Chicago looked alien after so much time away from it. Glancing out the window of the bus, Davyn expected sand to fall out of the skies. All he had was rain. Spring wasn't in a hurry that year.

In true military fashion, the Counters had given everyone on his team a five-day leave. They were all expected to return in due time for more instructions and picking up their duties. It was a blessing and a curse at the same time.

Davyn knew he had things to do at home, the most important being to talk to Millie, but being away from the mayhem, from this new and exciting life gave him too much time to think. The twenty-hour bus ride was torture.

He'd dozed off for most of it, but his sleep was plagued with blood, sand and the stench of death. By the time he reached Chicago, he felt as if the bus had run him over repeatedly. He was rumpled and dirty, his entire body stinging with the leftover pain from his wounds. As the wind blew in his face, he decided that he couldn't face Millie like this. He needed a shower and clean clothes and maybe a clearer head. It was bad enough that he'd disappeared for four months, he didn't want to show up looking like a train wreck and have to explain that on top of everything else.

So instead of heading for his apartment, he picked up his pathetic luggage and took a cab to his family's house. It looked empty and dreary in the rain, much like he felt at the moment. Once inside, he couldn't even be bothered to search for Freider or Ron to let them know that he was there. If he was lucky, he'd get to take his shower, change his clothes and walk out before anyone could tell he was there. Sure, he wanted to see Ron, but not right then. First Millie, and after that was sorted out, he would see what he could do for his little brother.

He entered his room and dropped his backpack on the floor, only focusing enough to notice that someone had cleaned up his books. Maybe Freider had finally caved and hired a housekeeper again. Not that he cared. Freider could do whatever he wanted with that house, but before that, Davyn wanted to move all his stuff and not have to set foot in there again.

Pondering on the uselessness of his thoughts, he pulled his hoodie off, and then his t-shirt, already heading for the bathroom door. He froze when it opened and someone stepped out and right into him.

He jumped back and stared, unable to believe his eyes. He was surely imagining it because there was no way Millie was staring back at him with terrified eyes. Then, her hands moved quickly to pull down her shirt, but it was too late. He'd caught a glimpse of her bloated belly. It didn't compute. She'd always been slim and flat. How did she get like that? Unless... But his mind refused to go down that road, to accept the obvious because he wasn't an idiot and knew exactly what that was, what it meant.

"I was thinking, maybe we should go out for diner tonight--"

Davyn whipped around to face Freider who'd stopped in the doorway, glancing from him to Millie. The shock on his face took only seconds to morph into pure glee.

"Oh, you're back." His voice didn't reflect the savage pleasure in his eyes. "I see you've met my wife."

Time seemed to stop as Davyn stared at the victory written all over his brother's face. He'd fallen asleep on the bus and was having the trippiest nightmare. There was no other explanation for it.

The silence was deafening and it was obvious that Freider expected an answer to his statement. Davyn had nothing more intelligent than, "Your what?"

Freider walked over to Millie, and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "My wife. Did you get hit in the head?" He tilted his head, an expression of fake worry on his face. "Comte to think of it, you don't look so well. Did you get hurt?"

Davyn couldn't find the words to describe how utterly senseless this entire situation was. This had to be a nightmare. There was no way that Millie would be in his house, married to Freider out of all people.

"You should excuse him, honey. He's not usually this slow," Freider said, turning to Millie. "Though this could be plain rudeness, and he's very capable of that."

She pursed her lips, obviously trying to keep a straight face. There was so much guilt on it, and it was that tiny little detail that snapped him out of the reverie. Unlike everything else, the guilt made sense and it turned everything into reality. But it shouldn't be like this. She knew what he'd been through. Even if he couldn't share the specifics, he'd given her enough clues to be reassured. Unless...

"The letters," he managed to choke out.

Freider tilted his head, a tiny worry crease between his eyes. "I'm not sure I understand what you mean."

The hell he didn't. He was supposed to find her and give her the letters, not find her and marry her and knock her up. Davyn's eyes moved towards Millie's stomach as rage and misery sank into his bones at the same time.

"Ah yes." Freider let out a little laugh. "I see you've noticed the addition to our family."

He'd noticed alright. "This isn't funny." His voice sounded gruff, but less dazed. "If you're trying to make a joke..."

"A joke? Why would this be a joke?"

Because it was the only thing it should've been. Nothing else. And with the realization that it was not, something inside Davyn's brain seemed to snap.  All the misery and the exhaustion manifested into his fist flying directly into Freider's face, knocking him over. Millie screamed and scrambled out of the way.

"You son of a bitch! You knew!"

"Easy there," Freider grumbled through a mouthful of blood. "It's your own mother you're insulting." 

Davyn couldn't care less as he continued to pound every inch of Freider he could reach. Every hit landing seemed to patch a little bit of Davyn's shattered reality, but it ruptured again after he withdrew his fist. Freider made a half-assed attempt to resist, to fight back, but he had no training, so it was embarrassingly easy to move around his defenses. Millie kept screaming, begging him to stop, calling out his name. He didn't want to think about her, how she was part of this, too.

