Four Brothers and a Bride-Chapter 51

ASHTON

What the fuck is this fool doing here and how dare he come to us like this?

"You are insane to come here, Randall." Asher quips, dropping his drink on the table so roughly it spills over.

Ashley surges to his feet "Looks like someone has a death wish." The rest of us follow. Josh retracts his hand with a sly smile.

"I guess we won’t be having any family reunions anytime soon, huh?"

"You better get the fuck out of here before you have to be carried out in a body bag." I threaten him, clenching my fist.

"Woah." Josh takes a few steps back. "Don’t you think your anger is misplaced? If anything, I should be the one feeling cheated after being fatherless for most of my life while my dad catered to another man’s kids."

"You bloody..." Asher cuts me off by stepping in front of me.

"Calm down y’all. He’s playing mind games. He’s trying to trick us into throwing the first punch." Then he turns to Josh who has a lopsided grin on his face. "You didn’t have much to say except whining like a bitch when father signed the papers earlier. Is that why you’ve come here looking for someone to give your sorry ass a beating? What? You’re hoping we trash you so you can run to daddy and force his hand in your favor?"

Asher turns to us and laughs. "That’s the only way he ever gets father to do anything for him. He has to resort to emotional blackmail. For a so-called biological son, that’s sad and pathetic."

Josh sips his drink and tries not to let his anger take him over the edge. "Yeah right, like you didn’t threaten my dad to make you his successor. You knew I had copped that position just by existing. That’s why you were always threatened by my mere presence."

He laughs and scans our faces. "That’s all the proof I need to know what a threat I pose to all four of you. As long as you know that I am the real deal and not pawns like the rest of you, I’ll sleep with a big smile on my face."

He has barely finished talking when Ashal closes the distance between them in one leap and smashes Josh’s face with a hard punch. Asher gets knocked down as Ashal straddles Josh and rains fatal blows on his face.

"Fuck.You." He chimes with each punch he delivers till I grab his hand and drag him off his victim with Ashley’s help. When he continues to resist and manages to wrench his arm off Ashley, he whacks him across the face so hard Ashley topples over the table. Drink bottles and glasses clatter to the floor, most of them shattering to pieces. Before he can hit me, I knock him out cold and gently lay him down on the couch.

Josh picks himself up and spits out a clump of blood. His face is bruised and bloody. He merely laughs, flashing blood-stained teeth.

"You all will pay for this. Father was right. You are all defective."

Asher steps up to him. "Apparently, we are not defective enough or you’ll be lying dead by now. You’re lucky we still have a smidgen of self-control. Now, get out of here before we change our minds."

Josh’s face clouds over dangerously. When Asher turns his back to him, I notice Josh snag a splinter of the shattered bottle on the floor. Without thinking, I lunge forward and block his attempt to stab Asher fatally with my left arm. The sharp bottle pierces my arm deeply, eliciting a low grunt of pain before I kick Josh with my foot.

Blood immediately starts flowing down my stinging arm, dropping on the floor.

"Ashton?" Asher shrieks, rushing to check the cut. Ashley hurries to grab Josh but the latter takes to his heels through the door he had come from.

"How bad is it?" Ashley asks, returning. Ashal comes around just then. One look at his surrounding and he looks up at us, perplexed.

"Ashton, your arm."

"I’ll be fine." I assure Ashal to ease the fear in his eyes.

His face crumples with nerves. "D-Did I d-do it?"

"NO." I assure him again. "No, you didn’t. You can’t take credit for every fight." I feign a weak smile because I actually feel my strength seeping away. Slowly, I stagger to the couch.

"You’re losing too much blood. We have to get you to the hospital." To my surprise, Ashley offers his new, designer muffler and ties my arm to stop the blood flow. "It’s not stopping."

Asher shrieks. "We need to get him to the hospital, now!"

He continues to bark orders. Somewhere along the line, my vision gets blurry and the nervous calls to the hospital and for help gets too faint for me to hear. The last thing I recall is Asher’s face assuring me that I’ll be fine.

***

"Hey champ." Ashley’s face and two exact replicas hover over me as my eyes crack open. I look around the room and realize I actually ended up in the hospital. "It’s alright. The doctor said the wound wasn’t too deep. You’re all bandaged up and, in a few hours, we will be hitting the road."

They help me up to a sitting position and plump my pillow behind me. I give my bandaged arm a long look.

"Is that going to leave a scar?"

"Yes." Ashal answers. "It’ll likely leave a scar but the doctor said it would grow faint over time."

Asher takes my hurt arm. "It’s alright. We are all going to get similar scars too, like we’ve always done. You just worry about feeling better."

