Page 233 of Five Brothers

“I’m surprised you agreed to meet here.”

“Well,” Trace says. “We wanted to see inside.”

And then he proceeds to look up and around, wide-eyed, like if we pinch our pennies, maybe we can golf here someday, too.

“Wow,” he coos.

I contain my smile but feel the pride all the same.

“Excuse us for being late.” I set my helmet down on the round table and sit in an empty seat. “We were out on a joyride.”

Jerome Watson eyes me, amused. “All of Tryst Six, huh? Oh. No, I forgot. There’s only five left now.”

For now, fucker.

My siblings pull up chairs from around the room, and while I’m tempted to take a long look around the infamous place in person, I refrain. They don’t need a reminder that I’ve never been here before. They know.

“Let’s hurry this up.” Ames pulls out a chair, unbuttons his suit jacket, and sits. “The markets are about to open again in Tokyo. I need to get on the phone.”

I never noticed the smell of the leather of all the Jaeger jackets—mine, Army’s, Dallas in Iron’s, and Liv in my old one (Traceprefers a T-shirt)—but I smell it now. The muscles in my arms feel ten feet thick.

An attendant stands at the wall behind Ames, his hands locked in front of his body as if he’s ready to pour a drink or pull out a chair.

I glance at the only other person at the table, and my pulse kicks up a notch.

Lachlan Conroy.

I knew who Krisjen’s father was, but I would’ve known him anyway.

She has his eyes. Why is he here?

“The same deal is on the table,” Ames starts off, and it takes a minute to bring my gaze back to the meeting at hand. “Two hundred acres, you know what I’m willing to pay,” he states. “I’m playing ball, because this is faster than going through the government, but Icango through the government.”

I don’t have the authority to sell the land. It’s owned by several Sanoa Bay residents. But I am head of the community council, and I’m just about the only reason they haven’t sold their stakes yet. I can persuade them.

Or dissuade them.

I study the scar on his jaw. A groove with three lines. Like a shooting star. It’s faint. Not the first thing you see when you first meet him, but I’ve known that it was there for a while.

His eyes gleam. “I will get what I want, Macon.”

“For three times the price you’re offering to pay me.”

“What I’m offering to pay you is twice what they will when they take your land.”

He’s not wrong. He knows it, and he knows I know it.

I avert my eyes to the side, but I sweep over the corner of the room, at the top, near the ceiling. The fiber-optic lens hidden in the stag antlers. It records everything.

And judging from the things that just happened in this room last night, I’m guessing they don’t know it’s there.

“That star on your jaw.” I tap my fingers on the table. “I have the same scar. It comes from my father’s ring when he hits you.”

Army shifts to my right, and I see him look at me. None of them know where I got mine. I have a lot of scrapes. We all do.

“It was an accident with me,” I tell Ames. “We were both upset, I hit him first, but not many people have that mark. What did you do to him?” I cock my head. “He wasn’t typically violent.”

My father hit me twice in my life, and both times he was defending himself. He forgot he was wearing the ring that day.