The music playing low, both of them on the couch in the sunken living room, both of them with drinks, Knight murmured, “Somehow, she tied you up.”

“I’m untied,” Nick lied.

Knight appeared to be proceeding cautiously when he said low, “Seems you got a thing for the girl you can’t have.”

He didn’t proceed cautiously enough.

“Not a twenty-somethin’ asshole with my eye on a pretty girl who’d fall in love with my brother. And back then, when I first knew Anya, you didn’t exist for her. Until you did. Then it was all about you.”

Now Knight didn’t appear pleased. “We don’t have to go over this, Nick.”

“Then don’t talk shit you don’t know, Knight,” Nick returned.

“I don’t know, share with me,” Knight invited.

“Only got it in me to spew that once tonight, brother. Anya got it. She can give it to you.”

His older brother studied him before he repeated, “She’s tied you up.”

“I’m loose.”

“You didn’t get loose for you,” Knight observed.

“Nope. Not for me. Perfect world, she’d be here tonight so I could give Kasha a shot at makin’ her smile.”

“Kash is good at that.”

“She broke through with Olivia, I’d buy her a human-size Barbie car.”

Knight held his gaze and whispered, “Fuck, she tied you up.”

“She’ll never be happy, Knight, I know it. And yeah, that ties me up.”

“You wanna make her happy.”

“She’ll never be happy.”

“You wanna make her happy.”

“Yeah, in that perfect world that doesn’t exist, I’d wanna make her happy. But we don’t live in a perfect world, Knight.”

“I do, certain times a day, those bein’ when I walk over that threshold,” he stated, jerking his chin toward the front door.

He liked Knight had that. Nick had started his life after his father got their mother out of all her shit. Knight didn’t start his life like Nick did, his mother clean and sober and not whoring.

Yeah, he was glad Knight had that.

He was glad his dad found his mom and cleaned her ass up and he was glad his dad gave that to Knight.

And he was glad Anya gave him everything else.

But that was for Knight.

“Some people don’t get that, Knight.”

Knight again studied him before he said, “Get this done. Just take these guys out.”

“They need to hurt.”

“Just take them out.”

“Four and a half years, Hettie’s just a memory. I promised she wouldn’t become that. I failed. I had no choice. I’m human and that happens so I can survive, not be the walking dead, stuck in the past. Deacon taught me that and I learned it. Too good. But I have to finish the job she started. I promised that too. And that’s a promise I gotta keep.”

“Brother, do you have any clue how all the shit you’re sayin’ does not jive? Olivia Shade is wound up in that mess. You take those guys down instead of takin’ ’em out, she goes too. She might not be happy now. But I’ve seen the woman in her tight skirts and heels. She’ll be a lot less happy wearing an orange jumpsuit being someone’s bitch.”

“I’ll figure it out,” Nick muttered.

“Fuck,” Knight muttered in return. “Do not get your shit jacked trying to save hers.”

“There is no way to take care of my shit without jacking hers. I just gotta jack it so she ends up just hating me and not doing it wearing a fucking orange jumpsuit.”

“Fuck, maybe I’ll take these fuckers out,” Knight irately told his drink.

Nick watched him take a sip.

When he was done, he got his brother’s attention when he said, “Maybe this is penance for me bein’ an asshole. Havin’ it good growin’ up, unlike you, unlike Ma, and still givin’ her shit. Dad shit. You shit. Actin’ like a motherfucking twat. Maybe that’s it. Why it was the way it was with Hettie. Why shit went down the way it went down with Olivia. I don’t know. I could think on that for millennia and never know. I just gotta keep movin’ through it and hope I find a life where I walk over some threshold into my version of the perfect world.”

Knight opened his mouth to speak but he didn’t get in there because Nick didn’t stop.

“What I do know is, I might have been an asshole twat, but I learned not to be that. I also learned other things. From you. From Hettie. From Dad, Mom, Anya. And something Hettie gave me was how to read people. And I know to my balls, brother, that Olivia Shade deserves a lot more than just being saved from an orange jumpsuit. Her father being responsible for Hettie’s death, my mission to make him pay, to finish her job, bring him to justice, it can’t be me who gives her more. But to my balls, Knight, I know she deserves it.”

Knight heard him. Knight always listened. It was just in the last four and a half years Nick noticed he did.

And this time when his brother heard him, Knight offered, “You want anything from me?”

“I want this done so Olivia can be free to find herself some motherfucking happy. But you can’t help with that so you’re doin’ what I need you to do. Just bein’ the big brother I never let you be.”

“Not a hard job, Nick,” Knight said.

“Not anymore,” Nick replied.