Brothers No More

I don't know how long I sat on that

bathroom floor, my back against the cold tile wall, staring at nothing. The

nausea had passed, but the emptiness it left behind was worse than the

sickness. It was the kind of emptiness that echoed, that made you realize how

hollow you'd become without noticing.

Marcus knocked softly on the door.

"Alex? I've called Dr. Frank. He can be here in twenty minutes."

Dr. Frank was Marcus's family physician, a

discrete man who'd treated Manhattan's elite for thirty years without ever

speaking to the press. The kind of doctor who made house calls and asked no

questions when powerful men needed help they couldn't seek through normal

channels.

"I don't need a doctor," I said,

my voice hoarse from vomiting. "I need a time machine."

But even as I said it, I knew that wasn't

true. Going back in time wouldn't change what Elena…Michelle, was. It would

only mean falling for the same lie all over again, because I'd been exactly the

kind of man she'd been hired to destroy.

The kind of man who loved too easily,

trusted too completely, and never learned that some people saw those qualities

as weaknesses to be exploited rather than gifts to be treasured.

I pulled myself to my feet, splashed cold

water on my face, and looked at myself in Marcus's bathroom mirror. The man

staring back looked like Alexander Kane, but I knew better now. Alexander Kane

had died somewhere between the divorce papers and the security footage, between

the bank statements and the revelation that his wife had never existed.

This was someone else, someone who'd been

carved out of betrayal and hollowed out by lies.

When I came out of the bathroom, Marcus

was waiting with a glass of water and what looked like a sedative. I waved away

the pill but took the water, my throat still raw from being sick.

"The doctor's on his way,"

Marcus said gently. "Maybe you should lie down for a while."

"I need to go home," I said,

then laughed bitterly at my own words. "Except I don't have a home

anymore, do I? Elena's got the penthouse, and even if she didn't, I couldn't

stand to be in a place where every inch has been contaminated by lies."

Marcus nodded slowly. "You can stay

at my place tonight. Or I can get you a hotel room."

"A hotel room," I repeated,

thinking about how Roman and Elena had celebrated my destruction in some

expensive suite while I was half a world away, believing I was building our

future. "Yeah, that sounds about right. Alexander Kane, billionaire,

living in a hotel room like some kind of vagrant."

"Alex, your net worth is still…."

"My net worth is whatever they left

me after they finished stealing everything that mattered," I interrupted.

"And we both know that's not much."

I walked back to Marcus's desk, looking

down at the scattered documents that told the story of my destruction. Bank

statements, corporate filings, divorce papers, background checks on a woman

who'd never existed. The entire wreckage of my life, organized into neat manila

folders like exhibits in a museum of human stupidity.

But there was one document I hadn't seen

yet, tucked under a stack of financial records. A police report from October

15th, six years ago. The date of my accident.

I pulled it out, scanning the details I'd

never bothered to read when I was recovering in the hospital. The scaffolding

collapse at the construction site, the investigation into safety violations,

the list of witnesses who'd seen it happen.

"Marcus," I said slowly,

"who reported the accident?"

He looked up from his phone, where he'd

been texting with Dr. Frank. "What do you mean?"

"Someone called 911 when the

scaffolding collapsed. Who was it?"

Marcus frowned, moving to look at the

report over my shoulder. "It says here... an anonymous caller. Someone who

didn't leave their name."

I stared at the report, a new kind of

horror creeping up my spine. The accident had happened on a Tuesday afternoon,

at a construction site in Queens that I'd been inspecting for potential safety

violations. I'd been alone, according to my own testimony, checking the

scaffolding when it gave way.

But someone had called for help within

minutes of the collapse. Someone who'd known exactly where to tell the

paramedics to look.

"Marcus," I said, my voice

barely above a whisper, "what if the accident wasn't an accident?"

He looked at me with the careful

expression of someone trying to determine if his client was having a breakdown

or a breakthrough. "Alex, you're under tremendous stress. Sometimes when

we're traumatized, we start seeing conspiracies where…."

