Chapter 56

"Thank you, Brother," Simone said after taking a sip from the glass of water I handed her.

The Sibling radiated bone-deep exhaustion. She was a decade younger than Anna, but her eyes were empty in a way I recognized.

"This is highly irregular, Brother," the head of the committee complained.

"There is work for him here," Tara said dismissively.

She was the youngest Brother on the selection committee, and the only one that voted against Kyle. Her eyes had not met mine since I entered the room.

Stephanie sat in front of a semi-circular table where the selection committee sat in judgment. Her face expressed patience, but her body was dangerously tense.

"We can send someone for him when the time comes," the head said petulantly.

"Let's just get this over with," Tara told him.

Iane turned to look at me from her chair beside Stephanie. The committee requested her presence to bear witness against Stephanie's suitability for the black ring.

The interview was not a commonly used tool to select a Brother. Stephanie needed to be handled delicately according to Robert and the committee had decided to humor him.

"He will still be sanctioned for this," the head said unable to resist a sidelong reprimand. "Bloodline or not; there are rules!"

Tara glanced at Simone.

The interview did not go well for Stephanie. The committee members were infuriated that I gave her a ring, but did not have the courage to face me directly. Iane siding with Stephanie's right to be called a Brother only fueled their anger.

The questions turned brutally personal when Tara brought up Stephanie's rape. The two women fought a verbal duel, which neither walked away from with a clear-cut victory.

"It's time to vote, and let the Enforcer do his job," the head said finally. "All in favor?"

Tara raised her hand and smirked.

"Against?" he asked.

The four Brothers voted as a block.

"Simone," the head said in annoyance.

The Sibling had her head down.

"Simone!" the head said loudly.

"She's joined her crest Brother," Tara said softly.

The Brothers turned slowly towards me. The silenced 9mm's in my hands clapped together, and then again.

"I suppose this means I'm not on your list today," Tara said after I double-tapped the fallen Brothers.

"Not today," I said.

"Simone?" she asked looking at the Sibling again.

"The water," I replied.

"Killers usually have preferences," she said curiously.

"Death doesn't," I said looking at Stephanie.

She paled and ran for the garbage can.

"Thank you," she said after recovering. "You were right; it would have been painful if I didn't have something in my stomach."

Pointing at the pitcher of water got me a smile.

"I brought my own," she said tipping a flash to me.

She washed her mouth out before walking to the door and opening it to let the rest of the Foot in. They studied the room without comment until they saw Simone.

"You killed a Sibling!" one of the Foot that had not sparred me said angrily.

The bullet entered through his cheek and came out the top of his head. Everyone's eyes went to the 9mm I held at my hip. They waited quietly while I put two bullets into the Brother's chest.

"Can we get started now?" Stephanie asked the remaining Foot.

Tara studied us quietly.

"We can decide her fate, Brother," Iane said approaching her.

"Excuse me?" Tara asked.

"I will be taking Simone's place on the selection committee," Iane informed her.

"There's never been a selection committee with only two members," Tara replied.

"Five members have never retired at the same time," Iane pointed out. "An Ekaterina gave Stephanie her ring; there was a time that would have been enough."

"Hmmm," Tara intoned.

The two women walked out of the room whispering to each other. The Foot Brothers studied the bodies with an eye towards what the best place to begin the clean up was.

I put the guns away and leaned against the wall.

It was a busy week but as Samantha predicted things quieted down significantly when the loudest complainers about the committee's fates were silenced.

My return home after visiting a handful of those Brothers drove in how much my living environment had changed since Stephanie left.

Susan and Nancy had spent every night since Stephanie moved in after the rape, but their absence was in many ways was expected. Michael moving out made the air seem heavier; he spent some his free time during the day at my house but made his bed at Stephanie's.

Before Stephanie moved out, I understood on some level that Siblings needed to be around each other in numbers, but Doris Alex and Melisa's reaction to an even emptier house for the summer put that need on display.