His body screamed in protest, his muscles burning, his vision blurry. He was so tired of everything, and yet, he couldn't stop. But it made his sloppy and Freider managed to catch his wrist.

He glared at him, blood covering the lower half of his face. "You think this changes anything? You can beat me up all you want. It won't make her my wife any less. It won't remove my child from her womb. I've won."

The words were like a bucket of cold water over him. Even if all he wanted was to extinguish the disgusting light from Freider's eyes, he forced himself to get off his traitorous snake of a brother and stand again. His knees buckled, so he held on to the bed. His vision swam and he hoped to God he didn't have tears in his eyes.

Freider raised into a sitting position, wiping the blood off his face with the back of his sleeve. "That's right. Get the hell away from us, you psycho."

Davyn couldn't answer that. He didn't know what to do beyond murder Freider right there and then, but a part of him screamed that it would be too easy and not enough. Because he wasn't alone in breaking him. Millie was helping him stand, holding him up, tears streaming down her cheeks. The pain wiggled its way through the anger, nestling inside him like rot, eating away at his sanity. After everything he'd been through, this couldn't be what he'd returned to.

"And if you ever come anywhere near my family again," Freider continued, his voice growing stronger. "I'll tell the police that you're Snitch Gravel, family reputation be damned. And then you'll spend the rest of your miserable life in jail."

Then there was that. Another dagger plunged deep into what was left of his heart. The ghost of problems long forgotten. "No one cares anymore," Davyn said, his voice low.

"Oh, that's what you think! You might not care since you've been away getting into more trouble, apparently, but around here, people are still out for blood. After all the people you've killed."

"I didn't... I..." He stopped once Millie caught his attention.

Sudden steel filled her gaze, nihilating the guilt and turning it into fear combined with hatred. And in that moment he realized that he'd truly lost her. She'd believed everyone else over him. She'd chosen her side and the betrayal hurt almost as much as her bearing Freider's child. As much as he tried to keep it together, his chest ached and it felt like something inside it had cracked and lodged splinters into every cell.

"Oh, yes you did. We all know you did."

Freider was right about one thing. It didn't matter that he didn't do it if everyone thought he did, if he would be trialed and sentenced to jail because Baron would most certainly throw him under the bus. 

This was over and he'd lost.

The thought infiltrated his mind like poison, threatening to throw out the tiny bit of sanity he had left. Suddenly, all he could think about was death, pain and failure. Failure to keep everyone safe, failure to keep anyone on his side. In his corner. She swore she would always be in his corner, no matter what.

It had all fallen apart, and all he could see was blood. On Walt's neck, on Freider's face. Omar, Ahmed, Edwards. Harrison throwing up. The blood on his face and on his hands which would never disappear no matter how hard he scrubbed his skin. The feel of the jewel against his palm.

Millie pregnant, married to Freider. Out of all the people in this world, she had to marry Freider. He was right. He'd played dirty and won. And Davyn was damned if he would let him get away with it.

"You'll pay for this," he said between his teeth. His glare drifted to Millie. "Both of you."

Freider struck his arm out to push Millie behind him. "Are you going to prove yourself to be the killer we both know you are?"

The thought of it brought a smile to Davyn's face and even he could tell it was twisted and cruel. "Oh no, dear brother, I won't kill you. That would be too easy. I will hurt that which you love most and in ways you couldn't possibly imagine. I will find your weakest spot and I will hit it so hard to you'll feel it in your very marrow."

Freider took half a step back, but caught himself. He squared his shoulders and puffed out his chest. "Is that a threat?"

"It's a promise, you overconfident imebecil." It was much more than that. It was a blood oath. Freider's blood. Walt's blood. His own blood.

He grabbed his t-shirt off the floor and shoved it back on. It soaked up Freider's blood off his chest. He then put his hoodie back on, the picture of calm, and headed for the door. The promise he'd made somehow managed to bring a strange form of balance to his torn up life.

Purpose. He still had purpose.

"That's right. You'd better run and never come back!" Freider called after him. "You're not welcomed here."

Davyn wasn't listening. Maybe there were other words, but he didn't care. He'd meant what he'd said and his mind was already whirling with potential punishments.

No, not yet. It's too early. He'd see it coming.

A part of him considered simply dragging Millie away from him and see if he could do anything about it. But it would mean having to be near her. Her. The betrayer. The disappointment. She'd forsaken him and crawled into his brother's bed the moment they hit the lightest snag.

She had to pay, too. She deserved it even more than him. If only he didn't still love her.

Give it time. It will morph into hate. The disappointment will kill it.

Like in a trance, Freider's voice still ringing in his ear, he opened the door to Ron's room. It was dark and empty. Just to make sure, he turned on the light, but it was obvious no one had been in there for a while. He slammed the door shut in his wake and found himself facing Freider in the hallway again.

