Acceptance (Club X Book 5) (10 page)

Shaking my head, I closed my eyes and savored the feel of my wife next to me for the first time in over twelve hours. “No. All I want is right here and in his bedroom dreaming of the next disaster he has in store for us.”

She didn’t say anything else and with a heavy sigh drifted off to sleep in my arms. I didn’t need another brother. I already had all I needed.

Kane

J
ohn sat in the same
position where I’d left him two days before behind his old desk staring at his laptop. Wondering if he’d even left to get a bite to eat, I joked, “If all this job entails is sitting and surfing through porn, I think I found a new career.”

He looked up at me as I leaned against the doorframe and sneered. “You wish. Take a seat.”

I considered mentioning how I’d staked out Sebastian’s workplace the other night, but I had the feeling John wasn’t in the mood for jokes this afternoon.

“So what’s so urgent that I needed to get down here ASAP?” I asked as I sat down in front of him. “Those were your exact words, weren’t they?”

My question earned me another sneer. “You know, sometimes you’re too much like that younger brother of yours, and that’s not a compliment.”

Never a big fan of Stefan’s, John had more than once butted heads with him on jobs for Club X. My brother’s lack of respect for the job of PI and his bragging that anyone with an internet connection and the ability to use Google could do what John did pissed him off. Not that I blamed him. Stefan’s bragging had brought me to the brink of giving him a good beating more than once.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to step on your toes with my joking. I’m just in a good mood today,” I said, genuinely hoping to smooth over his hurt feelings. A good PI like John was worth his weight in gold. I didn’t want to lose him because I felt like busting ass.

His angry expression softened a bit, and he seemed to study my face for a moment before asking, “Oh yeah? That’s not like you, Kane, so what’s up?”

“Nothing. Just happy at home and happy at work. What more could a man ask for?”

John looked around his dingy office and forced a smile. “I know just what you mean. Living the dream.”

He didn’t go into it, but I had a feeling his life was anything but a dream since his wife left. Quickly, I changed the subject. “So what’s going on? Did you find out something about Sebastian Thorne?”

Nodding, he said, “I did, and I hate to ruin your good day, but I don’t think you’re going to like what I have to tell you.”

I thought back to the hour or so I’d spent with Sebastian and had to admit I wasn’t sure I’d be that unhappy at hearing the news that he wasn’t another of my father’s sons. I imagined Stefan would be disappointed, though.

“Did you find out he’s not related to me?”

John shook his head. “No, he is. I mean, you couldn’t tell that just by looking at him? By the way, I have to say whatever you and Stefan thought you were doing was the textbook definition of not slick, my friend. I was sitting in my car watching the whole thing. It had a real meta feeling to it, you know?”

I hung my head to hide my embarrassment. “I hadn’t planned on approaching him, but you saw how fucked up he was. I couldn’t let him just drive away like that. He might have killed someone.”

“You used to be part owner of a bar, weren’t you? How did you do that job and drive home all the drunks every night?” he asked, busting my balls now.

“Funny. If you remember, I didn’t deal with the bar part. I dealt with the fantasy and sex part. No need to drive guys home because they didn’t get off.”

A smile crept onto John’s face. “Oh, the good old days. Not that I don’t love your swordfish at CK, but I think I miss the perks of working for you when you owned Club X.”

My PI had enjoyed the offerings on my floor of the club a number of times and always left a happy man. Of course, that might have been a contributing factor in why his wife left him for another guy.

“Well, we had to grow up someday. That life skirting the law could only last so long. We all knew Club X had an expiration date.”

John’s eyes grew wide. “About that. Seems it might be in the March family DNA to want to walk that fine line with the cops. Your newest sibling’s hands are a bit dirty.”

This was why I had kept everything about Sebastian away from Abbi and the kids and why I suspected Cash wanted nothing to do with finding some long lost brother of ours. Neither of us cared how hypocritical it seemed for the two former owners of a fantasy club to have no interest in getting into anything that had even the hint of legal problems.

