SINS OF MY BROTHER'S BROTHER

THE CONFESSION

He kissed me.

I stand in the empty gym, barefoot on the mat, and I touch my lips like a woman in a romance novel — the kind I used to mock for their dramatic gestures and overwrought emotions.

I'm not mocking anymore.

He kissed me.

Kon's mouth was exactly what I should have expected: overwhelming, desperate, a man who doesn't know how to do anything by halves. There was no technique, no strategy. Just need — pure and devastating and honest in a way that Kieran's controlled restraint on the rooftop wasn't.

Kieran warned me. Calculated the approach. Made sure I understood what I was agreeing to.

Kon just broke.

And I broke with him.

My hands are trembling. I notice this clinically — the physiological response to intense emotional stimulus, adrenaline and cortisol and dopamine flooding my system in a cocktail that my training can name but my body can only feel.

Two men in less than twelve hours.

Two fractures in a pact that's supposed to be unbreakable.

What am I doing?

The question surfaces, sharp and unwelcome. I push it down. I'm not ready to answer it — not yet, not when I can still taste Kon on my lips and still feel Ezra's shudder running through my memory.

I collect my heels. Slip them back on. Become, piece by piece, the version of myself that faces the world with clinical composure.

By the time I leave the gym, my hands have stopped trembling.

My heart hasn't.

---

I find Lysander in the kitchen.

He's raiding Dante's refrigerator with the particular entitlement of someone who has done this many times before. A container of olives, a block of cheese, a bottle of sparkling water — he arranges them on the counter with the precision of a surgeon organizing instruments.

"Dr. Morretti." He doesn't turn around. "You look like someone who's just been thoroughly kissed and is pretending she hasn't."

I stop in the doorway.

How does he —

He glances over his shoulder. Those ice-blue eyes scan my face, my posture, my slightly swollen lips. A smile curves his mouth — knowing, amused, and somehow not unkind.

"Kon just walked through here looking like he'd committed a war crime," Lysander says. "And you emerged from the gym two minutes later with that expression. I'm a surgeon. I notice things."

"What expression?"

"Deer in headlights meets cat who ate the canary." He pops an olive into his mouth. "It's very endearing."

I should be mortified. Instead, I find myself almost smiling.

"You're very observant," I say.

"Professionally required. Can't cut into someone's chest if you're not paying attention." He gestures at the stool across the kitchen island from him. "Sit. Eat something. You look like you haven't had breakfast, and trauma processing requires glucose."

"Who said anything about trauma?"

"Kon kissed you. That's definitely traumatic." He slides the cheese toward me. "In a good way, presumably. But still — a lot to process."

I sit.

I don't know why. Maybe because Lysander is the first person in this building who isn't looking at me with intensity or restraint or barely contained need. He's looking at me with humor. Like I'm a fascinating situation he's enjoying rather than a problem to be solved.

It's refreshing.

"Does everyone know?" I ask, reaching for a piece of cheese despite myself.

"About Kon's feelings? Everyone except Kon, probably." Lysander leans against the counter, arms crossed. "The man has the emotional self-awareness of a golden retriever. Loyal, protective, and completely incapable of hiding what he wants."

"And you? What do you want?"

The question is direct. Too direct. But I'm tired of circling.

Lysander's smile doesn't falter, but something shifts beneath it. A flicker of something more serious.

"Right now? I want to make you laugh," he says. "You've been here less than twenty-four hours and you've already had intense encounters with Kieran, Ezra, and Kon. That's exhausting. Someone should just... be easy for a while."

"And you're volunteering to be easy?"

"I'm volunteering to be uncomplicated." He picks up another olive. Examines it. "I want you, Irene. I'd be lying if I said otherwise. I've wanted you since you walked into that dining room and looked at all of us like we were specimens. But I'm not going to brood at you or corner you on rooftops or kiss you in gyms before you're ready."

"What are you going to do?"

"Make you laugh. Feed you cheese. Wait until you decide what you want." His eyes meet mine. "The others are busy wanting you at you. I'd rather want you with you. If that makes sense."

It makes more sense than it should.

I take another piece of cheese. Chew. Swallow.

"You're different from them," I say.

"I'm the youngest. I had to find my niche." He shrugs. "Kieran got 'terrifying.' Ezra got 'damaged.' Roman got 'powerful.' Kon got 'overwhelming.' I got 'charming with existential dread.' We all play to our strengths."

"Existential dread?"

