Another's Demise

Brothers in Arms

Cameron

"I was right to never like you," Theo's gruff voice reverberated around the car, "All this shit you got my sister into." Itturned out that Vincent Torres had lied through his teeth when he said thatTheo Mortello was imprisoned by him. I hated to admit it but Theo would not beeasy to capture. Vincent had thought the mere possibility of Theo's capture whohave Alara come with him, and perhaps it would have had Mel not gotten her outof there.

I had made sure that Echo had fortified the line before speaking freely, not welcoming the laughing glance from Leo in the passenger's seat at Alara's brother's words.

"If she had never met you-"

"This would have still happened." I asserted, my hands grasping onto the wheel, veins throbbing at the tension between my palm and the metal beneath, "She would still have been the Blood Queen. I'd venture to think it would have been much worse if Alara and I weren't married."

Theo grunted in response.

"How's Connor?" I asked, my tone softer at the thought of my younger brother, the one who I did not know existed until the last year.

"He is good, he is with Kayla and Owen alongside your Mother, it's good for us to be split between multiple safe houses and the Wolfsbane is the second most fortified."

"Let me guess," Leo piped in, "Yours is the most."

"I like you much better than Grayson," was Theo's only retort.

Which gave Leo the ammunition to grin wickedly at me in mockery.

"Theo likes me better than you," he taunted as though we were still children on a playground.

"I couldn't care less."

"You're so jealous right now, because I have a new friend," Leo just hours before had been pummelling the shit out of the world's most dangerous mafia leader and now he was acting like a child.

But in all honestly, I would not have it any other way.

"How long will it take for her to arrive?" Theo ignored Leo's remark.

"I can't say, I have not been in contact with either of them."

"But this is fortified line," it was Echo's voice that wandered through the call, calm and concerned.

"Yes, it is but Alonso Torres has a knack for finding people."

"And he's listening to this call right now isn't he," Echo pieced together, "Shit."

"Shit." I tapped the steering wheel twice, the line dropping. But in all fairness the line was never there.

I stared down at the device crumpled in Leo's hand.

"A bit self-indulgent wasn't that, Leo?"

He only smirked, pressing his hand over a button that had a scrawled TM on it.

"What, I have always liked Leo better," Theo's voice retorted, but there had been no call to Theo at all. No conversation in which Echo realised that the call was being listened in on, because there wasn't one to listen in on.

Only Leo, making good on his theatrical personality. In another life he would have starred in a musical, I was sure.

Then he leaned forward, Echo's voice whispering in my ear, "How do we know they're not still listening?"

"Because Alonso Torres may be good at what he does, but Echo is unbeatable. Alonso could tap into that call because we let him. He can't hear this. Alara still goes to Theo but the Falco, Vincent especially thinks there is no chance that, that is where she is going.

Leo unclasped the mike that wound itself through the black material of his shirt, the wire slipping out as he tucked the device Echo had meticulously created back into his pocket.

"You're going to crush it."

"No, I'm putting it in a safe place."

I turned to him a touch of a smirk playing on my lips, "Your pocket isn't a safe place."

"Yeah," he challenged, interlacing his fingers and placing them behind his head, "Remember when we were kids, and we would see who could pickpocket the other."

I groaned already knowing where this line of thought was going, "That-"

"Ah Ah," he tutted, "No one and I mean no one could ever steal anything off me. My pockets," he jammed his hands back into them pulling a weathered coin free and flicking it into the air, "Are the safest place there could possibly be," he finished, catching the coin in his hands with a flourish.

"There was one person who was able to though wasn't there?" my eyes landed on his ring, the silver band winking in the rising sunlight.

"She stole much more than loose change." His smile waned only for a moment before it was as bright as it always was, Leo always smiling never allowed a moment to just be, "She managed to steal Alara too. Right under Vincent's nose." He laughed boisterously, "The one I broke!"

"He's not going to forget that you know."

"I count on it, no one talks about my wife like that."

"Fiancé," I corrected.

"Oh cry me a river, we both know you were calling Alara your wife in your head ever since you saw her."

I could feel the tick in my jaw, the muscle that feathered as I thought of it. The first day we had met.

Not the day our arranged marriage was set before us.

That day when we were younger that had faded into the edges of time, that didn't really feel significant enough to remember until I had seen her again.

Alara Mortello.

Lara she had told me all those years again when she had suckered punched a boy for bullying her best friend. A year apart we were, never interacting before that. But I had met her with mud on her knees and blood on her hands.

A fool of a boy had tried to hurt her whilst her back was turned but I reached him first.

Lara

That was the last we saw of each other in childhood, I had promptly been expelled the next day after taking the fall, saying it was I who had broken the poor boy's arm instead of her.

But Leo was right, I always saw her as my wife.

And now, look at us.

Look at the hell that had poured upon us, the hell I had raised to save her only to end up singeing her soul.

"Hey man," Leo was hardly ever serious but when he needed to be he was, "You're going to get her back. I saw the way she looked at you. You can't just erase that."

"She's not erasing it though Leo," I muttered, "She's ignoring it."

"Yeah, and every time you have ignored me, did it work?"

"Never."

"Well there's your answer. You can ignore something, and it will still be there nagging at you, planting itself in your heart. Until one day you face the music, and you acknowledge it." He sighed, "She loves you and that's not going away, no matter how much time you give it."

"So, what you're saying that Alara's love for me is just like you."

"Exactly."

I shook my head a breathy chuckle leaving me, "Leo."

"Yeah."

"Thank you."

"Don't sweat it." He leaned forward peering over the dashboard, "And perfect timing it seems we are here."

Before us was a dour looking house, made of cinderblock and misery.

"Suits him doesn't it," Leo remarked slamming the door closed, "You know he's going to try and kill you as soon as you walk out of that door."

"He can try."

We skirted forward, but before my knuckles could ever reach to rap against the door it was yanked open.

"What the fuck are you doing here Grayson?"

"Your leg healed just fine, Cole."