Having a wife and kids you adored did that to a man.

A sick feeling settled into my stomach. I didn’t want to discard Sebastian because he was my brother, and there was dirty and then there was really dirty. I hoped he wasn’t the latter.

“So what are we talking about here, John? A DUI or he likes to get high sometimes? Or something else?”

With a look that made it seem like he shared my sick feeling, John grimaced. “Something else. Stupid twenty-something tricks or smoking a little weed wouldn’t make my face look like it does. No, he’s got himself involved in something a little worse. I don’t know all the details, but from what I can see, he and his friends are thieves. I’m guessing that’s how he affords to rent a house on a cook’s income.”

“Thieves? Like knocking over gas station kind of thieves?” I asked, already hating how this was sounding.

John chuckled. “No, he’s a little higher class than that. He and buddies stick to houses. A little B and E here and there can pay for a lot of stuff. I watched him and two friends hit one two nights ago.”

“Fuck. I had hoped the fall-down drunk act was the worst of him.”

“I’m guessing one of them poses as a pool guy or something so he can find a way in, and then when the coast is clear, he lets his friends in and they grab whatever they can before disappearing. The people who own the house come home to find they’ve been burgled and then later realize they don’t have a pool boy or a gardener or whatever anymore. It’s just clever enough to work for a few months, but he’s going to get caught and soon. If I can watch them pull a job, it won’t be long before the cops are onto them.”

I hated to admit it, but Cash had been right all along. I didn’t want to give up on Sebastian, though. I knew what his life had been, no matter what the circumstances of it were. Growing up not knowing your father or knowing you had brothers wasn’t something he should have gone through. I lived it and it sucked. Maybe if we’d been around, he wouldn’t have gotten into stealing from people.

Or maybe he was just a rotten fucker, even though he came from the same father the three of us did.

“Do you want me to continue with this, Kane, or are you cutting your losses right here?” John asked, interrupting my thoughts about what type of person Sebastian Thorne really was.

I wasn’t ready to walk away from him just yet. Standing, I said, “Keep on it for a little while longer. See what you can find out. Send me all the legal info, though. I want to know the details about who his mother is and those kinds of things, okay?”

“Sure. I’ll get it all together and send it over later. Want me to send it to the restaurant, as usual?”

I thought back to what I’d said to Abbi last night about involving her in this whole Sebastian thing, but things had changed. Knowing the way he lived his life could potentially hurt my family made it impossible to have her with me on this.

I’d just have to make her understand why I had to do things this way if she found out.

Calling Stefan should have been
on my plan for the rest of the afternoon. I knew he’d want in on anything having to do with Sebastian, regardless of what I found out from John about his extracurricular activities. But as much as Stefan wanted to know our new brother, I felt like I needed to go this alone until I found out how far gone the guy was.

Even more, though, was the truth that Stefan had never had to know. He may not have had the relationship he wanted with our father, but he never doubted that he was Cassian March’s son a day in his life. He had no idea what the world felt like without that security.

Whatever else Sebastian was, he and I were alike in that. And to me, that was enough to make him worth more than just one bad, drunken night and a negative report from John.

After driving by CocoNut’s and not finding him there, I drove to his apartment and saw the car we’d seen in the parking lot. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say to him or even what I was doing there, but hearing he was involved in something that would eventually get him sent to jail awakened some older brother feelings I’d never experienced before.

I knocked on the front door and when he opened it, I couldn’t help see the similarity in how we looked. Except for a few minor differences, he was a younger version of me. As I stood there staring at him, I wondered if that’s what my son would look like years from now.

Pushing all the sentimentality out of my head for the moment, I said, “Can I come in?”

He looked me up and down and smiled. “You know, now that I’m sober, it’s pretty hard to miss.”

“What?”

“We could be twins. Well, if you weren’t like ten years older than me. My brothers and sisters don’t even look as much like me as you do. It’s freaking me out a little, to be honest. I’m sort of wondering if you’re me come from the future to tell me something that’s going to save my life.”

