A TWINGE between my thighs plays out in my slow, sultry walk as I stride in time with Clay’s confident steps towards the outside area. The entire west wall of the house is glass panelling. Through the span of windowpanes, a smaller building is set a few metres from the grassed lawn. A granny flat or a gym. I don’t know which, but it’s lavish.
The abundant lawn stretches for many metres, rolling over a small hill and down. A trampoline—one of those with a protective net—is set up under a large tree thick with foliage. I’ve never been on a trampoline. I hope our children have one of those, too.
In an alfresco of sorts, I spot Max sitting on an outside lounger. Across from him, Cassidy natters sweetly, her strawberry-blonde hair is in a high ponytail, bouncing behind her as she talks.
I can’t hear voices through the glass, but I can see Xander and Bronson both standing over them, their eyes trained on Max. Conversation passes, causing smiles and chuckles. The Butcher brothers are more casual—ordinary— than I’m used to since being with Clay. They are in jeans and tee-shirts, looking every bit young Australian men.
Bronson is painted from his neck to the tips of his fingers in colourful tattoos, and I’m not sure I ever notice just how many there are… And Max has muscles bigger than my head bulging from his upper arms… And Xander looks so perfectly cut, he may have no body fat at all. All the boys blue eyed, dark haired, confident, pinch-yourself-kind-of-gorgeous. So, really, they couldn’t be ‘ordinary’ if they tried.
Despite that, my feet take me impatiently towards them, until I am slightly ahead of Clay, pulling the sliding door open, earning myself the attention of all three Butcher boys and Cassidy.
I rush to Xander when his baby blues land on me and throw my arms around him, warmth from his embrace suffusing me. He’s my friend. I’d do it again. “You’re okay.”
“Hey, girlie.” He holds me to him for a quick moment before pushing me out in front of him. “Now. You listen to me. Don’t ever put yourself in danger for me again. I fucked up. I went out on my own. You are not to blame for what happened. I am, ya hear me?”
Sighing, I nod because he’s right. He did fuck up. “You did fuck up. Don’t do that again.”
He laughs with that-boy-next-door ease, cool and charismatic. The sound bounces around the alfresco in a welcoming way. “Yes, Boss.”
Feeling eyes on me, I look at Max. His left leg propped up on the cushioning, bandages wrapped with care around his thigh, angry red flesh peeking out above and below the white fabric. I swallow and shake my head. “Are you in pain?”
A smirk builds across his face. “Never been better.”
I laugh a little. “You said that like you really meant it.”
He looks at Cassidy, meaning and affection in his grey eyes. “I did.” Then his gaze shifts over my shoulder to Clay, his smirk dropping and his brows weaving. “You here to give me a hard time?”
“I’m here to check on my brothers.” Clay strides over to Xander, cupping his bruised cheeks and checking him over for a moment before kissing both sides. It is a very European gesture. One I have only seen him do a few times. “Are you well?”
Xander nods with his big brother’s palms bracketing his cheeks. “You did the right thing, Clay. You know—”
Clay pulls him to his chest, a firm hold that silences more words between them. “That’s enough. There was no decision without pain.” He releases Xander and focuses his attention on Max. “I won’t take what you did lightly.” Warning wraps around each word. “One day soon, when you’re healed and strong, we will beat that night out of each other in the ring.”
I can’t think of anything worse than seeing the Butcher brothers fight. But Max stares straight at Clay, his eyes meeting the challenge, the warning, in an accepting way. He leans back further into the lounge but stifles a wince that forces Cassidy to inhale a shaky breath as though she was struck with pain at the exact same moment. “You should be in bed, Max—”
“I’m not living in a damn bed for the next two months, little one.” He reaches out and strokes her cheek. “Don’t press this. That’s not me.”
“Let’s play the betrayed brother game another time,” Bronson states coolly but in a way that suggests he’s not going to allow a rebuttal. “Maxipad is being skinned at the moment. I know burns, and that’s gotta feel like he’s losing a layer. Also, I’m hungry. Those two points are not related…” He ponders. “I don’t think.”
Cassidy curls her nose up, her hazel freckles collecting along the bridge. “Gross, Bronson.”
