My Stepbrother Wants Me

Chapter 217: Brothers At War

Julian’s POV

"I do not know if Gabriel might agree to come with us," I muttered, while Catherinr helped me fix the button of my shirt.

We were about to leave and meet up with Kiera and the "other guy".

"Yes, I feel the same way too. Especially since you are going to be there too."

If it were left to me, I wouldn’t bother bringing Gabe along but Catherine had been insisting that we should all be there because Kiera said so.

"So what should we do now?"

She was done with fixing the button in, so she moved back and turned her back to me. "Julian, please for my sake, I would like you to go to him and apologize."

A scoff escaped my mouth subconsciously. "Apologize to him? Really, Cat? For what reason? Loving you?"

She turned, placing her hands on her waists. "Must you do this?"

"Fine. Since you want me to go nurse that baby, I will but—"

She placed her fingers on my lips, shaking her head. "No buts. Just go. Please."

And just like a man who had been hypnotised, I moved.

I turned toward the Gabriel’s wing, wondering how I was even supposed to start the apology.

We hadn’t spoken to him since and today, because of Cat, I had to be the bigger person and thrash out whatever was going on between us.

Besides, it made no sense living in the same house while ignoring each other.

I reached his door and didn’t bother knocking. I didn’t have the patience for formalities, and I certainly didn’t have the temperament for a polite invitation, which I knew I wouldn’t get if he realized it was me.

When I stepped in, Gabriel didn’t jump or even flinch. He was sitting on the floor by the floor-to-ceiling window, his back against the wall. A bottle of expensive scotch sat half-empty beside him. He was staring at the far wall, his eyes fixed on nothing, his posture slumped in a way that screamed defeat.

"Hey," I snapped, my voice sounding harsh in the quiet room. "Are you coming with us? Kiera said we should all meet up because of this engagement party Richard is planning."

He said nothing. He just remained there, a silent statue of a brother who had clearly reached his limit.

"Did you hear me, Gabriel? We have a meeting. Are you coming with us or do you prefer to drown yourself in a bottle because you are mad at me?"

Still nothing. The silence was an insult. It was a wall he had built between us, one I couldn’t climb over with mere words. I felt the irritation from the day—the suppression of my own rage, the sight of Lucy’s hands on me, the threat Richard had leveled against Catherine—all of it began to boil toward the surface. I needed a reaction. I needed him to be alive, even if it meant he was screaming at me.

"For fuck sake, grow up, Gabriel! Stop pouting, you are not a child anymore," my voice dropped into a mocking, cruel drawl. I started pacing the room, my footsteps heavy on the hardwood. "Is that what this is? You prefer to stay mad about what you saw? Or hold on... are you actually just mad because you realized you never had a chance with Catherine?"

I saw his jaw tighten, just a fraction. A hit.

"Is that the real issue here? You’re acting like a wounded animal because your older brother is the one she actually wants? You’re mad because even in a fake engagement, you’re still the one stuck with a stranger while I’m the one she’s trying to protect?"

Gabriel finally turned his head. His eyes were bloodshot, rimmed with a raw, jagged exhaustion that made me flinch internally, but I didn’t let it show. I needed him to break.

"Shut up, Julian," he whispered, his voice hoarse from disuse. "You’ve always done this. Someway you always get the attention, you always have whatever I set my eyes and interest on... first."

I wasn’t expecting that, so it left me without any words for a while. "What do you mean?"

He scoffed and heaved his eyes. "What do I mean? As a child, no matter how hard I tried, you always got the attention while I was mostly always forgotten."

"Even when father tagged you a problematic son, he was always about you!"

"At school, you had it all; girls, attention, top friends... while I was only reduced to ’Julian’s junior brother’. Am I supposed to be happy that you always shine while I am kept in the darkness?"

"You are wrong, none of this happened to you because of me. Thing is that you’ve always been the weak one, Gabe. The one who let Richard walk all over him. The one who let me take the hits because you didn’t have the stomach for the fight. You’re a scared little boy hiding behind a bottle because you can’t handle the reality. It’s your fear that made you seem lesser."

