Page 48 of Master of Chaos
I thought about asking Ethan who the woman was who had called Red to talk to her sister, but didn’t have the strength. I’d find out soon enough.
We circled around the rocky hill where the complex we called the Mountain House was built, right on the crest of the hilltop like a medieval fortress. The top floor was lit up like a Christmas tree. The building itself looked excited for our arrival.
We touched down on the helipad my brother had insisted on building, even after Frey and I gave him no end of shit about it. We’d teased him about being a pampered, capricious billionaire with a golden bathtub, the fleet of Ferraris, a yacht the size of the Titanic, a rocket ship to Mars. All that was missing was a fluffy white Persian cat for him to stroke while he plotted his next moves.
Ethan had calmly ignored our ribbing and done whatever the fuck he pleased. Which, as memory flooded back, was pretty much how he had been his whole life. Stubborn bastard. Fucking genius. Sheltering hero. Bossy, pain-in-the-ass big brother. The memories sparked an intense rush of emotion—and something inside me slammed a boot down on it, killing it dead before I could even figure out what it was.
As if the feeling itself was dangerous. As if it were safer to be numb.
Damn. My new emotional wiring was going to be problematic. I had wired myself up to survive hell on earth. Not… home.
My brother and Amos gripped my arms again and lifted me down, setting me reluctantly onto my fucked up feet.
They reached up for Red, but she’d already jumped out of her own accord.
“Where’s Reggie?” she yelled, her hair whipping wildly.
Ethan pointed down the stairs to the breezeway.
But we didn’t get that far. As soon as we came down the stairs, a tall blond woman came out onto the breezeway, holding a little girl’s hand. The girl had curly red hair, and a thin, pale face with big, shadowed eyes. She wore a pink sweat-suit that was too big for her, and a pair of knitted alligator slippers that came partway up her legs. She’d probably come here barefoot, too. It did something to a person, having no shoes.
“Cass!” the girl yelled, pulling away from the blond woman.
“Oh, my God, Reggie. Baby.”
The two ran to each other, colliding. Red dropped to her knees, and they were sobbing, murmuring incoherently, rocking together. An undifferentiated mass of wild red hair. No emotional blocks there. Lucky them.
Remy turned to me with a quick, satisfied smile. “Some days, I love my job.”
Angela, our longtime friend/housekeeper/butler/general keeper hurried toward me and skidded to a stop, dismay on her round, rosy face. “Good Lord, Shane. What did they do to you? Can I hug you? Would I hurt you?”
I cleared my throat. “No,” I rasped. “Only if you didn’t.”
Angela grabbed me and hugged me carefully, as if I were made of blown glass. “You’re so thin,” she said, her voice tear-thickened. “It’s like you’re made of steel cables wrapped around bent rebar. You need some feeding up, young man!”
“Sounds good to me.” I hugged her back.
I saw Ethan’s face over Angela’s shoulder, and realized that I had not hugged him yet. Like I was afraid of the emotional charge. I’d been shocked too many times.
Speaking of emotional charges. I looked around. “Where’s Holly? And Frey? Aren’t they here?”
“They’re still in Spain, with Jed,” Angela said. “But they’re in the airport already. The second they heard about this, they came running. They couldn’t believe it was true. None of us could. After all this time, having to swallow the idea that maybe we would never know what happened… oh God, it’s been hard on everybody. We missed you so much.” Her voice shook.
I patted her shaking back, my mind automatically seizing on a random piece of information that did not fit. “Jed? What the hell are they doing in Spain with Jed?”
Ethan let out a laugh. “You missed a few notable events, bro. Jed is Frey’s husband now. He’s our brother-in-law.”
My jaw sagged. “Her… he’s… thefuck?”
“Yup,” Ethan said. “They fell in love. Frey was sneaking around doing something she shouldn’t have been doing, trying to find you. He kept her from getting killed. A few different times. She returned the favor, and in the meantime, they fell in love. So they’re married now. Go figure. But they seem really happy. So it’s all good.”
My mind had gone blank at that news. “How in the hell?—”
“How about you boys save the catching up for after you’ve washed off the blood and gotten all stitched up and bandaged?” It was the blonde bombshell, striding briskly toward them. “Dr. Demiguel just arrived.”
“Who are you?” I asked.
She gave me a smile. “I’m Kat.” She gestured at my brother. “I saved his bacon, more than once. After that, he sort of grew on me. So I stuck around.”