The Marked Men Series Books 1–6: Rule, Jet, Rome, Nash, Rowdy, Asa. Jay Crownover
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was never about worrying how you would react, he just knew it would kill Margot.”
“We were twins, goddamn it. He would have told me.”
“Rule.”
I pushed away from the table and glared down at her. “This is bullshit.”
Rome got to his feet as well and I noticed he was also looking at Shaw with hard eyes. “You don’t need to make up lies about the deceased to try to fix things for Rule. That’s desperate and uncalled for, Shaw.”
Tears trailed down her face as she looked back and forth between us. She opened her mouth to say something but was cut off by my dad clicking his spoon against the side of his champagne glass.
“All right everybody, sit down and shut the hell up.” He cut a hard look at my mom and pointed to the seat she had vacated moments before. She looked like she was going to faint, and about as happy to sit next to Shaw as she did when I stopped by a few weeks ago. I sat back down grudgingly but, surprisingly, Rome was the holdout. He hovered by the back of his chair until my dad glared at him and pointed. “Ass in the chair, soldier.”
Shaw was crying next to me and now instead of wanting to comfort her, all I wanted to do was get as far away from her as possible. My dad cleared his throat and crossed his arms on the table.
“Things in this family have been in shambles for a long time. There has been too much dishonesty and too much subterfuge for everyone’s sake and I’m done trying to sweep it all under the rug just to keep my wife happy, because she isn’t. None of us are.”
He rubbed a hand over his chin and suddenly he looked a hundred years older than he actually was. “Margot, don’t pretend to not know that the way you’ve been treating Rule these last few years is cruel and uncalled for. I lost my son the same as you and I’m done watching you try to turn his twin into a stranger or someone who hates us. He’s a good boy; he works hard, loves his family, and clearly has qualities that are good enough for our girl to appreciate. I’m finished freezing him out. We both know Shaw has been in love with him since she was a kid. We saw the way she watched him, the way she defended him, and don’t think for one second I didn’t notice that’s why you were always trying to shove her in Remy’s direction.”
He heaved a sigh that seemed like it came all the way from my youth and looked at me and Rome. “Shaw isn’t lying to you, boys. Your brother was a homosexual. He might not have wanted your mother and me to know about it, but teenagers are crap liars and he wasn’t exactly as discreet as he might have thought.” He slid a sideways look at my mom while Rome and I gave each other shocked looks. “Margot thought it was a phase; that’s the main reason she was so eager to welcome Shaw into our home and family. At first she was convinced you were going to change him, make him like girls or, more specifically, like you, but like I said, it was pretty obvious your interest was in Rule. After a while, we just adored you so much and saw how much love you were missing and how much you had to give that we couldn’t let you go, even though I never approved of the way Remy let everyone just believe there was more between you two than friendship.”
I growled. “He would have told me.” I smacked the flat of my hand on the table and my dad glared at me.
“No, son, he wouldn’t have. Remy struggled with it. He struggled with who he was supposed to be versus who everyone else thought he was, and that’s not something you’ve ever done. You’ve always owned you, and screw anyone who didn’t like it.”
I looked at Shaw and then at the table. I had tried to change for her and it had been an epic failure. I climbed to my feet again and let my gaze fall on my mom.
“I don’t understand why you’ve never been able to love me the way I am when you obviously had the capacity to love him regardless of his choice not to tell everyone the truth. He lied to all of us for years. It just doesn’t make sense. I need to get out of here.”
“I’m with you.” Rome looked as wild as I was feeling on the inside. I looked down when a soft hand clasped around my forearm. I flinched involuntarily and I think I actually saw her heartbreak in her eyes.
“Rule.” Her voice was a broken whisper. “I’m sorry.” She let me go and I almost couldn’t talk over the lump in my throat.
“I understand what you meant about those closest to you hurting you the most now. I’ll be in touch.” But as Rome and I hurried out of the restaurant, I wasn’t sure I was telling her the truth and I refused to think about how much walking away from her like this hurt.
CHAPTER 16
Shaw
It had been three weeks, give or take a day, with no contact from Rule. No text messages, no phone calls, no emails, no carrier pigeons, just a whole lot of silence and heartbreak on my end. Rome hadn’t even returned my calls or texts telling him good-bye and that I would miss him while he was gone. He left for the desert mad at me, and as upsetting as that was, the daily battle I had with myself about whether to call Rule and beg him to forgive me was soul crushing. I wanted to plead with him to understand that it was never my secret to tell regardless of our relationship. Ayden kept saying he would cool off and come around while Margot and Dale firmly believed he wasn’t going to speak to any of us ever again. They were in the same boat as me; neither of the boys was speaking to them, and Margot had nearly had a nervous breakdown when Rome had refused to allow them to drive him down to Fort Carson for his send-off. Instead, the brothers went together, leaving the rest of us out in the cold.
I was hurting but I was also sick and tired of my love and affection not being enough for anybody. I had loved Rule longer and harder than anyone else in my life and that still wasn’t enough for him to look beyond his own hurt feelings and sense of betrayal to work things out with me. I was still pissed that he had spent the week prior to the bomb being dropped trying to act and behave in a way I had never asked for or wanted, but when I was alone at night and crying in bed I had to admit that it was a sweet—if misguided—gesture. I remembered telling him to be aware of how bad things could be if we tried to do this and it didn’t work. Somehow, even finding him in bed time and time again with every skanky girl this side of the Platte River couldn’t hold a candle to this complete freeze-out.
I tried really hard not to worry about what he was doing or who he was doing it with, but every day that passed I became more and more fatalistic. Whatever he had felt for me wasn’t enough to get him past the hurt he was feeling, and it obviously came nowhere near the heart-wrenching emotion I felt for him. As much as it pained me to let it go, I had to get over him. I had to work at moving on because, even if he did get back in touch with me, there was just too great a chance he had relapsed into his old ways, and there was simply no way I would survive that kind of betrayal from someone I cared so deeply about. So instead of languishing, I forced a smile every day, picked back up the shifts I had dropped at work, threw myself into my studies, and spent as much time as I could with Ayden and Cora. I was careful around Cora to give nothing away and she was just as careful to never, ever mention Rule or anything having to do with him.
To say my parents were excited that Rule was no longer in the picture was an understatement. Unfortunately, I had let it slip that we were no longer seeing each other during a less-than-friendly conversation with my mom. My dad was so happy he took my newly repainted BMW and traded it in for a Porsche Cayenne because I had mentioned wanting an SUV for the snow. I tried to refuse it. I didn’t need to be bribed, considering Rule had effectively left me, but the title was in my name and the BMW was already gone, so I reluctantly accepted it. My mom was even worse. She called every day to check on me. The woman who had never had the time of day for me was suddenly overly interested in everything I did and everyone I spent time with. I think she was trying to subtly let me know that as long as I kept unsavory characters out my life, I would eventually gain her approval.
The funny thing was now that Rule was gone, I didn’t want it. I would have taken being disowned and disinherited a million times over if it meant I could just get him to talk to me, just get him to feel one-half