“I know Butch has visited.” Clay keeps his eyes on Max but walks me over to a spare chair, nodding for me to sit down on it. I do as I’m nodded-to-do.
“Yes. Twice,” Cassidy says, pridefully.
Clay stands behind me, resting his hands on my shoulders, his fingers circling the nape of my neck slowly. “Has mother been to visit you?”
Quickly they flick their gazes around the room, bouncing a look of significance between them. It’s deeply personal. Painful too. I can see it hidden in their eyes. Clay notices it; his fingers on my neck have stilled, uncertainty in their frozen tips.
“Why would she visit?” Cassidy asks. Clay’s younger brothers somehow grow larger when she speaks. A visual display of cloaking themselves, averse to the topic.
“I know there are some issues here,” Clay begins smoothly, an aura of authority to his delivery. “She’s made mistakes, boys, but she is your mother.”
“Mistakes?” Cassidy whispers. The anxious way she said that chills my skin.
“Little one, don’t,” Max says deeply.
Clay’s fingers still haven’t moved, haven’t continued in a contented, relaxed way across my skin. Stiff like needles now.
His voice is deep and raspy behind me as he says, “I’m going to need you three to finally explain what the hell the woman who brought you into this world did that is so beyond redemption all three of you despise her. Her life was not easy either. She was taken from England, from her family, dropped in the District and made to raise you three while Butch fucked around. I know she’s cold. But after all she has been through—’
“I don’t despise her! She despises us.” Xander’s words howl around the three brothers like a ghost exorcised from a soul. Goosebumps rush along my arms, raising my little blonde hairs. “She tried to kill us.”
Clay’s fingers twitch. “What do you mean?”
Max’s eyes fall to Cassidy’s paling face. “Go inside, little one. I don’t want you here for—”
“Don’t you dare, Max Butcher.” She shakes her head defiantly. “Don’t you dare. I’m not leaving your side.”
Xander continues, “She smacked us around.”
Oh, God, what is happening…
Smacked them around?
‘—been through with that cunt Victoria.’ Shoshanna’s words leak back into my mind, and my cheeks fall cold.
“She disciplined you,” Clay corrects, and I hate his tone in this moment. Seeing Xander wince, Bronson turn to stone, and Max growl at Clay’s blatant dismissal, I hold my stomach protectively. Something bad has happened to them. Something that they have never shared with Clay. It’s clear in the way that sentence affects them deeply; their reactions all mimic and bar as though they can’t escape the influence.
“Fuck you, Clay. She tried to drown Bronson.” Xander’s face twists in anguish as he points to Max. “She left him in a bathtub until he was so cold his heart was barely beating. She left me in a closet for two weeks and told everyone I was staying at a friend’s house. That’s not even the half of it! She isn’t going to check on Max, Clay. She doesn’t care.”
My hands shake on my abdomen. Clay didn’t know… Then I remember Max’s outburst from a few days ago… “What about when we were just children? Dammit! We needed our big brother! What about then?’
It is as though Clay hears those words as I do, his breathing becoming rough and defensive.
Sadness spreads through my veins like acid. “Clay didn’t know,” I mutter aloud, and they look at me as though I’ve spouted another head. “Why didn’t you tell him?”
“He didn’t want to know,” Max spits out.
“That is not true!” Clay curses through gritted teeth. “What were the circumstances of this? What did you do to—”
“Is there a situation”—Xander steps closer— “that would make locking me in a closet for two weeks a suitable punishment from a mother to a child?”
“No.” Clay drops his hands from my shoulders altogether, balling them into tight, white-knuckled fists. “I only mean that—”
“Would it be a suitable punishment to drown your child if they broke something?” Xander challenges.
“No.”
“Would it be excusable if she was drunk, not in her right mind?”
“Of course not!”
Xander’s eyes fill with tears. “Then why do you need the circumstances and reasons for why this happened—”
“Because that is how I handle things, goddamn it!” Clay shouts, and I jump to my feet.
Turning to touch his shoulder for support, I feel the powerful muscles that are hot, pulsing, and ready. Clay Butcher, a man whose control is unparalleled, sounds and feels as though he may be breaking down.