"No," I said firmly, something

clicking into place in my mind. "Think about it. Roman's been planning

this for over a year, right? He hired Michelle to seduce me, but she needed a

way to get close to me without arousing suspicion. What better way than to be

my nurse while I was recovering from a traumatic accident?"

Marcus was quiet for a long moment, his

legal mind working through the implications. "You're suggesting that Roman

somehow caused your accident?"

"I'm suggesting that Roman knew I'd

be at that construction site that day because I told him I was going. I'm

suggesting that scaffolding doesn't usually collapse on its own, especially not

scaffolding that had been inspected and approved just weeks before."

I thought back to that day, to the moments

before the collapse. I'd been alone on the platform, checking the stability of

the upper supports, when I'd heard what sounded like metal grinding against

metal. I'd turned toward the sound, and that's when everything came down.

"The safety inspection," I said

suddenly. "Who handled the safety inspection for that site?"

Marcus was already moving toward his

computer, his fingers flying over the keyboard as he pulled up the construction

records. "Kane Industries handled the inspection through... oh, Jesus

Christ."

"What?"

"The safety inspection was

subcontracted to Roman's consulting firm. He personally signed off on the

scaffolding stability."

The room went silent except for the sound

of my own breathing. Roman had certified that the scaffolding was safe, then

I'd been injured when it collapsed, then Elena had appeared as my nurse, and

then five years later they'd stolen everything I'd built and disappeared

together.

It wasn't a series of coincidences. It was

a plan that had been in motion for six years.

"He tried to kill me," I said,

the words feeling strange in my mouth. "My own brother tried to kill

me."

"We don't know that for

certain," Marcus said, but his voice lacked conviction. "The

scaffolding could have been genuinely defective, and Roman could have simply

failed to catch the problem during inspection."

But I knew better. I knew Roman, knew how

meticulous he was, how he never missed details when it came to anything

important. The idea that he'd accidentally approved faulty scaffolding was

laughable.

The idea that he'd deliberately sabotaged

it, knowing I'd be injured, knowing it would create the perfect opportunity for

Michelle to enter my life... that was the kind of cold calculation that Roman

had always been capable of.

"He's not just a thief," I said

quietly. "He's a would-be murderer who settled for destroying my life when

killing me didn't work."

Marcus closed his laptop and leaned back

in his chair, looking older than I'd ever seen him. "Alex, even if we

could prove that Roman sabotaged the scaffolding, it would be nearly impossible

to prosecute after six years. The evidence is gone, the witnesses have moved

on, and…."

"I don't want to prosecute him,"

I said, surprising myself with the calm in my voice. "I want to understand

him."

Because somewhere in the chaos of betrayal

and lies, I'd lost track of my little brother. The boy I'd raised, the man I'd

trusted with everything, had become someone I didn't recognize. When had Roman

started hating me? When had his gratitude turned to resentment, his love to

calculated malice?

I closed my eyes and let my mind drift

back to the beginning, to the day when Roman and I had stopped being children

and became survivors.

******

*Twenty

years ago*

The social worker's name was Mrs. Jones,

and she had the kind of permanently sympathetic expression that made you want

to punch something. She'd been explaining the process to us for the past hour,

using words like "placement" and "adjustment period" and

"therapeutic intervention," as if bureaucratic language could somehow

make the situation less devastating.

"Alex, you're twelve now," she

was saying, her voice taking on that patronizing tone adults used when they

wanted to sound understanding. "And Roman is nine. You're both old enough

to understand that your parents aren't coming back."

We were sitting in a conference room at

the Department of Children and Family Services, surrounded by filing cabinets

and motivational posters that looked like they'd been designed by someone who'd

never actually met a child. Roman was pressed against my side, his small hand

gripping my arm so tightly it hurt, but I didn't move away.

He hadn't spoken since the fire. Three

days of silence, while I'd handled the funeral arrangements, answered the

investigators' questions, and tried to figure out how to keep us together.

"The good news," Mrs. Jones

continued, "is that we've found a foster family willing to take you both.

