He never said anything to me, but he had treated Dom the same way I had treated Otter. But the Kid had a level of self-awareness that I would never achieve, so if there’d been the type of feelings there that I thought there were, then Dominic and Stacey must have been a slap in the face, regardless of how inappropriate it would have been for any relationship other than friendship to have happened between the Kid and Dom. He’d been sixteen years old. Dom would have never laid a finger on him, not in that way. I knew that. I knew that. But if he had, I would have torn him to pieces and not felt bad afterward.

Hypocritical, yes.

But I know that.

I wanted the Kid to avoid the mistakes I’d made.

And in doing so, I made things worse.

There had been times I’d let the Kid down. I knew that. He’d been disappointed in me before.

“NOW YOU listen to me,” I said, feeling angrier than I had any right to be. But the Kid was handcuffed in the back of a cop car, and I could see the whites of his eyes. Either he was panicking, on his way to panicking, or had just gotten finished panicking, and I wasn’t thinking rationally. “You haven’t been around for the past four years and—”

“That wasn’t my choice,” Dominic said in that strangely broken voice of his.

I narrowed my eyes at him. “I didn’t say it was. Don’t interrupt me again. We clear?”

He nodded at me, though it looked like it cost him.

“You haven’t been here, Dom. I know that’s not your fault. I’m not blaming you for anything.” Mostly. “But things are different now. We make the choices we do to protect those we love. You, of all people, should know this. The Kid might be a pain in my ass, and he might not think things through all the time—”

The little shit muttered something under his breath, but I ignored him.

“—but he is my brother and he belongs to me. I’ve raised him. I’ve cared for him. I’ve held him when the panic attacks became so fucking strong he couldn’t breathe. He’s stronger than anyone else I know, but he can still break, and if you’re the one to break him, then may god save you from me. You’re still a member of this family, and I love you, but if you hurt him, Dominic, I will end you.”

And I was feeling pretty good about myself. I was a badass. I was standing toe to toe with a cop the size of a goddamn yak and giving him a piece of my mind. I meant every word. He belonged to us, but I would spread parts of his body all across the county if he hurt the Kid in any way.

I was fierce. I was hard-core.