Since our childhood, we’ve tried to remain as mysterious as possible by making sure none of us has an obvious distinguishing feature. This led us to cutting ourselves in the exact same place a brother got hurt. We even had to have matching tattoos.

It’s been a while since we had to clone a brother’s scar. Though I am grateful for their love, I am skeptical about letting them match my scar. I think that practice is getting stale and I love having differences now even though they have to remain hidden.

"You guys don’t have to. I’ll just wear a long-sleeved shirt in public."

"You can’t be too careful." Ashley disagrees. "It’s our rule, remember? No distinguishing tattoos or injuries in conspicuous places, not even birthmarks. We are not complaining so don’t sweat it, Ash." He gives my shoulder a light punch. The rest of them beam at me and I return a weak smile.

"On that note, I owe you one of this." Asher jokes, pointing to his sore lip where I punched him earlier. That will heal in time but I get that he’s trying to humor me.

I feign a small smile that fades the second father walks into my hospital room with Duncan in tow. I am still livid at him, as I am sure my brothers all are. Of course, we should expect this when we visit our family doctor.

Asher blocks father’s path as he tries to come over to my bed.

"This is hardly a good time or place, father. No one wants to see you right now, especially Ashton." Father’s face hardens.

"You all are my sons and right now, I need to see how Ashton is doing. We can deal with other matters later." He brushes past Asher and comes to stand next to my bed. When he tries to touch my bandaged arm, I heft it away from him and pin him with a steely gaze.

"He is really your son." I begin, brimming with anger. "Both of you like to go to places where you’re not wanted."

"I’m so sorry Ashton. I know you hate me even more than you did before. I’ll explain everything later but let me take a look at you, please."

"Like you care?" Asher interrupts. "Are you here to make sure he is out of the woods or to make sure his scar is something we all can mimic? YOUR BASTARD TRIED TO KILL ME TODAY WHEN I HAD MY BACK TURNED."

Asher’s eyes are red at the rims. I know how much this hurts him given that this is the second time in a short space of time that an attempt has been made on his life and someone else paid the price.

"If Ashton had delayed even for a second, it would have been my funeral."

"Don’t say that." Father shakes his head. "I’m glad you’re fine. I’m glad you boys are okay."

"What you haven’t said is how you intend to make Josh pay for trying to kill one of us." I challenge father. "What? Did you run over here after nursing his wounds? Do you even believe our side of the story or you’re just pretending to for peace to reign?"

Father runs a hand over his face. "Josh has been suspended from work."

"Bullshit!" Asher counters. "Is that supposed to appease us?" He chuckles softly. "You’re probably having him treated somewhere, aren’t you? Suspended? Seriously? He just tried to take my life and that’s all he gets?"

"Calm down boys, please. Josh admits he was slightly drunk and wasn’t thinking straight."

"Wow. You believed that crap?" Ashley asks him.

"I wasn’t there but I know both josh and you guys must have said things to trigger this mess. I’ve seen how much you all hate him and how much he hates you all in return. I’m trying my best here to be fair to each side here. He is my son as much as you all are, you have to remember that."

"If you are done playing father of the year, please leave. Ashton needs to rest." Father scowls at Asher’s bluntness, skims all our faces before heading for the door and exiting with his bodyguard.

I can’t believe him. How can he try to defend Josh? We’ve been with him all our lives. We made him a father. If he should be partial to any side, it should be ours. I guess he has made his choice.

After I get discharged, I don a jacket over my back mostly to hide my injured arm in a cast. The whole ride home, I shut my eyes and try to blank out the craziness of the day.

I had thought my day was going very well after hearing from Demi once more and my fun race with Mila who is now a fierce contender for my free time. How did all that change and the day go from good to bad?

"Oh, fuck no!" Asher cusses.

"What is it?" I ask, my eyes fluttering open in the passenger seat. Ashley and Ashal are driving behind us.

He sets the car on auto-drive mode to peruse the article. "That bastard leaked the fight at the club to Billion-Err. There are pictures of his bruised and bleeding face. This is no coincidence. I knew he had a plan up his sleeve. He wants to discredit us by painting us as bullies. There isn’t a single thing about him stabbing you on here."

I ball my right fist as the sound of Josh’s name starts to grate on my nerves.

"Shit. There are so many caustic remarks about us. Some are even calling for us to get cancelled."

"What?"

Asher slams his hands severally on the steering wheel in anger. "Fuck. I’m going to kill that bastard."

"Does father know?"