"I'm a surgeon who saves lives by day and stitches up criminals by night. My father was a monster. My mother pretends I don't exist. I cope with humor because the alternative is screaming into the void." He smiles brightly. "See? Charming."

I stare at him.

This man — this beautiful, disarming man with his easy smile and his surgeon's hands — just laid his trauma bare with the casualness of a weather report. No drama. No intensity. Just honesty, delivered with the dark humor of someone who's been through too much to take their own pain seriously.

"That's not charming," I say quietly. "That's devastating."

His smile flickers. For one second — just one — I see beneath the performance. See the real Lysander, tired and wounded and holding himself together with wit and willpower.

Then the mask slides back into place.

"Well," he says lightly. "At least I'm memorable."

---

We eat in companionable silence.

It's strange — this pocket of calm after the storms of Kieran and Ezra and Kon. Lysander doesn't push. Doesn't probe. He just... exists, beside me, sharing food and occasional observations about the quality of Dante's refrigerator.

"He has four types of imported mustard," Lysander notes. "Four. Who needs four mustards?"

"A man who likes options."

"A man who has control issues, more like." He catches my expression. "Oh, don't defend him. You know it's true. Dante controls everything because he's terrified of what happens when he doesn't."

"He lost our father when he was eighteen."

"And spent the next thirteen years trying to make sure he never lost anything again." Lysander nods. "I'm not judging. We all have our coping mechanisms. His just happens to involve mustard and micromanagement."

I laugh.

Actually laugh — a real sound, genuine and unexpected. It feels strange in my chest. Foreign. I can't remember the last time I laughed like this.

Lysander's face lights up.

"There it is," he says softly. "That's what I wanted."

"What?"

"Your laugh. I've been curious about it since dinner." He tilts his head, studying me with that surgeon's precision. "It changes your whole face. Makes you look younger. Less like someone who sits across from serial killers for a living."

"I don't sit across from them to be young. I sit across from them to be useful."

"And who do you sit across from when you want to feel something other than useful?"

The question cuts deeper than it should.

I look away. At the cheese. At the counter. At anything other than those ice-blue eyes that see too much despite the easy smile.

"No one," I admit. "That's not — I don't —"

"Hey." His voice softens. "I'm not attacking you. I'm recognizing something. Takes one to know one, and all that."

I look at him. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that we're similar, you and I." He gestures between us. "We both use our professions as armor. You understand monsters so you don't become one. I save lives to make up for my father destroying them. We're both running from something by running toward something else."

"That's very psychological for a surgeon."

"I had a lot of therapy. Also, I dated a psychiatrist for six months. She left me because she said I was 'emotionally unavailable.' Which was fair." He shrugs. "But the vocabulary stuck."

I should maintain professional distance. I should remember that this man is part of the pact, part of the brotherhood, part of the situation I'm trying to understand before I make any decisions.

Instead, I reach across the counter and touch his hand.

He goes still.

"Thank you," I say. "For making me laugh. For being... uncomplicated."

His eyes meet mine. The humor is still there, but beneath it, something raw. Something hungry.

"Careful, Dr. Morretti," he murmurs. "I told you I wasn't going to kiss you before you're ready. But I didn't say anything about being a saint."

I should pull my hand back.

I don't.

"What if I said I appreciated the honesty more than the restraint?"

"Then I'd say that's a dangerous thing to tell a man who's been thinking about your mouth since dinner."

Heat floods my chest. My throat. My face.

This is different, I think. Kieran was intensity. Ezra was tenderness. Kon was desperation. This is... playfulness. Invitation. A door being held open rather than pushed through.

"I should go," I say. Not because I want to. Because I need to think.

"You should," Lysander agrees. "Before I stop being uncomplicated."

I stand. Release his hand. Walk toward the doorway.

"Irene."

I stop. Turn.

He's still leaning against the counter, watching me with those eyes that hide so much beneath their humor.

"Whatever you're deciding," he says, "whatever you choose — I hope you know that you don't have to choose one of us. The pact was never about giving you options. It was about taking them away."

"I know."

"Good." A smile. Smaller than before. More real. "Then choose freely. Even if that choice is none of us. Even if it's all of us. Just... choose for yourself. Not for Dante. Not for the brotherhood. For you."

I nod. I can't speak.

I leave the kitchen before I do something I'm not ready for.

But his words follow me.

Choose for yourself.

The problem is, I'm not sure I know how.

End of Chapter Eight