"Where's Ron?"

Freider skidded to a halt, obviously intending to fake-chase him out of the house. "Get the hell out!"

"Answer the question or I'll break the rest of your face."

Freider's gaze moved past his shoulder for a fraction of a second before he frowned. "He's in rehab. He kept doing drugs, even after everything."

Baron was dead. "Motherfucker," Davyn said under his breath and headed down the stairs.

As long as he was there and his life was destroyed, he might as well face this clusterfuck as well. It would be a welcomed distraction from the hurricane raging inside him.

When he exited the house and slammed the door behind him so hard the windows rattled, he didn't feel the need to look back.

That part of his life was over. It was up to him to decide what he would do with the rest of it.

♣

Maxi couldn't breathe. From the moment she'd come out of the bathroom and ended up face to face with Davyn, her throat clogged up and she had no idea why she was not dead, why the world hadn't imploded.

The fight between Davyn and Freider, the words the two exchanged, it opened the doorway to a truth she should have been able to notice on her own.

Davyn and Freider were brothers.

That's why Freider felt familiar. This Ron was also Davyn's brother who had been in the hospital after he'd ODed. That very room in which she'd spent the past months was Davyn's room. Crazy Grace was Davyn's mother who went insane after his father died.

Everything had been right in front of her and, like a moron, she'd chosen to avoid it, skirt around it. And just like that, she'd ended up married to the brother of the one she actually loved. No wonder Davyn was pissed.

But even if his rage was justified, it didn't make him less terrifying. The moment he'd jumped upon Freider, it felt like Davyn was gone and Snitch Gravel had taken his place. His threat, as nonspecific as it was, had turned her blood to ice.

She knew him. He was brilliant and obsessive. Whatever he would come up with, it would be effective and devastating. She had no idea how Freider had the courage to walk out after him and make sure he was gone. When he came back, she was shaking, trying to find one tiny reason why his threat shouldn't paralyze her.

"He's gone," he said, wiping at the blood on his face.

"I..." Her teeth clattered. "You're... You're brothers?" She couldn't say anything else because that knowledge had shattered everything.

Freider frowned. "Yes, but..." He narrowed his eyes. "He's your ex boyfriend, isn't he? The one you told me about."

They'd never covered this. Ever since she'd started accepting his advances, they'd stopped talking about her former relationship altogether. There was no point discussing it any further. And still, she couldn't answer, the knot in her throat too large to allow words to get out.

He didn't seem to need any confirmation, because his frown only deepened. Still, he was silent, wiping the dripping blood off his chin from time to time. The iciness in his eyes and in his posture was almost as frightening as Davyn snapping. Even so, the more they stood there in silence, the more the events registered and panic overwhelmed her.

"You're brothers!" she choked out.

Freider gave a small jerk as her words brought him out of his own reverie. "Don't tell me you didn't know."

"I didn't! I didn't know! If I did--"

He scoffed, and it silenced her. "Please! We have the same last name. As much as I hate it, we also look alike. And everything I've told you about my family..." He narrowed his eyes as though daring her to tell him that she was that stupid.

Tears filled her eyes and she turned away. She couldn't admit that even if she loved Davyn with every fiber of her being, she'd never known his last name, that she hadn't bothered to ask more specific things about his family. It hadn't been stupidity, it had been an all-consuming desire for things to be alright. For everything not to go wrong. But it had.

No, not yet. Because as she silently cried to herself, a sudden realization made the entire debacle more bearable. If they're brothers, if the baby ends up looking like Davyn, it would be the family genes.

She had that. She still had that.

Unless Davyn made good on his threat and ended them both before they could enjoy their family.

No. Davyn would never hurt me. No matter what he says, he won't.

A shiver ran down her spine as she remembered her encounter with Snitch Gravel. Back then, she'd been terrified and found his actions unforgivable. Now, she had to believe that everything he'd done was to indirectly protect her from very dangerous men. He had always protected her. He had become Snitch Gravel for her. His threat was empty. All she had to do was fix matters with Freider and her plan could go on. She could still have her happy ending.

So she sniffed and wiped her eyes, then turned to her husband.

"This is such a mess," she said. "But it doesn't change anything. Not that I fell in love with you, that we got married or that we're having a baby. And we're going to be happy and raise our family."

Her words brought a smile to Freider's face and he no longer looked scary. He walked over to give her a short hug. "That's the spirit. He can't touch her. He's all words." He pulled away, his hand over his nose. "I have to get this cleaned up. It hurts like hell."

"I'll help you!"

As they both headed into the bathroom, Maxi's stomach dropped. Davyn was many things, but he'd never been all words. He was a man of action.

He would never hurt me.

Because despite everything, she knew he loved her and would love her forever.

♣♣♣

Well, things went to hell. And Maxi is using her newly found superpower of denial to fix everything in her head.

The threat has been placed and I'm certain Davyn is all words. But even so, rejoice! Baron is going to be paid a visit as well! Aren't things wonderful?

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