The Martinezs have experience with sibling groups, and they're very committed

to keeping families together."

"For how long?" I asked, the

first words I'd spoken since we'd arrived.

Mrs. Jones 's smile flickered. "Well,

that depends on several factors. How well you adjust, how the placement works

out, whether any relatives come forward..."

"There are no relatives," I said

flatly. "It's just us."

"I know this is difficult," she

said, leaning forward with what she probably thought was a caring expression.

"But Alex, you need to understand that you're still a child too. You can't

take care of Roman by yourself."

But I was already taking care of Roman.

I'd been the one to wake him up when the smoke alarms went off, the one to

carry him out of the burning house when he was too scared to move. I'd been the

one to hold him while he cried at the funeral, the one to answer his whispered

questions about where Mom and Dad had gone.

"The Martinez family lives in

Brooklyn," Mrs. Jones continued. "They have two other foster

children, both boys around your ages. You'll share a room, attend the local

school, and…."

"We're not going," I said

quietly.

Mrs. Jones blinked. "I'm sorry?"

"We're not going to live with

strangers," I said, my voice getting stronger. "Roman and I are

staying together, and we're not going to some foster home where they'll split

us up the moment we become inconvenient."

"Alex, you don't have a choice

here," Mrs. Jones said, her sympathetic mask slipping slightly.

"You're minors. The state has custody of you until you turn

eighteen."

"Then I'll run away," I said

simply. "I'll take Roman and we'll disappear. You'll never find us."

It wasn't an empty threat. I'd been

thinking about it for three days, planning how we could survive on our own. I

had two hundred dollars from my parents' emergency fund, and I knew how to get

fake IDs from a kid at school whose older brother worked in document forgery.

Mrs. Jones must have seen something in my

expression that convinced her I was serious, because her tone shifted from

patronizing to concerned. "Alex, running away won't solve anything. You'd

be putting yourself and Roman in danger, and when you're caught…."

"If we're caught," I corrected.

"When you're caught," she

repeated firmly, "you'll be separated as a disciplinary measure. Is that

what you want?"

I looked down at Roman, who was still

clinging to my arm, his face pale and withdrawn. He'd always been small for his

age, but the past few days had made him look even younger, more fragile. The

idea of him alone in some institutional setting, surrounded by strangers who

didn't understand how smart he was, how sensitive, how much he needed someone

who actually cared about him...

"What if I could prove I can take

care of him?" I asked.

Mrs. Jones sighed. "Alex, you're

twelve years old. You can't get a job, you can't sign a lease, you can't even

buy groceries without an adult present. How exactly would you take care of

Roman?"

"I'll figure it out," I said,

because I had to. Because the alternative was letting the system split us up,

and I'd promised Roman the night of the fire that I'd never let that happen.

"Honey," Mrs. Jones said, her

voice getting softer, more manipulative, "I know you love your brother.

But love isn't enough. Roman needs stability, education, healthcare, all things

that require adult supervision and financial resources you simply don't

have."

"Then I'll get them," I said.

And somehow, impossibly, I did.

*******

*Present

day*

I opened my eyes, back in Marcus's office,

back in the present where Roman had tried to kill me and then spent years

systematically destroying my life. The memory of that day in the social

worker's office felt like it belonged to someone else, some naive kid who'd

thought love and determination were enough to overcome anything.

That kid had been right, for a while. I'd

kept my promise to Roman, had figured out how to take care of him, had built us

both a life worth living. But somewhere along the way, Roman had stopped seeing

my sacrifices as gifts and started seeing them as debts.

Debts he'd decided to repay with betrayal

and attempted murder.

"You're thinking about

something," Marcus observed, watching my face with professional concern.

"I'm thinking about how Roman became

my brother," I said quietly. "And how he stopped being my brother.

The exact moment when love turned into resentment."

Marcus waited, understanding that

sometimes the best thing a lawyer could do was listen.

"After our parents died, I had a

choice," I continued. "I could let the state take care of us, or I

could figure out how to take care of us myself. I chose to keep us together, no

matter what it cost."