Clay glances over his shoulder at me, his eyes dropping to my abdomen. “Your brothers will only get in your way,” he utters, and it’s a sentence lost in a memory that sparks through his gaze like wildfire. His eyes shift to Xander again. “You didn’t tell me.”
“The bruises didn’t give it away?” Xander asks, his voice low and broken, forcing my heart to squeeze.
I picture her talking to me by the pool, interrogating me. Needing to please, like always, I thought she was like Clay. Just guarded. Unreadable. Maybe slightly bitter due to her hardships. No.
I was wrong.
I touch my lower belly.
I don’t want her anywhere near you, sweet baby.
“I presumed you’d been in fights,” Clay says angrily, his tone laced with confusion and regret. Then he bites out, “Fuck,” to himself.
Bronson nods once as he says, “So did everyone else.”
“And you didn’t fight back,” Clay states to himself more than to his brothers. “You let her hurt you?”
Bronson hums. “What would you have us do, beautiful brother? Hit our pretty mother back?”
“Butch doesn’t know,” Max says curtly. “We keep it that way. No one knows. No one needs to know.”
Clay nods stiffly and reaches for Xander, who is losing his battle to stifle his anguish. The honesty rips through him. The truth bleeds out as they embrace.
Xander buries his head. “I wanted to tell you so many times. I wanted to go to you so many times.”
Clay holds his little brother, and it. All. Comes. Out. A flood of sentiment, the captive feeling he masks so well, the need to remain strong, to make them strong, all flowing from him.
“I wasn’t there for you.” Clay’s voice is strained. “I know. I’ll make it up to you… If you’ll let me.”
Both men shake slightly as the moment passes between them. A significant moment that binds their pasts, the fork that divided them slowly being bridged. I thought they had him on a pedestal, and maybe they did, but more than that, Clay’s brothers thought he was unreachable, unreasonable, uncaring, maybe… Maybe he was… until now.
Bronson moves over to their shoulders. “I’m getting jelly,” he mocks, hiding his raw response within humour, but Clay doesn’t have his armour up anymore. He isn’t suited and smooth. He’s confused, and I bet confusion in a man like Clay Butcher stokes intensity. He cares, showing this by dragging Bronson into the huddle.
“I’m proud of you,” he says to him. “You were the better big brother.” He chokes on the words. “You were the right one.”
Tears fall from my eyes, watching them unleash the decades-old lies. They always loved each other, but they were torn apart by the actions of a woman who didn’t love any of them.
Clay pulls from their huddle and rounds the chair, heading straight for Max.
“Don’t do that,” Max warns.
Clay ignores him, kneeling at his brother’s side. Max stiffens at the closeness, and my breaths become shallow as my lungs war with whether to breathe relief or surge from my body with panic.
So when Clay presses his forehead to Max’s and squeezes his eyes shut with words and pain moving them below his eyelids, I nearly whimper at the rawness.
Max lifts his arms to shove him away—No.
He doesn’t.
Instead, he tenses on the act of defensiveness but… stops himself. God. My spine steels, and I sense everyone in the alfresco—Bronson, Xander, Cassidy—collectively freeze in case the smallest change in energy, the beat of a butterfly’s wings, jolts Max from accepting this moment.
Max lets Clay stay close. Still stiff and looking like a dog cornered. A pained groan leaves Max’s throat as his big brother holds their foreheads together.
A sob breaks from my lips.
“I understand, brother.” Clay’s strong timbre is guttural and angry and sorrowful—a raw symphony of all those sounds combined. “I understand.”
My heart is exhausted, overthrown by too many emotions, experiencing all of Clay’s as plainly as I feel my own.
I stare at Bronson and Xander, watching them smile at Clay and Max, at Cassidy, who sobs silent tears with her hand over her mouth. There is so much love here. Even when it is stretched thin, under extreme pressure, through tests and betrayals, they never give up on family. I hold my stomach, thinking about never leaving her/him alone in a caravan…
Thinking about the kind of love displayed in front of me between the most powerful men in the city. Thinking about irrefutable loyalties, not giving up on one another—family. And I realise my fairy-tale—an orphan’s fairy-tale—is coming true.
And there it is; my third good thing.
Clay Butcher: number one.
His heir: number two.
Family: number three.
