by Mary Calmes
I turned to Ian.
“Please just don’t even look at him anymore,” he begged. “And don’t talk either.”
That at least got a half a grin from our boss.
Chapter 10
“THIS IS why you’re supposed to wear a mask,” Ian said when we got to their door and Drake greeted us.
His smile instantly fell as Ian walked by him, but I reached out, grabbed him, and hugged him tight. He relaxed in my arms; he was still a kid, after all, and needed the support.
“You did a great thing. Everybody knows it. I know it, Ian knows it. But we have to make some decisions now.”
He nodded into my shoulder, and when I tried to let go, he held on. After a few more moments, Cabot appeared beside him, the blond golden cherub he’d always been, beautiful and delicate boned in sharp contrast to the taller, broader, tightly muscled specimen his boyfriend was.
“Drake, let go,” Cabot ordered. “I want to see Miro too.”
Drake gave me a last squeeze and then Cabot was there, hugging me tight, shivering like something was wrong and he needed the comfort. I would have to find out what that was about.
“You all right?” I whispered just in case the problem was Drake.
“This got long,” he said into my throat, ignoring the question, his fingers in my hair that needed to be cut, kicked out over my ears, got in my eyes, and would soon cover my nape.
“Enough of that,” Ian muttered, walking up beside us and peeling Cabot away from me before standing in front of both of them, arms crossed, glaring. “So?”
I realized they were both looking at Ian the way I probably looked at Kage, with the same trace of wariness and respect. I liked Kage, but he terrified me at the same time. I suspected it was the same for them with Ian, especially when the man I loved was in his dress uniform, looking particularly breathtaking.
Drake nearly choked taking a breath. “You look awesome.”
“Listen,” Ian began. “You—”
“Were you getting a medal or something?”
“I was at a funeral,” he answered harshly.
“Awww, man, I’m sorry,” Drake said, moving forward to put a hand on Ian’s shoulder.
The growl he got for his trouble was not surprising. “You need to shut up so Miro and me can figure out—”
“If we stay here, will we still see you guys?” Cabot blurted.
Christ.
Cabot and Drake were special to Ian and me. We brought them into witness protection when our relationship was brand new. Cabot’s father was rich and crazy. Now he was cooling his heels in federal prison for the next eight years at least, and the word was the boys—both twenty now—no longer required protection. Originally Drake was witness to a murder he told Cabot all about, which began the whole spiral leading to them being on our radar, and Cabot’s father took that opportunity to try to kill Drake. It was a mess, but we got it sorted out. But because Cabot’s father was well connected even in prison, he still posed a potential threat to the boys.
However: Drake had saved a little girl—a great, wonderful thing—and his face got splashed all over the news. He was being called the Sexy Samaritan, and the shot of him coming out of the water, dripping wet with his shirt plastered to his carved chest and abdomen, went viral. Good heart and great body were the buzzwords. So, no more witness protection.
“Yes,” Ian said quickly, and I was so stunned I turned to look at him. “We’ll probably see more of each other, actually, and of course, if either of you gets the feeling like something just isn’t right—you need to tell us right away.”
“You can come have turkey with us,” I told them, throwing that in since my man was being so accommodating.
“Really?” Cabot asked, his eyes lighting up.
“Yes, really,” Ian grumbled irritably. “Now are you going back to Ford and Jenner, or keeping the new last names?”
They were keeping the new ones; those were what they’d used to build their new lives and what they’d use when they got married in the spring.
I envied them the wedding part.
“Miro, come look at this still life I did,” Cabot pleaded, grabbing my hand and tugging me after him toward the bedroom.
It was a cute little apartment they’d moved into after they decided the one we initially put them in didn’t fit the kind of people they were. This one was in Hyde Park close to the university Drake attended and had all the charm of a first place a couple got together: exposed red brick, a fire escape to sit on, wooden floors, radiators in every room, an ugly tiled kitchen, and the requisite black tabby alley cat turned house cat that had gotten huge from nonstop eating and sleeping. His name was Boozer, and I didn’t want to know why.
It was a stunning picture, the cut fruit, bread, and flowers done in a sort of Gothic style that verged on being eerie but didn’t go quite that far.
“Oh, it’s beautiful,” I assured him, turning with a smile.
“If I want to sleep with someone else before I get married, is that bad?”
It took me a second, because I was in “admire the art mode” and he dropped me into “camp counselor mode,” and it was a jump.
“Miro?”
I knew why this question was being leveled at me instead of Ian. If he’d asked Ian, Ian would have just called for me. My partner took care of shooting people and saving them. I did the talking.
“Is this a rhetorical question or do you have someone in mind?”
He coughed. “I have someone in mind.”
I nodded. “Okay. Well, if you do it and don’t tell Drake first, then yeah, that’s bad. If you tell him and he’s okay with it, then you’re good.”
“But what if he thinks I don’t love him because I just want to see?”
“Then you explain it to him over and over until he gets it, and if he doesn’t, then you break up.”
“But what if I don’t want to break up?”
“It doesn’t matter what you want if you also want to sleep with other people. Or, just one, as it seems like.”
“Yeah, just one.”
“Even one, though, it’s better that you guys part ways than you cheat on him.”
