62 | Brothers

**GABRIEL**

“You did what?” I screamed into the speaker while my fingers tightened around the steering wheel of the car. My control was slipping. Every second of every moment, I fought against the idea of Sienna being in trouble.
Deep down, I could sense it. I could feel her pain, her fear, and her helplessness. And I could not fucking no anything about it.
“Gabe…listen…” Marco tried his best to pacify me, but the ship had already sailed.
“Marco, I swear I will kill you,” I gritted, trying too hard not to run out of control with the car.
“Lachlan has better contacts in that area,” he reasoned.
“It’s bloody Chicago!” I shouted. “You own the fucking city!” It was true. There wasn’t a single corner of the city that was not known to Marco. He was bloody powerful. And yet he thought better to get my brother involved in my shit.
“Goddamn it! Will you calm down?” he snapped. “I didn’t have enough time to see this through. By the time I had found out that she was going to be auctioned, it was too late. Lachlan was happy to help.”
“Of course, he was.”
“Call him,” Marco urged. “Talk to him.”
Lachlan was one person I wanted to stay away from. He was my past - a past I was hell-bent on changing. And no matter how far I had run away, it looked like my sins had come back to haunt me in my reality.
And if Lachlan has Sienna, there was no easy way to bring her back.
“Where is Sienna now?” I asked, slamming on the accelerator.
“The last time he had texted me, he assured me that he would take care of the problem. Your brother is a hound when he wants to be, and you know that.”
Like I didn’t know. There were at times I felt like he was better than me. And as a brother, I was proud. Incredibly so. But at the same time, I knew that Sienna’s life was on the line. And if Lachlan had found out what she meant to me, he would not hesitate to use her to get to me.
I heard Marco mumble something over the phone on the other side.
“What?” I asked.
“Lachlan just texted. Umm…”
“And?”
“She is safe.”
There was something in his tone that suggested otherwise. “What else?”
He took a pause for a long second. “He bought her in the auction for a million bucks.”
“You got to be kidding me…” Shit.
“And he texted an address for you to meet him. I have forwarded you.”
Double shit.
“I will deal with him.” With that, I snapped the call and crashed the speed limit.
To hell with sanity.

**XXX**

I didn’t need to look into the phone and confirm the address because I already knew the place where he would want to meet me. My brother was obvious, if not discreet. The world might know a different Lachlan Wellard, but I have seen him grow from a boy to a man, and I was keenly aware of every shade of his villainous spirit.
When I had pulled the car through the gates of the Wellard Mansion, an unsettling feeling pooled in the pit of my stomach. The last time I was here, I was a different man.
I took a deep breath, sucking in the cold air of Chicago. It was only the beginning of fall, but it was still cold enough to see my breath in the air. It was like walking through a warzone of memory.
Lachlan has not changed a single bloody thing in this place. Everything was as I had once wanted. This was my past, a place I had buried far too deep in my mind to recall the details.
I took a long, deep breath and headed straight into the mansion. And no sooner did I step into the place, looking around for Sienna, did I hear the voice.
“Looks like you have not forgotten your way.”
I turned around and saw him standing at the crest of the staircase. Our gazes locked for a moment as if time had come to a standstill before he broke the contact and descended in slow, measured steps.
“Lachlan.”
“Welcome home, brother,” he said simply, crossing over to perch down on the wing-back. He sat with his leg propped over the other knee and wore a look of triumph. In front of him, two glasses and a bottle of whiskey sat in the middle of the table. My favorite whiskey.
“I will get to the point. Where is Sienna?” I asked.
He smirked, and his eyes glazed over with a look I knew that only brought trouble. “You don’t beat around the bush, do you? She is something, I wonder.” He reached for the bottle, poured two glasses, and raised one for himself.
I tried my best to control my temper, but it was fraying every second. “Lachlan, I won’t ask again,” I growled.
“She is safe, for now. That’s all I can tell you,” he stated, holding up the glass before taking a sip.
I stomped over to him, slamming the polished wooden table before him as the drink spilled a little from his glass. “What do you want?”
Lachlan was completely unbothered at first. “Answers,” he said. “Why? What made you so reckless and selfish that you decided to leave everything behind and turn yourself into a celibate freak? A Catholic priest, for fuck’s sake?”
“There was blood on my hands…”
He shot me a glare. “Don’t you dare! You were ruthless before, brother, and still now, you are ruthless. If you think putting yourself into a black gown would somehow purify yourself, you are fucking wrong.” He shook his head slowly. “You left here to punish me. To punish me for the sins of our father…”
“Lachlan, don’t,” I warned.
“Why are you so afraid of the fucking truth?” he challenged.
There was *only so much* I could take.
It took me months, years of complete detachment to push the incidents of my past behind me, if not entirely forgotten. And standing here, with Lachlan, forced the memories back into my mind once again. It wasn’t healthy. It wasn’t normal.
And I couldn’t take it anymore.
It was that animalistic feeling I had wanted to avoid for six bloody years.
So when he challenged me once again, I pushed back. My fists balled, and a punch landed in his jaw squarely. What enraged me even more, was the fact that Lachlan did not dodge. He did not even bother to fight back.
“I know,” he panted after I punched his guts. “I found out about your birth. I know that your mother was raped…and that our father was a monster.”
I closed my eyes and breathed through flared nostrils.
But Lachlan kept provoking. “He wanted nothing to do with your mother. Just you.”
There was only so much I could take before becoming the man I was before.
I grabbed him by the collar and thrashed, only to have him retaliate for the first time. Still, now, Lachlan was no match for me because he had always harbored the notion of beefy muscles and old-school tricks. Guards rushed over, but they knew better not to interrupt.
For the next few minutes, adrenaline pumped hard into our bloodstream as we punched, kicked, and tackled each other to the floor. Actions replaced the words, and all that filled the air were grunts and curses. And final, when both of us were bloody and exhausted, did we stop.
We lay panting on the floor with ragged breaths and broken glasses strewn around us.
“I have always treated you as my brother,” Lachlan said, breaking the silence.
“So did I…”
“But that man…fuck! And you just took up and left because of him,” he blamed. There was a pain in his voice, and now I understood why. “No call, message, or even a fucking note. I didn’t deserve this, Gabe. I didn’t. We have always had each other’s back.”
“I am sorry.”
“Fuck your sorry,” he snickered. “I don’t give a damn to your half-ass apology.”
“Lachlan, I am really sorry, whether you believe it or not. I did not know what to do. I was angry. I was lost. And I needed time.”
“Taking time off means taking a fucking break and not a bloody priesthood.”
I closed my eyes and shook my head before whispering the words, “I did not want to be like him. I did not want to be a monster.”
Six years ago, the day I had put my father to rest and buried him with honors before I found out that he had raped my mother. That not only I was a bastard child, but I was also the product of his violence. For years, my mother had suffered at his hands. She was his mistress, a spare.
And I was an heir he counted on. He made me a version of himself - a man neck-deep in sin and debauchery.
While I had a penchant for BDSM, a dominance I enjoyed, my father was different. He got off on violent sex and blood, and the fact that my mother was one of his many victims made me hate myself all the more.
And worst of all, I had already inherited every speck of my father’s personality.
I had killed, maimed, and covered up his crimes. I had taken care of his empire and made us invincible; all the while Lachlan was merely a boy. And when he needed me the most, I had left.
He lost his father and a brother on the same day, and over the years, it has only made him what he was today.
*Vicious*.