Biker Stepbrother - Part Three Read Free

product of his environment and he was so young back then. I didn’t hold it against him for wanting to blacken out those dark memories. He turned to his brother. “Meeting’s in two hours at the club.”
    An antagonizing flicker in his eye caught my attention and gave me a quick shiver. There was something almost sinister about this version of Nash. The one who was all grown up yet still a young pup. The one who’d spent his entire life living in the shadows of his protective big brother yet who had enough influence to make Gray do something, no questions asked.
    My stomach churned.
    “Everly, can you excuse us for a second?” Gray asked. He pointed down the hallway. “My bedroom’s the last door on the right.”
    I felt Nash’s eyes on me as I left their presence, and not in a good way. Something felt…off. I entered Gray’s room and shut the door. The room was sparse and spotless, completely opposite of the conditions he’d grown up with. I imagined it was all intentional. Sort of like a “fuck you” to his shitty childhood.
    I heard their hushed whispers through the paper-thin walls of the apartment, though I couldn’t make out what was being said. It was heated, whatever the topic was. Within minutes, Gray came in and slammed the door, his shoulders hunched and tense.
    “Everything okay?” I asked gingerly.
    He took a seat on the bed, and I crawled into his lap, hooking my arm behind his head.
    “Yeah,” he said.
    “Nash seems…different,” I said. “I guess I didn’t expect him to be such a…”
    “Little prick?”
    “Your words, not mine.”
    “I did the best I could,” Gray said. The burden of raising Nash fell on a man much too young to know how to do it right.
    “I know you did.” I rubbed his back. “You really think Nash doesn’t remember me much?”
    Gray shook his head. “He remembers you. He just doesn’t want to admit it. He hates talking about that time in our lives.”
    I couldn’t shake that feeling. That ‘off’ feeling that leeched onto me the second I was around Nash. His eyes were damn near evil, and he gave me the chills. How did Gray not pick up on that?
    “Listen,” I sighed. “I don’t think you should go to that meeting.”
    “What?”
    “I have a bad feeling…”
    Gray rolled his eyes. “Stop being like that, Everly. You think I can’t hold my own?”
    “I know you can,” I said. “But if it’s a set up then…?”
    “You think my own brother would set me up?”
    I nodded, not wanting to utter the words in case they’d upset him too much.
    “I don’t think he would,” Gray said. His brows furrowed, and he seemed lost in thought for a moment.
    “Stay here,” I said. “I’m not asking either. We can slip out of here and ride away. Never look back. Don’t you want to wash your hands of all this club shit anyway? You’re better than them. You’re better than all those men who walk around like their shit’s bigger than everyone else’s shit.”
    He smirked, amused. “It’s kinda cute how you look out for me, but trust me. I don’t need you to.”
    He stood up and unloaded the content of his pockets onto his dresser top. I leaned back on his bed, scooting my way towards the headboard. Gray tugged his shirt off over his head and threw it into a laundry basket on the floor. A thick, gnarled scar across his shoulder blade served to remind me of a balmy Sunday afternoon when the three of us were kids. We’d been playing outside and Nash and I had gotten into it. We were fighting over a GI Joe or something stupid like that. Nash hit me across the face, drawing blood from my lip. Gray went into a black out rage when he saw it happen and clocked Nash across the face a good three or four times before walking away. We’d thought Nash ran into the house, but he’d run off to the shed and grabbed a pair of garden shears.
    He’d waited until we were back to playing and then he popped out from behind the shed and clipped the back of Gray’s shirt