"He hasn’t said anything yet but I bet he must be aware by now. I’d like to see him defend Josh now. That fool just plummeted our stocks! Even father can’t forgive the loss of money!"

Angrily, Asher steps on the gas and gets us home in ten minutes. We all head into father’s study after greeting mum. Father looks up from his iPad as we all file in. Duncan and Seth, his top security detail flank him on either side.

"Leave us." Father instructs them. Then rising to his feet, he takes off his glasses. "Ashton, you should be resting."

"I’m fine. Did you see the news? The blogs? Josh is calling us bullies and playing the victim card over what transpired at the club. Even the damn club manager is in on it. With his help, Josh has promised to leak the video from our VVIP room. I won’t be surprised if the video has been doctored to present us as bullies of a supposedly innocent employee of Rollins HQ. What are you doing about it so far?"

Father sinks into his chair. "Josh admitted being at the club with some friends before branching off to go say hello to you guys when he learnt of your presence." He ignores Ashal’s loud snort and continues, "When he returned with a bloody face, he mentioned what had happened in the VVIP section and I guess one of his friends must have leaked it to Billion-Err."

"You guess?" Asher laughs, pressing his hands to his eyes. "Brett Rollins is making guesses when our stock prices are crashing by the minute? Am I to take it that you’ve already chosen to blame us for this and not your other son?"

"Duncan is handling it. Our team will release a statement soon denying the claims. I’ll handle Josh. He won’t be leaking any video. Still, your socials might take a hit but that’s it. It will all blow over in no time."

"Father..."

"Please boys, I am trying here. Asher, I did what you asked. Rollins HQ will be yours after my retirement. For the rest of you, you will continue to head the subsidiaries you’re currently handling as long as you keep up the good work. Please, this is the only thing I can do for Josh. I want to validate his feelings of being deserving of his father’s love so he doesn’t feel threatened by you guys. I can’t add insult to injury by throwing him under the bus. That won’t be fair given how many times I have saved your asses from the hands of the law."

When we all say nothing but continue to glare at him, he adds, zeroing his eyes on my casted arm. "I’ll make sure he tenders a proper apology for hurting you. That will never happen again."

"How can you be certain it won’t?" I ask him with a deeper frown.

"Josh just wants my acceptance. He will do anything to keep me in his life. I’ll keep him in check. You don’t have to worry."

I make my way to his high desk from where he likes to leer down at others.

"You better make certain that he never, ever tries to hurt me or my brothers again. If he’s stupid enough to attempt it again, you’ll be back to having only four sons. That, I promise you."

Father exhales deeply without breaking my gaze. I wheel around and head out of the study with my brothers in tow. We all head for the elevator. When it opens, Demi looks up from her phone, shocked to see all four of us. She stutters through a greeting. Ashley smiles and pecks her forehead.

"Boys night out." He explains seeing the questions in her eyes.

"Oh." She steps out of the elevator while we all go in. I continue to mask my injured arm behind the jacket till the elevator doors pull shut.

I bid my brothers goodnight and retire to my room to end the shitty day. My sore arm doesn’t let me do much in getting undressed. In the bright glow of light in my bedroom, I stare at my reflection in the mirror.

Below my waist, I only have on red briefs. Using my good hand, I tug the waistline of the brief to expose the tattoo along my pelvic bone. My brothers will go berserk if they saw it and that’s why it’s a secret.

Ashal calls to ask if I want company and I decline. I know today was heavy for all of us. We all need to cope in our own way. Hence, I don’t want to be burden.

If I wasn’t under strict orders from the doctor to rest my arm, I’d have loved to go for a long, night drive. Just as the thought crosses my mind, Mila’s call come in.

"Hey."

"Hi." I answer.

"Are you okay?"

"Why wouldn’t I be?"

"You guys are trending on the news and blogs. I don’t believe anything they’re saying. You are not bullies."

"Oh yeah? What makes you so confident?"

"I actually know you, Ash. You’re a good person. I can’t vouch for your brothers but I believe that they are all principled and won’t go bullying an innocent employee. That’s crass." I stifle my annoyance at the assumptions of Josh’s innocence. "I’m certain everything will blow over soon."

"Yeah, I hope so too."

"You owe me two truths and a dare, remember? I’ll be redeeming my prize soon. Keep that in mind." A message beeps into my phone. "Call me when you need someone to whoop your ass on the race track or you know, whenever you want to hang." Mila says before hanging up. I do want to hang right now but my injury is still a secret from the public.

With a glum look on my face, I check my new message. The fact that it’s from an unknown number makes me uncomfortable.

[If you ever want to know about your biological father, call me.]