"That's what good brothers do,"

Marcus said gently.

"That's what I thought," I

replied. "But maybe what I actually did was trap Roman in a debt he could

never repay. Maybe every sacrifice I made, every job I worked, every

opportunity I gave up to put him through school, maybe all of it just made him

hate me more."

I stood up, walking back to Marcus's

window, looking out at the city I'd conquered and lost in the span of a day.

"Do you know what Roman said in that

hotel room video?" I asked. "He said he'd spent ten years living in

my shadow, always being the little brother, the sidekick. He said I treated him

like my employee instead of my partner."

"Alex, you built a billion-dollar

company together," Marcus said. "You made him rich and successful.

How is that treating him like an employee?"

"Because I never let him forget that

it was my company," I said, the realization hitting me like a physical

blow. "Every decision, every major contract, every board meeting, I was

always the one in charge. I was Alexander Kane, pharmaceutical mogul, and he

was Roman Kane, Alexander's little brother."

I thought about all the times I'd

introduced Roman to potential investors, to business partners, to reporters.

"This is my brother Roman, my right-hand man." "Roman handles

the day-to-day operations while I focus on strategy." "I couldn't

have built this company without Roman's support."

Support. Not partnership. Not

collaboration. Support, like he was my assistant instead of my equal.

"I was trying to protect him," I

said quietly. "I'd been protecting him for so long that I never realized

he didn't want to be protected anymore. He wanted to be respected."

"That doesn't justify what he

did," Marcus said firmly. "Even if you were patronizing, even if you

didn't treat him as an equal partner, that doesn't give him the right to steal

from you or try to kill you."

"No," I agreed. "But it

explains why he did it. Roman didn't betray me because he was greedy. He

betrayed me because he was tired of being my little brother."

The irony was devastating. Everything I'd

done to keep Roman safe, to keep us together, to build a life where we'd never

be separated again, had ultimately driven him to destroy me. My greatest

strength had become my greatest weakness, and Roman had known exactly how to

exploit it.

Love had made me blind, trust had made me

vulnerable, and my desperate need to protect my family had made me the perfect

target for people who saw those qualities as weapons to be turned against me.

I pulled out my phone, scrolling through

the contacts until I found Roman's number. For a moment, I considered calling

him, demanding answers, trying to understand when exactly everything had gone

wrong between us.

Instead, I deleted his contact

information.

Then I deleted Elena's.

Then I went through my photos, deleting

every picture of the two people I'd loved most in the world, erasing the visual

evidence of five years of lies and ten years of hidden resentment.

"Alex," Marcus said gently,

"maybe you should wait before you…."

"No," I said, continuing to

delete. "They're not my family anymore. They never were my family. Roman

stopped being my brother the day he decided to kill me, and Elena was never my

wife because Elena never existed."

When I finished deleting the photos, I

looked at my contact list. It was shorter now, filled mostly with business

associates and casual acquaintances. The people who'd mattered most to me, the

ones I'd have died for, were gone.

But maybe that was for the best. Maybe it

was time to stop being the kind of man who loved so completely that he couldn't

see when that love was being used against him.

Maybe it was time to become someone else

entirely.

Someone who understood that in this world,

love was a luxury that powerful men couldn't afford.

Someone who knew that trust was a weapon

that could be used to destroy you.

Someone who remembered that sometimes, the

people who claim to love you the most are the ones who hurt you the deepest.

I turned back to Marcus, feeling something

cold and hard settling in my chest where my heart used to be.

"Set up the hotel room," I said.

"Tomorrow, we start building Alexander Kane's replacement."

"Alex," Marcus said quietly,

"don't let them turn you into something you're not."

But as I looked at my reflection in his

office window, I realized it was too late for that warning.

Alexander Kane was already dead.

The man who would take his place would be

someone Roman and Elena had never met, someone who understood that revenge

wasn't just about evening the score.

It was about making sure the people who

destroyed you lived to regret it every day for the rest of their lives.

And unlike the man I used to be, this new

version of me was going to be very, very good at making people regret crossing

him.