Ah so glad you like the start. And flakeywhirl it hasn't been hiding anywhere :p
Thanks for the comments :D
I forgot to mention that this story was inspired by another brother story- an excellent one may I add called 'Is it Love' by Elle on Air- you simply have to check it out!
Chapter 1
"Gabriella!" Trent Bolton called out to his business partner, standing from his desk with a folder in his hand, the sharpness of his movement causing the sheaf of papers inside to flush out, fluttering across the floor of his office.
"I see you're making a mess again," Gabriella leaned on the doorframe, her arms crossed over her petite body, her brown eyes warm with affection as she watched her colleague swear under his breath as he collected his papers.
"Damn open-ended folders…" He cursed quietly to himself, straightening eventually to beckon her in.
Gabriella lifted off the doorframe and unfolded her arms as she came inside, her tight pencil skirt lending a wiggle to her walk, accentuating the curve of her hips in her business suit. Her jacket matched the dark pinstripe of her skirt and was short, cut into the waist that was impossibly small and the white shirt she wore under it strained at the buttons, hinting at a cleavage she didn't actually own.
Trent watched as her long, curly dark hair washed down her back as she sat, taking the file for him and straightening the papers into order, her small pink lips pursing before she bit into the lower one, sinking her white teeth into the soft flesh there.
Once upon a time he might have dated a girl like Gabriella. Maybe even Gabriella herself. But although nearly everyone they knew had decided one day they would secretly fall in love, Trent had already settled down with his fiancée Jenna.
Gabriella was still single but he hadn't quite worked out why. He'd never got much beyond her business-like façade, her mask firmly in place whenever she stepped through that office door.
She frowned, looking up at him from the file, her mouth opening as she tried to formulate words.
"I know." He nodded his agreement.
"But…" She squinted, still trying to fathom the mystery of the words she had read.
"I can't take it. I have personal involvement. It means you'd have to work the case alone." He described, taking a breath before she gave her reaction to this news.
"Neither of us should take this case, Trent," she argued, licking her lips.
"No. You should." He insisted. "It's what you need to get to the next step you're always talking about."
"Super-intendant?" She lifted her brows, still confused. "How would this help me?"
"Because it would show you can carry any case- no matter what the connections." He replied honestly.
Gabi considered him for a moment, truly dumbfounded. The content of the file didn't seem to mean anything to him and yet it should. It should mean more to him than anyone else in the whole world.
"This file is on your brother," she cast out, her frown deepening as if trying to understand his willingness to take on the case.
"And I can help you find him." He supplied, his blue eyes devoid of any emotion.
"But why?" She asked, standing and clutching the file at her side, shocked at his disloyalty, to his very own family too.
"Because he killed a man. He's dangerous." Trent explained, squinting his eyes at the tiny Native American before him, her dark eyes saucer-wide and her face painted with surprise.
"But you'll let me go after him?" She smiled then, dropping her real emotions to cover them with humour.
Trent shrugged. "He wouldn't hurt you."
"You're sure of that?" She asked, heading for the door, looking over her shoulder and twisting to face him, her legs crossed girlishly as she paused for thought.
"If there's one thing I know about my brother, it's that he wouldn't hurt a woman."
/
Eating out of a garbage can was not Troy's idea of fun. Without using his threatening appearance to gain food- and possibly attention that he didn't need- he had to resort to extreme measures.
Soon enough he would be in town, close enough to steal better food, to find better places to sleep but for now he had to make do.
His stomach turned as he bit into the soggy, day old burger bun, probably half eaten by some punk kid who had too much money and more than enough food to stay alive, having chosen to order his burger only to impress some girl he was dating no doubt.
He smiled at his own warped thoughts and leaned his head back to the brick wall, hidden from view by the dumpsters outside the fast-food chain, his new outfit lending those who might see him to believe he was a tramp.
Well the clothes had come from a tramp so it was more than likely they did, anyway. That had been an easy exchange, in the dark of the night by the warmth of an iron canister fire, his old prison clothes exchanged for dirty old jeans and a scratchy tweed jacket that came to his mid-thigh. It scratched because he didn't have a t-shirt and now he wished he had found something to wear under the hot, itchy over-coat. It was annoying the hell out of him to have the material antagonising his skin for every waking moment.
