Page 145 of Joey

Way to go, Mila. You have his attention now.

“I had my reasons,” Johnny snaps.

Mila opens her mouth to reply, then kinda loses momentum or maybe just forgets what she’s gonna say, because all she comes back with is, “Well… good.”

Johnny stares at her for one more moment. Solidifying his dominance and control over this room. Then his head swings to me.

And fuck me. My brother really is a scary dude. Looking into his eyes is a strange experience. I knew this guy. We were kids together. We had fun, and laughed, and loved each other.

But those eyes. I don’t know those eyes.

“You want your daughter back?” he asks.

“Uh…” I mean, of course I want my fucking daughter back. But having Johnny ask me if I want my daughter back isn’t a simple question. Because it implies I’m asking him to get my daughter back for me.

And that… I shake my head.

“Is that a no?” Johnny asks.

“I do,” I say. “But I don’t want to hurt them.”

Johnny lifts his chin up and stares down at me. We’re pretty much the same height, so this is all illusion. But it works.

He reaches for Brooke, grabs her by the arm, and pushes her forward. Then he points to her and says, “She has a plan.”

“She does?” I ask, eyes locked with Johnny. But then I slowly, kinda reluctantly, shift my eyes over to Brooke.

“Tell them,” Johnny says.

She gives me a faint smile. “Look,” she says, holding up a hand. “I didn’t mean to stick my nose into this or anything—”

“Yes, she did,” Johnny counters.

She turns to him and says, “Will you shut up for a minute? I told you, I’d handle this.”

Johnny puts up both hands in surrender and takes a step back.

“What the fuck is happening?” Zach blurts.

“One second, Zach,” Jesse says. “I think we’re about to find out.”

And then Brooke smiles and says, “I have an idea…”

And all these words come spilling out of her mouth. By the time she’s done Mila, Natalie, and Hannah are sitting on Johnny’s desk sipping whiskey. Zach and Emma are on the floor, backs up against the window. Johnny is swiveling in his chair like a kid, Wald and Huck are leaning against a bookshelf with arms folded and heads nodding, and Jesse and I are just standing in the middle of the office unable to believe all our friends are up here in our older brother’s office, plotting with him.

“Well,” Brooke says, letting out a breath. “What do you think?”

Her eyes find mine first. But they soon dart over to Huck and Wald too.

Johnny swivels his chair towards me and says, “There’s one more thing you should know before we take a vote.”

“Vote?” Jesse and I both say together. And we look at each other. Because… since when is this little family business a democracy?

“I know where Charlotte is,” Johnny says.

“What?” I say.

“Who?” a whole bunch of other people say.