I walked over and kicked the leg of his chair, the wood scraping loudly against the floor. "Get. Up. Stop acting pathetic. All this drama over a girl who doesn’t even look at you the way she looks at me. Instead of crying over spilled milk, make another one. Show everyone you are more than just ’Julian’s junior brother’."

Gabriel exploded.

He didn’t stand up; he launched himself from the floor with a guttural, primal scream. He tackled me around the waist before I could set my feet, the momentum carrying both of us backward. We hit the glass coffee table in the center of the room with a sickening crash. The tempered glass shattered into a thousand jagged pieces, and we rolled onto the rug, a blur of limbs.

Gabriel fought like a man possessed, swinging wildly, his knuckles catching me across the cheekbone. I felt the skin split, the tang of blood filling my mouth, but the pain was a relief. It was honest.

Yes! He was manning up! Exactly what I had always wanted for him. To be a man!

"I hate you!" He screamed, his voice breaking as he pinned me down, his hands fisted in the collar of my shirt. "I hate everything about you! You think you’re the only one who suffers? You think I want this for myself?"

He landed a heavy, punishing blow to my jaw that made my vision swim. I bucked upward, throwing him off and rolling to my feet. My head was spinning, but the adrenaline was a fire in my veins. I didn’t wait. I stepped into his space and landed a punch to his midsection, feeling the air leave his lungs in a sharp gasp.

"Then do something about it!" I roared back. "Stop sitting on the floor and fight! Fight me, fight Richard, fight anyone who thinks you are inferior!"

Gabriel lunged again, slamming me against the wall. The framed artwork on the wall rattled and fell, the glass breaking around our feet. He grabbed me by the shoulders and shoved me, his face inches from mine. His eyes were filled with tears he refused to let fall.

"You were supposed to be my brother!" he yelled, his voice cracking with a raw, ugly grief. "But you made me look like a nuisance and a liability! People looked down on me because of you. You’ve never been a brother to me!"

"I have always looked out for you. I’ve always protected you!" I shoved him back, my own voice rising to a fever pitch. "I made myself a target so Richard wouldn’t look at you! I became the ’good son’ so he’d leave the ’disappointment’ alone! I gave you a life where you didn’t have to be him, but yoy never noticed."

"I didn’t want a life! I wanted a brother!" Gabriel swung again, his fist catching my shoulder. He was shaking now, his movements becoming sluggish and heavy with the weight of his own despair. "I didn’t want to be ’safe’ while you became a target! You pushed me away until there was nothing left but this... a weak relationship!"

He threw one last punch, but it had no strength behind it. It glanced off my chest, and then he just collapsed against me, his forehead resting on my shoulder. His breath was coming in jagged, broken sobs. He was trembling so hard I thought he might break apart right there in my arms.

The anger in the room vanished, replaced by a suffocating, heavy sorrow. I stood there, my own breath hitching in my chest, the blood from my split lip dripping onto his shirt. I realized in that moment that I had been wrong. I had thought silence was protection. I had thought distance was a shield. But all I had done was leave my brother alone in the dark while I stood in the spotlight.

"I’m sorry," I whispered, the words feeling inadequate and small.

Gabriel made a broken sound, a mixture of a laugh and a sob. He pulled back slightly, looking at me through bruised, swollen eyes. He looked small. He looked like the little boy who used to hide in my room when Richard’s voice got too loud downstairs.

"I hate you so much," Gabriel said, his voice a shattered whisper.

"I know," I replied.

Then, Gabriel did something he hadn’t done in years. He reached out and pulled me into a fierce, bone-crushing hug. He buried his face in my shoulder, his fingers digging into my back as if he were trying to make sure I was actually real. I held him back just as tightly, my own eyes burning.

Blood is thicker than water, they say, but in the Vaughn house, blood was the only thing that didn’t lie.

We stayed like that for a long time, two broken men in a room filled with shattered glass. Slowly, Gabriel pulled away, wiping his face with the back of his hand. He looked at the mess around us and pushed his brows up.

"We turned this room to a mess," he muttered with a low laugh.

"We’re Richard’s sons," I corrected, reaching out to steady him. "Chaos is our lifestyle."

I walked over to the bathroom and grabbed a towel, which I tossed over to him. He caught it and pressed it to the cut over his eye. "Thanks, bro."

"Welcome."