It was no use, he told himself silently. He just had to get a tee-shirt.
The charity shop he found gave him an understandably wary look as he ducked inside; peering through the grimy window outside, checking nobody was tailing him. Satisfied there were no followers, he turned to the woman behind the desk.
"I need a t-shirt." He told her with a husk in his voice and a squint in his direct blue gaze.
"There's plenty here, for three dollars," she swallowed, venturing out to show him the sale rack.
"I don't have three dollars." He mused, tilting his head.
Her scared eyes met his, the green-grey confusing him for a moment as their gazes clashed, but then she pressed her lips together and swallowed again.
"You can take a pair of jeans and a t-shirt for free." She told him and he raised his thick brows quickly at her offer.
"I'm not going to hurt you," he twisted his face in bemusement.
"It's okay. I have your kind in here all the time. I understand you need dry clothes sometimes." She offered, heading back to the safety of her counter.
Troy licked his lips, looking down himself to find something he could offer in replacement.
"Take this," he slipped off the gold band on his right hand, laying it on the counter. It was the only jewellery he had worn into prison and the only thing he had come out with, apart from the clothes on his back.
Getting it back had been a nightmare but his inner circle of trading posts had finally come up trumps. He'd paid an awful lot of tobacco for that ring; he mused as she picked it up and studied it.
"This must mean a lot to you if you haven't sold it," she tipped her head, intrigued.
"Keep it." He insisted, quickly flicking through the racks to find himself an outfit, then turning to go.
"You shouldn't give your memories away," the shop owner touched his arm, bringing him around where he curved his shoulders in, conscious of his size to hers.
"A memory I'd rather forget," he explained, knowing that all of the time he had taken to get the damn ring back meant that by the time he actually owned it again, the piece of jewellery meant nothing to him anymore.
He smiled at her briefly, silently thanking her for offering his possession back, but now he was free of the shop, he was glad to be rid of it. If anyone found him and couldn't happen to recognise his changed form, they would have been able to track him down from that ring.
He sighed as he looked to the sky and saw nothing but clear blue. No more storm clouds to hide behind. No more rain to wash away his pain. This was it.
He had to find her.
/
Gabriella Montez knew that her business partner had a brother. It wasn't common knowledge exactly, but the pair were born two minutes apart and it was often said they looked exactly alike.
She had never had the chance to test that claim because she had gone into business with Trent after his brother was jailed. She hadn't heard Trent speak about the man in her file, but she had been told by their mutual friends- Taylor McKessie, the wonderful PA they both shared, and Chad Danforth, the head of Police that Trent considered his closest friend.
Taylor had told her the most, during one of their wine-filled girly evenings, spilling the entire story without so much as a breath of hesitation and the whole thing had seemed a little strange to Gabriella. Being a PI, being naturally inquisitive and nosy, she had questioned Taylor's version of events, never quite coming up with a satisfactory resolution.
Troy and Trent had dated the same woman. A woman who also dated a third man, apparently. The third man had been killed shortly after Troy had discovered this and yet he had never known about Trent. But Trent hadn't reacted at all. He'd carried on seeing the woman at the centre of attention and he and Jenna remained engaged to this day. It was odd business that was for certain. What was even stranger was that Gabriella had never met the harlot lady.
Of all the dances, parties, balls and celebrations, there was always a reason the elusive Jenna could not attend and it was only now, as she flipped through Troy's file that Gabriella began to wonder why.
She also began to consider if she should take on the case with so much inside knowledge. If she was going to find Troy it meant asking hard questions. To both Trent and Jenna and she wasn't sure she was cut out for it.
But Trent was right. If she could hold it together professionally and maintain momentum then when she cracked the case, she would have a great recommendation for her dream job.
Should she do it, though? She and Trent were partners, what would this mean for their working relationship from now on? Would it make things awkward? Uncomfortable? Would Trent understand her need to quiz him and his fiancée- one who sat right in the middle of the whole mystery?
