And then there was Ryan. If I sneezed, he flew the smartest doctors with him to make sure I had the best care. If someone looked at me wrong, they were instantly put on their knees before me and made to apologize. If someone bullied me, they no longer had a life to be turned upside down because they had a bullet in their skull.

It was because of those facts that my father had no problem with my friendship with Ryan. Even if he’d groused and grumbled for years over it in the past, he knew that next to himself, no man in the world would protect me more fiercely than my best friend.

As Ryan took a step in Garret’s direction, Dad took a seat beside me on the couch, getting comfortable—and putting himself between me and the chaos that was about to ensue.

Garret laughed. “Why is everyone hung up on where I was? Jesus, people, I was out with friends.”

The distance between the two was gone in a blink. Ryan grabbed Garret by the throat and dragged him to his feet. “You were with friends while Nova was being attacked by hired killers? You left your sister at school to get high and party, while Ramirez’s men tried to take her from me?”

Understanding finally filled Garret’s eyes, but it was coming too late. Ryan’s hold was so tight, my brother’s air supply was completely cut off, and his face was quickly turning purple from the lack of oxygen.

The men in my family were wide-shouldered giants. Garret was no different, but he was on the leaner side. My male cousins spent about as much time working out and lifting weights as my brother did messing around and getting high. He may have been a few inches taller than Ryan, but he sure as hell didn’t have the muscles Ryan spent hours every day perfecting in the gym.

Ryan held Garret an inch off the ground, his entire body vibrating from his rage. “You are supposed to protect her, with your life if necessary,” he snarled viciously. “I have told you, repeatedly, that her life is more precious than anyone else’s in this world. She is worth a hundred of you. A million. And you just left her there. Alone. With no one to help her. No one to protect her. No one to—”

Dad didn’t seem worried that Ryan was choking the life out of his only son, and I knew in that moment that he’d been waiting for Ryan to react just like this. To punish Garret without Dad having to lay a single finger on his firstborn. I’d been worried about how calm he’d been, but really, he’d been expecting this all along. He knew how explosive Ryan was. How my well-being meant everything to my friend and he would be just as filled with rage as my parents were. But I couldn’t just sit there and let Ryan kill my brother. Tears in my eyes, I jumped to my feet and did the only thing I knew would calm him.