“Someone beat me to it, huh?” Rusty looked at his brother’s puffy eye and broken nose and the satisfaction at seeing his brother in a bloody mess wasn’t as great as he’d thought it would’ve been. Looking around the apartment it was clear that whoever had done this, had done a thorough job. All the furniture was gone, and there was a gap with just wires hanging out of a hole where the giant TV screen had once hung above the mantel.

“Go on. You can have this arm, I think the other one is broken.” Grim held out his left arm from where he sat on the floor and Rusty tipped his head. It was true, the right arm was at a funny angle like his had been.

“Shit, bro. What happened? Those bikes are worth a fortune. How much did you borrow?”

Grim’s face fell and he tried to stand but the pain wracked his body and the anger eked out of Rusty. No matter what his shit of a brother had done, he couldn’t hurt him more than he was already hurting.

“Come on. Let’s get you some ice. And if you want to work in movies anymore you’re going to have to get that nose looked at.”

The trip to the hospital was uneventful. Six hours later with painkillers on board, his nose reset, and his arm in a plaster cast, and sitting on the sofa in Rusty’s apartment, Grim was slightly more comfortable. “Seriously, if you need to have a go, this is the time. I can’t even feel my face.”

Rusty sat at the other end and opened a beer with his good arm. He said nothing and waited for his brother to start talking. His anger still boiled below the surface of his skin, a living surge of lava that he knew would erupt if Grim tried to wiggle his way out of his responsibility.

Grim knew it and he took a deep ragged breath before he started talking. “It wasn’t supposed to go like this. They were supposed to come up, take five bikes, and leave.” He held up his good hand as Rusty opened his mouth to interrupt. “Let me get this out and then you can yell at me for being an idiot. Can I have one of those?” He nodded at Rusty’s beer.

“No.” It was difficult, but Rusty held back the rest of what he wanted to say like Grim had asked.

“Fair enough.” Grim shook his head at himself. “You always were the smart one, you know that, right? Mom knew it, Dad loved you for it, the only one who didn’t know it was you.”

Rusty sat back and took another slug of his beer to distract himself. This was not what he had been expecting Grim to say. But he didn’t have time to dwell on it as Grim continued. “I figured the insurance payout was a better way to get the money I owed than making you sell your precious garage, so we could both get what we wanted. My guy would leave you alone, you could keep doing whatever you do after a bit of a reconfigure. No harm done. I just didn’t think that the Reapers would screw you over so thoroughly. And I didn’t expect them to come visit me.”

“Well, then you’re an idiot.”

“I know. They came to my place first. I guess it wasn’t that hard to find me. I haven’t made a secret of where I live—you can’t, you know, in this town. You want the media on your doorstep if you’re going to be front-page material. But I should have stayed at Wilde’s last night.” He took a breath and Rusty could tell his ribs were hurting, three of them were broken but he didn’t move, not while Grim was talking. “You’ll be pleased to know that there are still plenty of guys back in Illinois who thought your paying my debt was a shit move too.” He pointed at his nose.

Rusty nodded. “It was. But that’s history. My shop though, why would they—”

“They didn’t know it was yours.”

The deep knot that all the people he’d counted on as family had turned against him loosened and Rusty let out the breath he hadn’t known he was holding.

“I doubt they would have done it if they had. They had plenty to say about you. Plenty to say about loyalty. In between breaking my nose and my arm.”

“But the guys who were there. They threw a bandana in my face. One of them ran me down.”

“New guys,” Grim said. “Up for adventure. Hendrix said as much as he was breaking my arm.”

Rusty drained the rest of his beer, stood, and went to the fridge. He brought two beers back and sat on the couch. Opening them both, he handed one to Grim. That was all he needed to know really. Not how much Grim owed. Not why he did it. Just that there were still people in the world who had his back.

“You’re a better man than me. And I’m sorry,” Grim said.

“I know.”

The two men drank their beers for a long minute. “How are you going to make it right?”

Grim nodded as if he’d expected nothing less. “I’ll make sure people know it’s not your fault. And that the Reapers aren’t about to come back up here and rip you off. Call them if you like. Tell them what a shit I am.”

“They’ll already know. Rocco’s been on the phone to Mack.”

Grim’s face paled and he took another swig of beer. The silence deepened and Grim fidgeted, the painkillers probably starting to wear off.

“I’ll talk to them. Otherwise they’ll destroy you.” Rusty said the words blandly but he knew the truth in them. Loyalty above all. It was the mantra the MCs lived by. The only one that really mattered.

The bikes were gone. Across the state, a ride all night to get here. It was probably just the added attraction of taking Grim down that had brought them up here in the first place.

“At least you got the girl.” Grim’s comment came out of the uneasy silence and made Rusty straighten.

“Beth?” He almost laughed. “She wanted you. Wanted everything you had, you know that, right?”

Grim shrugged. “She’s something, that girl. If I hadn’t been so up my own ass I might have done something about it. But she’s yours, that much is obvious. I watched the pilot.”

Beth. Her name echoed around his head. “I’m not the right guy for her.”

Grim raised an arm to rub at his face and then groaned when the pain of moving hit him. “You’re really going to pull the I’m-not-good-enough card? Of course you’re not good enough. Neither of us are. But you’re the one she wants.”

“I told her I only wanted her to get back at you. And that she was too scared to make it on her own.”

Grim shook his head. “Man, I really did a number on you. Fuck, I’m sorry, bro. But now you have to fix it. You can’t add missing out on the girl to the list of things I’m responsible for in your life. I know I was a shit when Dad died, and when Mom went, I just couldn’t . . .” He took a deep shuddering breath. “You went off the rails, sure, but you stayed true to who you were. Who Dad would have wanted you to be. I was supposed to be making a name for myself and all I’ve done is make life shit for you. I really am sorry, bro.”

“Thanks. I needed to hear you say that.”

“I know. I’m sorry it took me so long. I won’t ever take you for granted again.”

Rusty hesitated, and Grim rolled his eyes at him. “Call her. Now.”

* * *

In the kitchen, Rusty waited for what felt like an eternity for Beth to pick up. But the phone just rang out and her voice message, perky and bright, filled his ear instead. He grabbed the office landline and tried her number again. She picked up.

“Beth. Don’t hang up. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said all that stuff. The baggage with my brother and me, sometimes it takes over.”

“No shit.” Her voice was hard. He could hear the hurt in it and it killed him that he had put it there.

“Can I see you?”

“No. You can go to hell.”

“But what about the show?”

She laughed, bitterly. “That’s what this is about? Your precious show? There is no show. Not with me in it. You might think all your misfortunes are because of your brother, but you forget that you make your own choices. You could have chosen not to take on his shit. You could have chosen to love me. But you didn’t. You wanted me because I wanted your brother. You’re wrong about me, you’re wrong about everything. Good-bye, Rusty.”

The dial tone was the loneliest sound Rusty could remember hearing. He held the phone to his ear until it changed into the busy signal and then finally set it back in the holder.

You could have chosen to love me . . . He already had, he realized. Having her in his apartment, watching her with his guys, lavishing attention over her body in his bed. He loved her. Had since the moment she’d started talking. And she was right. He’d been so eaten up about the rivalry with his brother that he’d forgotten to live his own life properly.

Rusty stalked into the living room where his brother had laid back on the sofa, trying to get comfortable. “Get up. Thousands wouldn’t, but I forgive you. You want to make up for being a shit, now’s the time.”

Grim struggled to his feet. “How?”

“We make this TV show happen. We make sure Beth is the star. And then we show her that I do believe in her. That I know her.”