She sighed out as she sipped her coffee and leaned back in her chair, not sure where to start.
She looked back at the pages on Troy. The picture clipped to his bio showed him as a slim young man, tidy hair all trimmed and perfect. He didn't look like a man having a mug shot having murdered his fiancé's boyfriend in cold blood. His eyes were bloodshot, lined with hurt and maybe anger. But not malice.
She squinted, reading down the lines describing his age, height- same as Trent in all accounts. Troy had been a successful businessman. He hadn't become a police officer like his brother, he had ventured into the money game by gambling in Casino's, eventually owning one and creating his own wealth. She kind of admired that about him, she mused, even if she didn't know him
Trent was a straight up, law enforcing, law abiding man who was exactly what you saw, but she imagined his brother being a little bit more maverick- a little more wayward. Especially if his small brushes with the law here described were true. Drunk and disorderly. Indecent exposure. Shoplifitng.
She smirked, reading the blurb underneath to see he had stolen a bottle of whiskey from the liquor store- hardly anything to get worried about. But a man with money didn't need to steal so she checked the dates and recognised them as coming before his rise to wealth.
"What am I missing, Troy…?" Gabriella murmured to herself, flipping over the page to read his school notes, wondering if anything sinister might appear from the words printed there.
"He was jealous as hell that Jenna chose me," Trent spoke from behind her, making her jolt at his sudden interference into her thoughts.
"You do realise I will have to speak to Jenna first?" Gabriella posed to her partner, meeting his blue eyes.
"You can't," he supplied, blinking once.
"Why not?" Gabriella puzzled.
"Because she's in hospital." He explained.
"What? Why? You never told me…" Gabi gasped at his admittance.
"I haven't told anyone except her parents because right now we don't know if she will recover," he relayed sadly, twisting the gold band on his finger- the one that signalled their engagement.
"Trent, why on earth didn't you say anything?" Gabi stood, her concern evident first and foremost, her previous investigation into Troy's file forgotten.
"Because I don't want to think about it. I just want to believe she'll make it through." He swallowed, tears coming to his eyes.
"What happened?" Gabi begged in a whisper.
"It was always there, a heart murmur. We never knew, it never caused a problem," he began to explain and Gabi frowned in concentration, reading his body language as he spoke. The second she picked up this file, Trent became one of her sources and he didn't even really know it.
"Something changed?" Gabriella guessed, gently prompting him on.
"She's pregnant with my baby," Trent smiled sadly, meeting her eyes, his pain clear to see but again, she wondered why this news hadn't been shared.
"Oh, my!" Gabi ovalled her mouth and struggled to keep up.
"Only three months. We were going to tell everyone and then this happened- she fainted one day and we thought it was the pregnancy but they said her heart wouldn't cope with having a baby, too…"
"What's going to happen?" Gabi asked, afraid.
"If they can't get her heart strong they'll abort the baby," he shared.
"I can't believe you're only just telling me this…" Gabi sighed; shocked at the depth of details she had missed.
"I'm only telling you because it will help you find Troy," Trent admitted.
She frowned, wondering what he meant.
"It's obvious isn't it? He broke out to be with her. He must have found out about her being in hospital…"
"How could he?" She asked back, warily.
"He's not stupid. He has connections everywhere. He would know about this." Trent assured but something didn't sit right and Gabriella couldn't work it out but for now she had to play along.
"Well, that would certainly give me a start," she allowed thankfully.
"You should check the house, though. In case he goes there first." He added.
"Don't you think he'll come to find you first?" She wondered.
Trent smiled a thin line. "We're not brothers any more. He made that much clear."
"Mm," Gabi nodded with a million thoughts racing around her head for clarification. "I'm going to go and get the County State files, too. I'll be back later." She offered, meeting Trent's gaze again where she noticed his previous upset had melted away.
"You might not like what you find," he warned.
Only Gabriella had a feeling his words were just for show. She had a feeling there was something Trent himself was hiding and didn't want to be found and now she wasn't sure how she was going to find it without causing a huge mess in doing so.
