Page 72 of My Ex's Billionaire Brothers

It’s a priceless treasure. Anya at maybe six, gum-snap grin, sparkler fizzing like a comet. That photo feels like the most valuable object in the room. Every cedar plank seems slanted to keep it safe.

Mr. Markoff closes the door with a decisiveclickand pockets the key. He doesn’t offer me the cracked bomber-leather chair in front of the desk. Instead, he rounds the walnut to stand behind it, powerful hands braced on the glossed edge. The shoulder holster he wore last night is gone, but I glimpse its outline on a peg near the shelf—nickel revolver stowed, not forgotten.

An unspoken threat, or is it always there?

“Sit,” he says at last, voice low enough to keep the party from hearing. I comply, leather sighing beneath my weight.

He clears his throat. “I thank you and your brothers for protecting my daughter from Calvin. But you know my position.” He taps the desk twice for emphasis. “This…arrangementends. She stays here, in Castle Beach. She recovers among family. There has been too much scandal already. She needs calm to heal.”

The words are soft, almost courteous, yet they hit like mallet blows. I clasp my hands to keep them from balling. “I understand why you’d want that, Mr. Markoff. It’s natural to protect your child. But Anya isn’t a child anymore, and she isn’t being swept along by us. She’s steering this thing.”

“Steering into rapids,” he snaps. “Three men twice her age. She is your brother’s ex-fiancée. This is not rapids to you?”

I inhale cedar and lemon-oil scent, let it ground me. “She’s lived by other people’s rules her whole life. The pink wallpaper, the purity rings, Calvin’s political calculus. Everyone has always chosen for her. It’s time she makes her own choices.”

He straightens, crossing his arms. “Her choices led to a broken engagement, no apartment, no job.”

“And she’s still standing, like a well-made fence after a hurricane. We are her support structure—the four of us work like pieces of a whole. We’re better together. Mr. Markoff, you don’t know us. At least get to know us before demanding we step out of her life.”

He paces a slow strip between desk and bookshelf, his jaw locking tight and loosening in equal measure. “Fine. You say I don’t know you…” He stops, pivots. “Then tell me. Who are you? Why trust you with my daughter?”

“I’m Gage Edison Carver. Forty-five. Eldest of eight brothers. Grew up part ranch hand, part bookworm, part fitness enthusiast. If a day ends without sweat or a new theory, it’s wasted. My favorite films are big-canvas epics—Lawrence of Arabia,Master and Commander—but I relax to old black-and-white comedies because the world should laugh at itself. Books?The Art of Warfor discipline,Tao te Chingfor balance, andThe Complete Calvin and Hobbesbecause there’s strategic brilliance in a cardboard box that travels through time.”

A quirk tugs his mouth—he wasn’t expecting the comic strip.

“Food,” I continue, “ranges from Mumbai street pani puri to Waffle House hash browns smothered and covered. Vintage cars, because a well-tuned carburetor hums like a cello. But Ibicycle to work three days a week to remember fossil fuel is finite.”

I shift into the professional. “Carver-Howe Capital—my brokerage firm—services sustainable ventures. I helped three farm-to-table restaurants get off the ground. I own an entrepreneurial cooperative that mentors owner-operators, and Second Frame, a property-rehab firm that hires ex-cons at journeyman wages. Last fiscal year we flipped twelve houses that no bank would touch, sold them for pennies on the dollar to needy families, and placed six men into carpentry unions.”

His brows lift at that. He glances unconsciously at the cedar walls, as if noting our shared respect for wood.

“Philanthropy is important to me,” I add. “That includes seed money for two pediatric hospital wings—Seattle, Boston—because children don’t pick their battles. And I underwrite a scholarship at MIT for first-gen engineers. Money without mission is rot, and I intend to make the world a better place than I found it.”

“Fancy talk from a fancy man. Tell me something real about you and your brothers.”

I like this man. Even now, when he’s giving me the third degree, I like him. He’s so protective of Anya. “Hunter likes things simple. His apartment is all leather and wood, except for the glass cases he keeps for his anime figures. He?—”

“He fights well. Moves well. Why?”

“My brother struggled with his place in the world as a kid. He used to get into a lot of fights, and when he left for college, he wandered into a judo studio. The teacher there took him under his wing. Taught him how to hone his anger into somethinguseful. He hadn’t raised a hand in anger in years, until yesterday, and that was only to protect Anya. The second time, Calvin knocked him unconscious. Calvin?—”

“He brought it on himself,” he says knowingly. “He is fortunate Hunter convinced me to put my gun aside.”

I nod. “We all are.” Mom would have had a conniption.

“And Theo?”

“Theo has good taste in everything. From his socks to his food to his hair products, the man is discerning about everything.” I smirk. “Except his taste in tattoos.”

Mr. Markoff’s brows lurch upward. “That man has tattoos?”

“Just the one. It’s a dragon, of all things. Fine line work, he went to one of the best. But you’ve met him. Is that a dragon tattoo man?”

He chuckles under his breath. “No.”

“If I were him, I would have gone with…well, I’m not sure. He just doesn’t seem the tattoo type. But—” I shrug. “The older I get, the less judgmental I try to be. Being the eldest, I have to lead the way on that, and I’m tired of Theo judging my taste in art.”

“And what is your taste?”