ambulance. Paramedics rushing around. Shouting.

Then the hospital. Lilah crying. Gabe looking hurt and confused. A doctor coming in to say that Richard’s heart attack had triggered cardiac arrest. He was on life support, but the brain damage was too extensive. Richard…his brother…the brother who tried to kill him…was gone.

He wanted Royce. He just wanted Royce. That was it. Royce would help it all make sense. Help him breathe through the pain and betrayal.

But when Royce came in after Gabe took Lilah home, his face was cold and hard. “The job is done. I’m being reassigned.”

“This is more than a job. We’re more than a job.” The words came out fractured and sharp, cutting up his already sore throat.

“I’m sorry, but you…you have to just be a job.”

And then Royce left.

A loud, ugly moan filled the room, but Marc didn’t realize it had come from his lips until Rowe was rushing over to his side, grabbing his hands as he tried to pull at his hair. Anything to stop the flood of memories. His brother had tried to kill him. Royce left.

Oh God, Royce left him.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay. Just breathe,” Rowe said, easily capturing his hands and pulling them down. He was so fucking weak, and his head was throbbing in time with his racing heart. “You’ll get through this. I promise. Just breathe.”

He didn’t want to. He didn’t want to breathe. Didn’t want to try to make sense of why Richard had torn apart their family, been willing to abandon his wife and kids. Why he’d hated him so unbelievably much.

And now, Royce had tossed him aside.…

Blinking, he was surprised when he felt Rowe wipe away the tears that streaked his cheeks. “I’m sorry about your brother,” Rowe murmured.

Marc almost laughed. It was hard to feel bad about the death of a brother when the fucker had been trying to kill him. He knew it would come. Right then, he was just swamped with feelings of confusion and betrayal for both Richard and Royce.

“How’s Dom?” Marc asked, his eyes on the light blue blanket spread across his lap.

“Physically recovered, but still embarrassed.”

“Please tell him that I’m so sorry—”

“You’ve got nothing to be sorry about. This wasn’t your fault.”

“My brother—”

“Your brother was a fucking tool, and it was his fault. Not yours.” Rowe paused and shook his head. “We should have kept digging on him. We didn’t expect him to be so fucked up in the head that he’d poison himself to get close to you. I’m sorry we didn’t figure it out soon enough.”

Marc laid his head back on the pillow and closed his eyes. Should he have seen it? “Richard was always a master at hiding how he felt, what he was thinking.”

The silence stretched between them for nearly a minute. Marc was sure that Rowe would leave soon, and then he could break down again. All he could think about was Royce. The time they’d spent together, their laughter, the long, slow touches that held a wealth of promises for years of more touches and kisses. They hadn’t said the words, but he thought they’d both understood, they both knew, that they would continue after the case was closed.

“Snow wasn’t your fault either.”

Rowe’s soft words caused Marc to suddenly look up at the other man, who’d now moved back to the foot of his bed. Rowe looked uncomfortable as he shifted from foot to foot. He chewed on his lower lip before looking up at Marc.

“I know I took it out on you. That night. Snow wasn’t your responsibility, and you did call Lucas for help, but I blamed you for not doing more. That was wrong. I was angry at him. Angry at myself because I couldn’t save him. Angry at you because I saw you doing the same self-destructive bullshit.” Rowe sighed and shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

Marc could only nod. He hadn’t realized how much he’d needed to hear those words from Rowe until that moment. Everything felt too raw. His entire world had been turned on its ear and the one person he’d come to rely on to make everything feel normal had walked away.

“Yeah, well…tell me how I can get Royce back, and I’ll consider us even,” he said with a forced laugh. Marc rubbed his eyes, wiping away the gathering of tears, then looked at Rowe again. The poor man’s shoulders were slumped, and he pointedly stared at the edge of the bed as if it held all the secrets of the world.

“I’m sorry.”

Marc sucked in another ragged breath. Those were the words of the day. Sorry about Dom. Sorry about bad decisions. Sorry about Snow and Richard and Royce. He couldn’t take anymore sorry. He wanted it fixed. He wanted his life back, even if it meant that his relationship with his brother was a lie.

He wanted Royce back.

Nothing made sense without Royce’s smile, his low, throaty laugh. The sheer weight of his presence made Marc feel like he could conquer anything, that he could face anything, and that he wasn’t a complete fraud.

But Royce was gone. And so much of his life felt like an utter lie.

“You don’t have to stay, Rowe. I’ll be fine.” Marc forced the words out when he was pretty sure that he’d never be fine again.

“I think I will.” Rowe looked up at him, scratching the light stubble on his jaw. “Figure you could use a friend who knows what it’s like to have your whole world fall apart.”

Swallowing back the need to say again that he’d be fine, Marc clenched his teeth against another moan. He wouldn’t put the mask back in place, wouldn’t worry about what others thought about him. He didn’t have to be alone. “Yeah, that’d be great.”