The Five Sons of Brent Star

Chapter Six

Mr. Hartswigen left, and I walked the library, running my hands over the spines. The library seemed to be organized by category.

Classics with classics. Sci-fi with sci-fi. It even had a romance section. I wanted to sleep in this room. It was divine.

Ian stepped back into the library.

"You like upsetting my brothers." He said.

"I didn't mean to," I said to him. "I had no clue what your father had planned."

Ian just stared at me.

"You can go ahead and ask me," I said to him.

He looked at me, confused.

"Your brothers already asked at the first will reading." I swallowed and said, "I did not sleep with your father."

It was the first time Ian laughed in front of me.

"I knew that. My father was an interesting man. My brothers probably didn't realize after my mother that he did not find another person. He rarely dated."

It was the first time I had heard anyone bring up Mrs. Star. She had passed away two weeks after the twins were born—a complication from childbirth that was caught too late.

Ian and the twins had a twelve-year age gap. Ian was twelve when his mother passed away.

"Did you stay in touch with your father?" I asked.

"No. But a zebra doesn't change its stripes. Why are you here doing this?"

I stopped browsing and turned to look at him.

"To be honest, I do not know. I want to write his story. It seemed so important to him in the end."

"And if I leave and decide not to partake in it all?"

"That would be entirely up to you. But your dad made the rules pretty clear. You all stay, or no one gets his inheritance. And with our conversations already. I think I would be looking at anti-gun tree-hugging activists to give your father's money too. Just to stick it to you."

"Touché. Remind me to stay on your good side." 

There was a knuckle knock at the door. The door opens, and it is one of the twins. The sporty twin that seemed to like football.

"I have to ask," I beat him to talking, "which twin are you?"

"Zach," he does not smile. "Now I have to ask, how did you do it?"

Roscoe comes over and sits down in front of me, and growls.

"He is trained on social cues?" Ian asks, looking at Roscoe and then at me.

"He can be a tad protective," I say.

"But the night I came and got you. He laid in bed and didn't do anything."

I shrug. "He did not see you as a threat."

Ian glares at me as if that is the most ridiculous thing he has heard. He looked like a walking soldier, big and strong.

"So, how did you do it?" Zach asked, not being deterred by Ian and my conversation.

"I showed up. Three times a week. Monday, Wednesday, and Sunday. He would talk to me for a couple of hours while I cooked for him. I didn't even know he had this place. I had no clue any of this would be happening."

"Why don't you quit with the Bambi woe is me look. Just hand it back over to us."

"I wish I could, but the paperwork I signed was a mile long. It also stated if I did not take it, I was to sell it, and the proceeds would go to charity." That part I had skimmed over, it appeared his father did not want the sons to have the estate.