Melisa opened my house to the sorority for the summer, while Doris Alex could not seem to leave the house without stumbling over a Sibling that needed a place to spend the night.

Life turned towards normal when a new male Sibling moved in. Samantha's baby brute, Simon, completed his training at her capable hands and was ready to start college.

More than a few colleges tried to recruit him for their football program in his senior year in high school, but had to respect his desire to serve as a 'missionary' first.

Samantha stopped his Brother tour when he walked through her door and kept him until she decided he was ready to be returned to the wild. She had no intention of letting him go completely, so asked that he be allowed to live with me.

Samantha had the rest of Simon's life perfectly mapped out, and the boy seemed overjoyed that she was taking care of all the details.

His face when she left him with us resembled what a first grader looked like when his mother abandoned him at the stairs of a school. The only thing that prevented him from running after her car was her acceptance of his Sibling crest ring; she told him it would not be returned until he graduated but their future together might was etched in stone.

Simon's air of innocence caused my crest Siblings to adopt him as their little brother. The sorority followed their lead and not long after so did Michael's fraternity. No one was surprised when Simon began wearing a pledge-pin even though the fall semester was still a couple of months away.

The university was happy that Simon chose to play football for them. Unfortunately, it was not a painless transition; the coach did not like Samantha and I attending Simon's physical and first workout. He really did not appreciate it when I ripped up the workout program he designed for Simon. His new player's willingness to walk away from the program made him pay attention me though.

He challenged the workout program I wanted for Simon so the next day I put the players he could gather and Simon through mine. The coach should have been proud that he had to tell most of the players to stop before they got hurt trying to keep up with me.

"Is he human?" an exhausted Simon asked the girls when we got home.

After I established people needed to go through me to hurt her precious Sibling, Samantha loosened the apron strings and stopped visiting every day.

I thought about Simon as I took a final walkthrough of the undecorated sorority chapter house. He struck me less childlike and more like a puppy; he certainly followed the Siblings and me around like one. I nodded thinking that I should keep an eye on Michael, who would be unable to resist getting Simon into situations Samantha would not approve of.

My crest Siblings and the sorority officers walked a couple of steps behind me as I inspected the chapter house. Melisa supplied ready answers for my questions about the rooms.

"Is everything to your satisfaction?" Bethany, the sorority president, asked me nervously when we made it back to the chapter room.

"Can I see the interior design drawings?" I said reaching out a hand.

Doris Alex put a folder in it, and the girls fidgeted as I went through it slowly. I was the only one that noticed Sally and Bethany's tenseness when I got to the last drawing.

They must have decided not to take any chance that I would miss catching their hands in the cookie jar.

"What's wrong, David?" Melisa asked.

I pulled the drawing out of the folder and handed it to her. Doris Alex blanched when she looked at it over Melisa's shoulder. There was no missing the guilty parties when Melisa's green eyes turned on them.

"Who switched the plans for David's room?" Melisa whispered.

They did not need me to resolve how Sally and Bethany were going to get what they really wanted so I left.

My hands checked Jason's gifts automatically when the Brothers entered my backyard. The looks of surprise on Melisa and Doris Alex's faces when they noticed the approaching visitors placed one of the .45s in my hand.

There are reasons that visits to an Enforcer's home are arranged beforehand through Siblings.

Doris Alex and Iane stared at each other as the Ian Sibling arranged Anna's wheelchair at the table. Robert, Samantha, Jeremy, and Roderigo sat down.

Siblings are good indicators of a Brother's mood, and the ones accompanying my unexpected guests looked like they were standing in a minefield.

"We have a problem," Roderigo said unceremoniously.

Samantha not looking around for Simon was a bad omen.

"Brothers rarely visit me unless there's a problem," I said. "Did Samantha guess incorrectly, and the removal fifteen Brothers on her list of complainers caused a harsher reaction than expected?"

"Seventeen," Samantha corrected. "Two Brothers tried for an Enforcer and failed."

I raised an eyebrow at her.