Xavier's POV
"This is your plan?" I ask her when we finally arrive home. "You're just going to ignore me?"
"I'm not ignoring you" She frowns ever so slightly. "I just - I don't know. I don't know what to talk about now."
She gets out before I have time to say anything else and I sigh as my hands tighten around the steering wheel. Maybe I was a bit of an ass but what does she expect when I see her with Mason? He's the ass, and he has some pathetic freshman crush on her that's beyond obsessive. She's my girlfriend. Not his. Plus he nearly got her killed, of course she had to forgive him as soon as he apologised. She couldn't be a better person if she tried.
She hasn't waited for me, the front doors already shut and as I walk towards it a hard glare immediately falls on my lips.
I recognise the Porsche as soon as I see it. Just bloody fantastic. I get to deal with another ass tonight.
"Why are you in my house?" Noah smirks when he sees my expression, lifting a glass of what looks like my most expensive whiskey towards me. "I thought the whole point of you buying your own house was so that I didn't have to see you in mine anymore."
"Is being a rude jackass something you specialise in. Or, do you do it specially for my pleasure?"
"Lately, I think I'm specialising in being a jackass."
"Lately?" He raises his eyebrows as I glare at him, his boots crossed over each other and resting on the table. "You've always been a jackass, but we can say it's just lately if it makes you feel any better."
"Where's Grace?" He follows me into the kitchen.
"With Arnica upstairs somewhere" he shrugs as he sits down, staring at everything. "Did you specifically ask for the biggest, most over the top house in California, or is gold and marble just your thing?"
"I'm really not in the mood for your usual stupid level of sarcasm Noah."
"Well, I'm really not in the mood for your usual stupid level of asshole, Xavier."
I sigh loudly, pulling my hands through my hair. "You look even shittier than you usually do" he comments. "Which must mean something else is going wrong in your fucked up life. What is it now?"
"Everything."
"Victor?" He questions, but he already knows the answer.
"And Grace" I lean heavily on the table. "I've barely seen her since Victor decided to get involved, now we're in some kind of petty fight and I can't stop being overprotective."
"You are way to overprotective, not to mention a complete and total dickhead" He leans back on his seat. "But if she's put up with you for this long, she must be some kind of Angel, which means she'll forgive you... eventually."
"Great" My words are laced with enough sarcasm to almost sound like him. "You sure do know how to make your little brother feel better."
"What can I say?" I wish I could wipe the smirk off his stupid, cocky lips. "I'm a natural born older brother. Now, tell me everything about Victor."
"Where do I start?" My fist tighten just thinking about him. "I don't know how much longer I can keep bowing down at his feet for."
"You've never been very good at taking commands, or following orders, or really listening in any kind of form actually. So to be honest, the fact that you don't like an old Scottish guy ordering you around doesn't really surprise me. But it's the code Xavier. You don't have a choice. Even men as powerful as yourself have to report to somebody."
"I don't like reporting to wimpy men who think they're tough because they know how to kill innocent people."
"What did you expect the boss of all the American gangs to be like Xavier? A little ray of sunshine? A rainbow on a perfectly blue sunny day?"
"Did you come here to help, or to piss me off?"
"Both probably" he leans forward now on his seat. "Does Grace know anything about this?"
"Of course not" I answer, I would never tell her anything, especially not about Victor. "I don't know what to do anymore, he treats me like a child."
"You're 21 Xavier, that doesn't exactly scream maturity for a guy whose running his biggest gang in the state."
"I run it perfectly, he just doesn't like it because my men have morals and rules and his are at the same level as dogs."
Now Noah sighs, "and any particular reason why it had to be us? You can't honestly tell me he's made our lives a living hell because you're 21."
"I think it has something to do with this" I hand him the photo from my pocket, the photo that's been bugging me for weeks. "Who does that look like to you?"
"Victor" Noah squints at the photo for a long time, he looks up at me and then down again, only just covering the shock evident on his face. "And... Sam?"
I nod, the boy with the colourful tattoos along his arms and innocent baby face is easy to recognise.
"The most disturbing thing about this photo" My fists automatically ball together. "It was taken a month ago, at Victors 61st birthday. Three months after Sam was supposed to have died."
"Are you trying to tell me that harmless, pasty, fragile Sam, who by the, we buried in the ground is somehow alive? The boy who we had a funeral for? You do realise we're apart of a gang right? Not a twilight movie."
"I know it sounds insane" I hand him the next thing, the letter. "But you're going to want to read this."
He stares at the white folded paper I hand him. "I actually really get the feeling I don't want to read it."
"Let me rephrase then" I force the paper between his fingers. "Read the damn letter."
"Does the word please ever in your vocabulary?"
I glare at him as he rolls his eyes.
"Of course not" he mutters.
*
Graces' POV
"You can't see anything either can you?" Arnica watches me as I squint at the picture.
"I don't think the baby is going to look like either of you when it's 12 weeks old Arny" I can't help but smile as I look at the scan.
"No no, I'm fairly sure it has my nose, see." She points to a blurry mark.
"Do they even have a proper nose when they're 12 weeks old?"
"Fair point" she replies as I hand the photo back to her. "So" She leans back against the pillows. "How did my plan work out?" She wriggles her eyebrows as I groan and fall back. "Well, that's not the answer I was exactly hoping for."
"How am I supposed to do any sort of seducing when he's never home and then when he is he acts like a dick and we fight?" I glare into space. "Asshole."
"Wow" She says slowly. "I take it your still a virgin then?"
"I haven't even kissed him in a month" I glare harder at the random spot on the wall. "I don't want to kiss him either, he'll spread his assholeness onto me, because he's an asshole."
"Yeah, you mentioned that" She frowns. "Noah's not been home much either, but still a lot more than Xavier has been."
"Do you know anything about what's going on?"
"I overheard Noah talking to Xavier on the phone a couple of nights ago about some guy called Victor, but he saw me eavesdropping and it did not end well."
She sighs and looks at me "maybe you should just focus on going to college? It does start in a few days."
"I will, I just wish I knew what was going on."
"Maybe we should leave that to the crazy gangster boyfriends downstairs?"
"Maybe." I nod, running my fingers along my phone. "Or maybe, if they won't tell us, we need to find out for ourselves."
"Oh no, I don't like that face. I know that face. That's the face you make when you get an idea and it's usually totally crazy and completely insane."
"Are you in?"
"Of course" She sends me a smirky smile. "I am your best friend after all."