The next morning, after a fitful night, Gage woke with a serious case of ball-busting mad. When a man was in a mood, nothing helped beat out the tension then hard, manual labour. And thankfully, the Sphinx still offered plenty. Hauling furniture, cutting sheeting, installing cabinetry, and laying flooring in the ballroom, catering kitchens and conference suites was hot, sweaty, backbreaking work. The sort of work he'd hired help to sweat through, but today Gage was in the thick of it with them. Grumbling, muttering and cursing every, wretched minute.

But still there was a violent edged to his temper that refused to be shed, and he vowed the next sorry bastard to cross his path was going to feel the teeth of that temper snapping around his throat.

Whistling, Roarke rounded the corner. "Hey, there you are. Matthias and I need you."

Gage whirled on his brother with a curled lip and dagger-eyes, drilling a finger into Roarke's chest with all the vehemence of a nail gun punching into wood. "Fuck off. Leave me alone."

Roarke swiped his hand and that pointed finger aside. "Listen, Sunshine, if something's up your butt, grit your teeth and clench for another twelve inches because I've got—"

"I don't give a single happy fuck." Gage bared his teeth, all feral and fang. "I said leave me alone. Go bust some low-level contractor's ass. I don't take orders from you."

"And I don't take shit from you." His brother shot back, blue eyes flashing with a brilliant temper Gage knew could be quick and ugly thing. Good, he thought, I could go a few rounds. Bring it.

"What's the matter with you?"

"Nothing."

"Bullshit." Roarke stood his ground, crossed his arms. "You can't lie for dick, so quit ramming your fist down my throat and tell me what the hell is up your ass?"

What's up my ass? Gage swung first, but his foul mood affected his aim so his fist grazed more than connected. And Roarke, always quick on his feet, countered with a sharp left that caught him dead on and made his eyes spin. Staggering back a step, Gage braced the wall, head between his hands and bottom lip bleeding.

"You got that out of your system?" Roarke demanded, left fist ready to go for round two. Then it lowered when he saw his brother's eyes, although hostile, were clear and lost the worst of their furious edge. And he might have been sorely tempted in that moment to walk away and leave Gage to brood off the rest of it if Roarke hadn't peeled back the festering layers of his brother's dark mood to see the wounded hurt underneath.

"Seriously, what the hell is going on?"

Exhaling heavily, Gage shoved a hand through his hair, gave the ends a tug. "Things are all twisted up into a major shit storm, bro. Fuck it, let's just take care of business."

Roarke answered that by shutting the door then sat at the foot of the bed and jabbed his finger towards the chair facing it. "You and I haven't swung at each other since college. Sit and spit it out. The rest can wait."

"It's not my place to get into it," he muttered, kicking the bed frame with his scuffed steel-toe-boot.

"Either you talk, or I'll knock you down and beat it out of you."

Rolling his eyes upward, Gage expelled a second frustrated breath. "I know you're apprised of Victory and her former financial difficulties." Since he hadn't formed the statement as a question, Roarke stayed quiet, watchful blue eyes patient but demanding.

Agitated, and because he felt a bit like a traitor for what he was about to do, Gage kicked at the bedframe again before he let the whole sordid mess spew from him like rancid pus from a lanced boil.

"Cock sucking bastard." Roarke snarled when he was done, and ploughed a hand through his hair. "I knew, bits and pieces, but she'd glossed right over...damn, if I had known!"

Gage's blue eyes, sharp with warning, snapped up to his brother's face. "What? You'd have changed your mind?"

"No. No, Matthias and I believed in her. I still do, even knowing all of this, I just would have...dammit I wouldn't have let her talk me into certain provisos. Man, I'd love to get a look at this guy. Straight in the eye."

"Unfortunately I did." Gage muttered. And now it was Roarke's eyes to light and spark with warning.

"And you didn't break his jaw? Or at least knock out a few teeth?" Moderately disgusted, he folded his arms, shook his head. "Boy, have you learned nothing from me?"

"I imagined it. With acute vivacity." Gage assured. "And if I'd known then what I know now—I am sure I would have." A violence Roarke admired and respected flashed in Gage's deep, blue eyes. Bright and hot and so brutally red that it took a considerable amount of restraint for him to rein back in.

"But that scum-sucking piece of shit would love to cry to the police and file a massive lawsuit, hoping to bleed our family dry. And as much as I'd love to dust his jaw, I can't give him that sort of satisfaction."

"What are you going to do about Victory?" Roarke edged forward, slapped a hand to Gage's shoulder.

"Damned if I know." That hand lifted, caught him clean across the cheek in an opened handed slap. "Hey!"

"You don't know?" Roarke cocked his hand back again. "Let's try that once more, but I'm warning you, fingers get curled with a second wrong answer. Donovan men aren't pussies."

"Christ." Frowning, Gage rubbed at his flaming cheek. "I love her, and I'm not giving up, I just don't know what to do yet."

That hand hovered for a beat, and then lowered to Roarke's thigh. "Better. Good. Okay, well," he paused with a breath, mulled it over. "If you love her it's pretty simple to navigate from there. Giving up isn't an option. My advice is don't take no for an answer. I didn't with Shayne, and you won't with Victory."

"Easier said than done, bro."

"True," Roarke smiled, pushing to his feet. "But anything worth having is worth fighting for. Victory may be tough, and I am sure she's got a few rounds left in her, but I put my money on you."

Left to his thoughts, while the talk had eased and loosened the knots of Gage's anger, gnawing frustration was still balled tight in his gut. Lifting his phone, he weighed the device in his hand, then decided it was high time he set his foot down.

Starting with a few phone calls.

#

Victory woke to the violent sight of carnage made all the more glaring in the unforgiving light of day. Holes gaped like screaming mouths, gashes like the wounds in a corpse; her home lay stripped and bare, a victim of a heinous crime, battered and bruised and beaten.

She put herself to work, sweeping up glass, gathering up broken bits of her life. He'd destroyed photographs and artwork, the little cultural knick knacks her mother had sent over the years. Heaps of clothing, shredded and doused in bleach on top of scarred floors gouged and savaged with long, weaving grooves like fingernails carving through the dark grain.

Every broken memento and fragmented belonging gouged deep in her soul, until she felt almost as beaten as the walls of her home. This was more than just the destruction of her property, but an attack on the most tender and delicate of places within her heart. Only a few stray belongings had escaped the massacre intact, like survivors in a devastating holocaust, their numbers few.

By early afternoon, she'd gotten a handle on the worst of it, photographing and documenting what she could for insurance, although no amount of money in the world would ever replace the void this loss had created inside of her. And with every bag she filled, with every trip she made down to the basement garbage bin, a little voice whispered in the back of her mind, repeating Gage's frustrated plea.

She'd sat, staring at the phone for almost an hour before she finally picked it up, dialed mother's number and waited, holding her breath, through the series of long, pulsing rings.

"Victory." Her mother answered, concern in her voice. "Sweetheart, is everything alright? Your father and I have been trying to reach you for the last hour. Gage called us this morning, and...well, he wasn't entirely clear, but he mentioned that your place was vandalized?"

Sitting down, Victory pressed a hand to her belly. "Mom, would you and dad mind swinging over? We need to talk."

"Actually, we're already on route. Sorry, sweetheart, but we got a little worried. Should be there in about fifteen."

"Oh, okay. I'll see you soon."

Fluttering nerves mixed with sharp, painful jabs of anxiety. This was the right thing to do, she kept repeating over and over as she strode towards the door see her parents standing on the threshold, smiling through their uncertainty.

"Hello sweet pea," Ed kissed his daughter on the cheek, his arm slung around Aubrey's waist. "Looks like you've managed to get this place mostly back in order." He commented in the same careful tones one employed when speaking to a woman covered in healing welts and bruises. His eyes raked over the debris of furniture Victory had piled up in a corner, ready to take down to the skip.

"I've had a busy morning." Victory stood for a moment, wringing her hands. "Shall we sit?" They followed her over toward the island where she had the remaining barstools, still intact, slid into one and waited as her parents joined her.

"What's going on sweet pea?" Ed asked, tawny brows drawn to center. "Is everything alright? Have the police caught the vandals?"

Taking a slow, calming breath, Victory lifted her eyes. "Mom, dad, there's something I think I should tell you." Since there was no easy way to go about it, she shifted into high gear and ploughed straight through, every now and then catching a surprised flicker, a stunned jolt as she traversed through the sordid relationship, the murky aftermath and the downward spiral to follow.

They'd kept quiet, letting her speak without protest or interruption, reserving as much of their emotional responses as possible, so that she could get through it, unencumbered or deterred.

When it was all over, Aubrey sat, stoic as a hundred year old tree with tears shimmering in her lashes. As for her father, if she hadn't of been looking closely, it would have been easy to miss the firm set of his jaw, the quiver of tension in his neck or the icy undertone in the deep green of his eyes.

"So this Derek, sod, is the one who broke in here? Destroyed the place?"

"I believe so, yes." Victory nodded. The quiver in his jaw shifted to a full-blown twitch.

"And have the police got a line on him, yet? Because this time I am going to see his scrawny butt tossed in a jail cell or a hospital bed, so help me god."

"They're working the case, but he's smart, cunning, and knows how to slither under the radar. But he won't be able to hide for long."

Almost weary, Ed swept a hand through his silver streaked sandy hair. "Why didn't you tell us?"

Eyes downcast, Victory shrugged, unable to meeting the intent and watchful gaze of her parents as they waited for an answer. "I didn't want you to worry. To come racing back home just to take care of me. This was my mess. My responsibility,"

"Oh, Victory," Aubrey sighed, dashing the first tear to fall from her cheek. "Oh, sweetheart. All this time. All this and you've been alone. We never should have left you. Oh god, I'll never forgive myself for leaving you, for not knowing..."

"Mom." Feeling the prickle of her own tears pressing behind her eyes, Victory reached across and gripped her mother's joined hands just as her father swept a strong arm around his wife's shoulders. "Mom, please don't do that."

"It was wrong to keep us in the dark." Aubrey pressed, and although firm there was also a plea in her tone. And hurt. "If Gage hadn't've called, would you have told us?"

"I don't know." She confessed. "I just wanted you and dad to be happy. You've worked so hard. So hard and for so long, Aruba was your dream, and I never wanted to take that from you."

"Yes, well," Ed sighed, lifting a tissue from the box Victory had had the forethought of setting out earlier that morning, he dabbed carefully at the corners of Aubrey's eyes. "I am glad Gage convinced you to share this with us." Glancing down at his wife, Ed pressed his lips into a thin smile, exchanging a look that only a man and wife married for almost thirty-five years could express. "We both are. And I want you to know, your mother and I have decided to sell the B&B."

"No." Victory gasped. "Oh, no, please don't do that."

"Our minds are made up." Ed answered, his tone soft but stern, and final. "This is a decision we've toyed with for the last few weeks, but as of right now has been solidified. An independent resort chain approached us last month. They loved what we've done with Azure Sky, and made a sizeable offer, one that will see us quite comfortably through the rest of our retirement."

"Aruba may be heaven on earth, but it never felt like home, not without you." Aubrey sniffed into her tissue, wiping her nose. "Your father and I don't want to miss any more of your life, or to be so far away. Should you get married, start a family...we want to experience those moments, those memories."

Vision blurring, Victory closed her eyes, shook her head, unable to keep the tears back any longer.

Rising to embrace her daughter, Aubrey held her firm and fast, rocking Victory gently the way she had done a hundred times over when she was just a little girl, stroking a hand along the side of her hair.

"You've always been so determined to brave life and its challenges alone. I often blamed myself for your inability to open up, to ask for help. If I'd been able to give you a brother, or a sister," Aubrey faltered, throat thickening with sorrow and guilt. "Someone to spare you from the burden of being an only child, to play with and encourage you to trust...so you wouldn't be so alone...I never wanted that for you."

"I know how much you wanted more children, mom. I know." Looking over at her father, Victory laid her other hand on his, and held on. "You were the best parents I could have ever hoped for."

"My dear sweet baby girl." Aubrey cupped her cheeks, overcome by a love as fierce and strong as the day she'd held her daughter for the first time.

"You are, and always will be, my life's sweetest victory."