He didn’t look convinced.
I shrugged. “He might wanna sleep with someone else too.” His eyes got huge. “It goes both ways, right?” I continued. “He may be curious as well.”
“But I don’t want him to sleep with anybody else.”
“You’re both really young, Cab. Neither one of you has ever been with anyone else. It’s natural to wonder, but you can’t be naïve and think you’re the only one.”
He swallowed hard, I heard the gulp, and he looked like he was going to barf.
“Cab?”
“I don’t think I’ve thought this all the way through,” he rasped, his breathing rough.
“Sure,” I said gently, hand on his shoulder. “Because right now you’re thinking about some other guy’s hands all over Drake, but you also have to realize that, that thought can’t be what keeps you in this thing with him. Best thing to do is talk to him about everything and see where his head’s at. For all you know, his headspace could be the same.”
“That he wants to sleep with other people?”
I shrugged. “I know talking’s hard.” I really did. It was a horror at times. “But you have to do it.”
He cleared his throat. “So what time should we come over on Thursday?”
Apparently we were tabling the sex-with-strangers discussion.
“Whenever you want, just not like seven in the morning.”
He smiled wide.
I heard a loud thump and, in the living room, found Drake on the floor looking up at Ian, who was standing over him, arms crossed, looking bored.
“What happened?” I asked, chuckling.
Drake heaved out the words. “I’ve been taking tae kwon do lessons. I wanted to see if I could, you know, take him down.”
Ian’s arched eyebrow was diabolical. “He’s no
t quite ready yet.”
“To take on a Green Beret,” I teased. “No, probably not.”
“Bring rolls for dinner,” Ian commanded the prone man beneath him.
“Yessir,” Drake agreed, exhaling deeply as Cabot started giggling.
Ian offered his hand and Drake reached for him without hesitation.
Outside on the sidewalk, after reiterating to the boys to not show up at the crack of dawn on Thanksgiving, I smiled at Ian.
“What?”
“You were very good with them.”
“I have my moments,” he said, throwing an arm around my neck and pulling me close to him. “And now I just wanna go home.”
“I should call Aruna and ask her to keep Chickie until we get back from Vegas. No reason to bring him back and forth.”
“I agree and that way, you know, we can just go home.”
Home would be good. It was all I wanted, to be there with him alone.
THE HOME part was not to be. We ended up having to go back to the office for Ian’s laptop that we’d both forgotten to have him grab when we were there the first time. It was procedure to leave it at the office whenever he deployed, and it was also required it be in his possession as soon as he returned.
Once we were there, I saw Kage was in his office, which was weird since it was late on a Sunday, and he normally kept his weekends free for his family—except for the times his marshals found themselves in a life-threatening clusterfuck.
Like today.
While Ian checked his e-mail, Kage called me in to talk to him.
“Sir?”
“Jones, I’m flying out to Raleigh in the morning to speak to the family of Carrington Adams.”
This was news. I’d had no idea he’d be the one going. I was surprised that the chief deputy would be involved.
I knew undercover police detective Carrington Adams, but only in a roundabout way. Last year I was kidnapped by Dr. Craig Hartley, who had escaped from jail where I helped put him, despite the bureau team watching him, and had learned of the detective’s fate. It turned out that Special Agent Cillian Wojno worked for Hartley—unbeknownst to anyone—for several years and Hartley had been blackmailing him. Years earlier, Wojno had been an eyewitness to Adams’s death, and Hartley had used that knowledge to keep the agent under his thumb. When Wojno confessed that to me, I’d had no clue he had any connection to Kage. But it turned out my boss had known Adams. When I was debriefed after my kidnapping and related what I knew of Adams’s fate, Kage was quick to alert Chicago PD.
Kage was still talking. “I just wanted to thank you again for agreeing to speak to them if they have any further questions of a personal nature.”
“I don’t know what other information I’ll be able to give them,” I said, uncomfortable with the idea that because I’d been the one to find out what had happened to Adams, that I was now responsible for talking to his family. I didn’t know anything about the man besides how he’d died, and I couldn’t imagine that could be comforting in the least. I didn’t want to talk to them, but I would do anything Kage asked of me. That was a given.
“I know, but the fact that you offered will give them comfort.”
“It was you who offered,” I reminded him. “I agreed because you asked.”
He nodded. “Still.”
And that was enough, I knew what he meant. I’d still said okay, and he apparently appreciated that. “May I ask a question?”
“Of course.”
“Why are you the one going, sir?”
“To deliver the news of what happened to him to his family and give them his police star for his actions.”
“No, I understand the reason for the trip. I just don’t understand why it’s you specifically.”
“There’s a department liaison going with me as well.”
“No, that’s not what I’m asking.”
“Then I’m not getting your question.”
“I mean why are you going at all?”
“Oh, because I was the last one to speak to Adams before he died.”
This was also news. “You were?”
“From what I can figure now with the timeline, I think so, yeah.”
“Would you tell me what you two last spoke about?”
“Why is that important?”
“I think it’s important to you,” I replied, because it felt like it was. Ever since I’d first said the name Carrington Adams, it was like he was carrying around a weight on his shoulders. