Page 134 of Discretion at Its Finest

She always called. Always cared more than she should… Had the biggest heart in the room, the easiest to love, the hardest to make hurt.

When she married Killian, she married into the family net she’d always dreamed of having. People who showed up and who loved her. People who didn’t disappear into the shadows when life got hard.

On the night of her wedding all those years ago, she kept looking back at me all throughout the reception and the ceremony, like she was afraid I’d slip out the door and never come back.

I almost did.

Crowds, noise, happiness… it was too much… especially when Raymond and Jamie showed their faces for the first time indecades. And with the biggest smile like they hadn’t abandoned us, my little sister took in their empty apologies and lies.

I didn’t.

Because everything good feels like a lie when you grew up waiting for someone, anyone to show up.

Still, I allowed her to tug me into pictures, sticking me in the middle of the wedding party, introducing me to every Russel connection like I wasn’t a loaded gun sitting at their table.

And she tried so hard.

But I always let her down. Even now, after everything she did for me and after everything I didn’t do for her.

Brielle spent the last few years acting like the older sibling. Texting me. Calling, sending food to the warehouse I hid away from the world in, putting me on guest lists, forcing me into family outings, dragging me into her world of love and warmth like maybe it would fix me.

Likeshecould fix me and undo two decades of shit with a hug.

She built this massive life, with kids, love, traditions, holidays, a husband who’d kill for her… and she still had room left over to worry about me.

I pinched the bridge of my nose as my chest tightened. With guilt? Rage? I could never tell the difference.

Eventually the buzzing stopped.

Good. I didn’t have the energy to pretend tonight.

Pushing off the floor, I rolled out my shoulders, my muscles aching from the push-ups I forced myself through. Walking over to the edge of the cot I slept on, I pulled on my shirt that I’d thrown on it carelessly a few hours ago, my eyebrows furrowing as I glanced down at my phone buzzing once more.

It was a voicemail. From an unknown number. I didn’t care to listen to it. I’d had my fair share of unknown numbers trying to get in contact with me, from getting rid of every burner I’downed when army officers started pinpointing my location to Calvin Lockwood keeping tabs on me.

Being under Killian’s watch now, I was a free man, no longer needing to hide my identity from the government for going AWOL after being deployed.

So against my better judgement, I picked up the phone to check it. The second I hit play, I knew I shouldn’t have. But the sound of her voice filled the silence of the warehouse so loud, I almost felt paralyzed.

The message played—

“Hi, Lovebug…”

—and my entire body froze. My breath punched out of my chest in one violent exhale. The warehouse blurred. My knees threatened to give out, but I refused to let them.

“It’s been a while,”she continued, my heart lurching out of my chest, my mind racing at the sound of her voice, now older… softer… but unmistakably hers.

She kept talking. I knew she did—her voice moved, kept shaping words, but I wasn’t hearing them anymore. I had no idea what she said after those first two sentences.

My brain didn’t let me have it.

Everything inside me was roaring.

My pulse drowned her out. My mind split open like an old wound, vision tunneled, ears ringing. Her voice warped into something I couldn’t hold onto, couldn’t process, couldn’t let myself hear.

And then… the voicemail clicked off and silence filled the room.

I stared at the phone like it might explode, scared her voice would crawl out of the speaker and choke me all over again.