Table of Contents

The Brotherhood Begins

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

Chapter Twenty-four

Chapter Twenty-five

Chapter Twenty-six

Chapter Twenty-seven

Chapter Twenty-eight

Chapter Twenty-nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-one

Chapter Thirty-two

Epilogue

Thank you!

Books by Jacie Floyd

The Billionaire Brotherhood

Remaking Ryan Excerpt

Meet Your Mate Excerpt

Acknowledgments

About the author

Copyright

For my dear mother-in-law,

Billie Floyd

The Brotherhood Begins

Los Angeles, September 11, 2001

After a night of getting freaking lucky with an insatiable Stanford cheerleader in a five-star Los Angeles hotel, Dylan Bradford crawled out of bed only minutes before his scheduled pick up. With no time to waste, he threw on some clothes, tossed his stuff in his bag, and made his way to the lobby and the car. As the moved into traffic, the limo driver mournfully relayed the news most the rest of the world had already witnessed.

New York City was under attack.

Much of the city had been wiped out. DC, too. The information they got from the car radio was jumbled and piecemeal. Dylan couldn’t tell fact from rumor, but this was a hell of a bad time to be two-thousand miles away from home.

His head reeled with the each update. His mother and sister were in the city. He didn’t know for sure where the rest of his extended family was at the moment. His uncle was likely in Washington, DC, and his grandfather had probably gone to his Twin Towers office, which was now nothing but dust. If the radio could be believed.

And maybe it couldn’t.

The Bradfords had been involved in enough news stories in the past for Dylan to know how often the media got the facts completely wrong. But it worried him that he couldn’t get through to any of his family by cell phone. All the satellite signals were probably jammed from overuse

When he got out of the car at LAX’s charter hangers, the horrific news of the day gripped the place like a death sentence. People moved in an eerie slow-motion dance to a soundless undercurrent of fear. They wanted to do something. Go somewhere. But there was nothing to do and nowhere to go. No planes to board. All flights had been grounded.

Would-be travelers gathered transfixed by the television screens that revealed awful, unbelievable scenes from two of the world’s most invincible cities. Like everyone else, Dylan watched the news unfold as he clutched his phone, desperately trying to reach home.

“Hey, Bradford!” Dylan turned to find Ryan Eastham jogging toward him, duffle bag thrown over his shoulder. “There you are, dude.”

Dylan shook his head at the appearance of his school friend. “Yeah, but why are you here? How’d the practice go?”

“It was fine, you know. But I’d seen all I needed to see. When I heard about the Twin Towers, I figured you’d be headed home. I need to get back to school for this weekend’s game, and I want to go to St. Louis first. Have you talked to your family?”

“Can’t get through. All the lines to New York are shut down while it’s in chaos.”

“When’s your flight?”

“God knows. Nothing’s flying. Every non-essential plane has been grounded until further notice.”

“That’s bad.”

Dylan watched a pretty girl with a killer rack at a check-in podium turning all-comers away with a sympathetic smile and shake of her head. But he usually had good luck with pretty girls. They didn’t turn him down very often. “Maybe I can talk my way onto something.”

This pretty girl’s nametag indicated she was Alyssa, but she was no pushover. Any other day, she might have been interested in smooth-talker rich-kid Dylan Bradford. But just-rolled-out of-bed, desperate-to-get-home Dylan Bradford had a sad story to tell just like everyone else at the airport that day.

“But my uncle’s a senator,” he said, pulling out all the stops to impress her.

“How nice for him.” A movie star would probably have impressed her more than a politician, even though the politician happened to be the chairman of the Senate Armed Services committee. “Is he here with you in LA?”

“He’s in Washington. Or New York.” Dylan’s anxious smile felt forced. “I can’t get calls through to him, and I’m worried.”

“I heard that senators who were at the Capitol Building have been moved to a secure location.” Alyssa tossed her hair back and batted her eyelashes at him. Maybe he had grabbed her interest.

“My mother and sister are in New York. My Grandfather’s brokerage has offices on the upper levels of the Twin Towers. I know a lot of people who work there, and the building’s just collapsed into a pile of rubble. I really need to get back home.” He grimaced as he realized the nervous tremor in his voice was genuine.

Alyssa’s expression softened. “I sympathize with your situation, Mr. Bradford, but this airport is officially shut down. You can’t go to New York today. You can’t go to DC. You can’t go to Philadelphia, or Hartford either. You can’t go anywhere. Not by plane anyway.”

He shook his head at her sad lack of cooperation. “I’ll figure it out for myself. Thanks for your help.” Grabbing Ryan’s arm, Dylan pulled him away from the desk.

“I wonder if Amtrak is running,” the football player ventured.

“Man, that would take forever.”

“Yeah, my mom took the train from St. Louis to Kansas City once, and it sucked. I guess it would be even worse during a national emergency.”

Dylan pushed his hair off his forehead, trying to think of faster alternatives. “Let’s rent a car.”

Ryan shook his head. “I heard all the rentals are already gone. Besides, we’re too young.”

Dylan paced. “Where’s your driver from this morning?”

“A campus van dropped me off and left. I can call the school and have them send someone for us, but they probably won’t drive us all the way to St. Louis and New York.”

Ryan was a good kid, but sometimes the Mid-western jock was too naïve for his own good. “They would if we offered them enough money.”

The football player’s eyes lit up. “Hey, why don’t we buy a car? Something really cool like a Porsche or a Ferrari or a Maserati.”

Perfect. They could split the driving and get home in no time. “Why didn’t I think of that? Maybe by the time we get to St. Louis, planes will be flying again. Let’s take a taxi to the nearest dealership and see what the Black Card will get us.”

They headed toward the exit when another kid stepped in front of them, blocking their way. “You guys are going to drive east? How long will that take?”

Dylan narrowed his eyes, evaluating this intruder. How long had he been listening in on their conversation? What kind of a freak show was he? “What do you care?”

“I want to go too,” the kid said with a southern drawl.

Three drivers might be better than two. But in a world gone mad, Dylan didn’t want to travel cross-country with just anyone. “Where you going?”

“Atlanta.”

Ryan shook his head. “That’s not on our way.”