I Have Five Kick-Ass Brothers – Episode 08
The lunch rush had ended, but Theo made no move to leave. He stood beside the nearly empty stall, asking Noah casual questions while watching Raina clean the counter and divide the earnings. Every smile and small act of consideration pulled at a memory he could not fully recover.
Noah knew exactly what Theo was doing. “I never expected the great Theo Jones to loiter at a construction site,” he said under his breath. Theo returned the observation by wondering aloud why the chief executive of Lincoln Group was pretending to be a laborer. Neither man intended to answer honestly.
“I’d do anything for my baby sister,” Noah replied at last. Pride warmed the words, and Theo followed his gaze to Raina. The relationship was unmistakably genuine. Whatever mystery surrounded the Lincolns, she stood at its center.
Raina carried Theo’s lunch to him and apologized that only one box remained. Noah immediately demanded to know whether they had met before. “No,” Raina said at the same instant Theo said, “Yes.” Their conflicting answers drew every brother’s attention.
Thinking quickly, Raina introduced Theo as her boss, a title loosely invented from his expensive appearance and interest in Noah. “Then the boss gets extra meat tomorrow,” she declared, turning the awkwardness into a joke. Theo laughed, surprised by how natural the moment felt.
The warmth vanished when a sharp voice cut through the lingering crowd. “Well, this is pathetic.” Raina’s hands went still. She recognized Coco’s tone before turning to see her framed by designer clothes and two admiring companions.
Coco looked over the humble stall with open disgust. Finding Raina happy had not been part of the punishment she imagined. The castoff daughter was supposed to regret losing the Smith mansion, not laugh with five handsome men and draw the attention of Theo Jones. Jealousy sharpened when she noticed how naturally the workers trusted Raina, a loyalty Coco could never purchase with designer clothes.
“If it isn’t the thief who stole my family,” Coco announced loudly enough for the workers to hear. Conversation faded around them. Raina felt every curious glance, but she refused to offer Coco the frightened reaction she wanted.
“We’re working,” Raina said. “If you don’t want lunch, please leave.” Her calmness only sharpened Coco’s resentment. Coco laughed at the dusty site and asked how someone accustomed to servants could sink to feeding construction workers on a street corner.
Noah’s expression hardened. Henry abandoned his easy smile, and Joshua took one measured step forward before Raina stopped him with a glance. She did not want her first successful day to end in violence, especially over insults she could endure.
Coco mistook restraint for weakness. “This girl lived my life for twenty years,” she told the crowd. “She took my parents, my house, my clothes—everything that belonged to me from birth. Now she’s finally where she belongs.”
The accusation reopened the wound Raina had tried to bury beneath work. She had not chosen the switch, yet the shame in Coco’s words made her feel guilty for every happy childhood memory. Her fingers tightened around the edge of the table until her knuckles whitened.
“I never stole anything from you,” Raina said quietly. “We were babies. What happened was done to both of us.” Coco rejected the shared pain with a contemptuous smile. Admitting they were both victims would require surrendering the weapon she had made of Raina’s grief.
“You called yourself a Smith while I suffered with the Lincolns,” Coco spat. “You enjoyed luxury that should have been mine. Serving cheap food is the least karma owes you.” The workers shifted angrily, several ready to defend the woman who had treated them with kindness.
Theo barely heard the final insult. The phrase twenty years had unlocked a connection his investigators had missed. Raina had been raised as the Smith daughter. Coco had only recently reclaimed the name. The girl who saved him years ago could not have been the biological daughter who lived elsewhere. His family had searched for a bloodline when they should have searched for a lived identity.
He looked at Raina again, no longer relying only on an uncertain face from memory. Her age fit. Her former family fit. Most of all, the courage and compassion he remembered stood before him in every restrained response to Coco’s cruelty.
A younger Raina appeared in his mind, dragging him away from danger while adults shouted behind them. He remembered her refusing to let go despite an injury to her own arm. The child had identified herself through the only family name she knew—the Smith name Raina had carried then.
Theo’s pulse accelerated. The mistake was suddenly obvious: his search had followed biology when it should have followed history. When the DNA revelation returned Coco to the Smiths, everyone had assumed she was the girl from his past. No one had asked which daughter had actually been there.
Coco continued humiliating Raina, unaware that every bitter word dismantled her claim. Theo’s gaze chilled as it moved between them. The woman eager to marry him had accepted gratitude for an act she knew belonged to someone else.
“So Raina was the Smith girl,” he said softly. She turned toward him, startled by the intensity in his voice. Theo finally saw the path to the truth—but if his realization was correct, Coco had not merely lied about an old accident. She had tried to steal the woman who saved him.