“Not exactly, but how about you let me in and we talk?” I asked as I stepped toward him.

“You sure? You move pretty much the same as I do too.”

It was hard not to like him, even though he had a stupid sense of humor. “Trust me. I’m not from the goddamned future, okay?”

Sebastian stepped aside to let me in and closed the door behind me. “Well, if you are, do me, I mean us, a favor and tell me who wins the next few Super Bowls and World Series because I think we should make some money off this whole thing. Since you’re future me, you’ll benefit too.”

I turned to face him and looked directly into his dark blue eyes. “I’m not from the future. Enough with the jokes. I want to talk to you about something.”

Shrugging, he plopped down into the chair and extended his arm to offer me a seat on the couch. “Well, since you aren’t future me that can only mean one of two things. You’re either my father or we have the same father.”

His father? How old did this kid think I was?

“What do you know about your father, who I’m not, obviously?”

He shrugged again. “Not much. My mother said I looked like him, not that I think she knew him all too well. I got the feeling I was the result of a one night stand, but I don’t know for sure. Doesn’t really matter because here I am anyway. So we share the same baby daddy?”

“Yeah, and if you can never call him that again, that would be great. We’re brothers, along with the guy I was here with the other night and another one you haven’t met yet.”

“So? What does that mean?”

Christ, he reminded me of myself a few years back. If someone had come to me and announced he was my brother, I would have told him to go fuck himself and don’t let the door hit him on his way out. As he sat there looking at me with an expression that told me he was completely unimpressed by the news I’d just told him, I couldn’t help but be thankful he wasn’t more like who I used to be.

“Well, what do you want it to mean?”

Sebastian twisted his face for a moment and said, “I don’t know. No offense, dude, but you’re a stranger to me. I get the feeling you care about me being your brother, but since this is all new to me, I can’t honestly say I feel the same.”

“Fair enough. I’m not here to invite you to Sunday dinner with a whole bunch of people you don’t know. I just wanted to let you know who you come from and that there are three other people like you.”

He took a deep breath and sighed. “Okay. I guess since you obviously know more than I do about our father maybe you can tell me about him. What was he like? Was he the kind of guy who let you sit on his lap and read you stories or more of a badass kind of guy?”

Too bad I didn’t know the answer to his question. Not a good start, for sure.

“Well, I didn’t exactly know him growing up either.”

Sebastian looked unimpressed by my answer. “I guess this guy got around. Four sons and he didn’t know either of us. Did he know the guy from the other night?”

“Yeah. He and the other one were his sons by his wife.”

“So three different mothers of four of us. Nice. Dad was a player. I’m guessing then he looked like us. No wonder he got so much ass.”

Damn, he was cocky.

I’d had enough of talking about our father and his sexual behavior. As much as I wanted Sebastian to feel like he had someone in me he could consider a brother, I was more concerned with trying to convince him to give up the stealing.

Unsure how to bring it up, I went with what came naturally. “I know what you’re up to and how you’re making money, and it isn’t working at that restaurant.”

His eyes widened for a moment, showing his surprise at my quick change of topic, but without missing a beat he said, “Oh yeah? You going to go all big brother on me and tell me I shouldn’t be doing that?”

There was that cockiness again. Well, he wasn’t the only one who could play that game. “Yeah, I am. If I could find out about it with little effort, then you aren’t as slick as you think you are. You and your friends are going to get your asses thrown in jail if you don’t stop.”

He stood up and walked over to the door. Opening it, he said, “Don’t let it hit you on your way out, big brother.”

“I’m trying to help you here. Trust me. The mistakes you make today aren’t the kind you want following you for the rest of your life, and spending a few years in jail will follow you.”

“You know, that other guy told me a little about you guys that night, and it seems like the pot calling the kettle black when you sit here telling me about being worried I’m going to get in trouble. You guys ran an illegal club when you were my age. That seems a whole lot worse than grabbing some stuff from a few houses. I’m not sure you have the moral high ground here.”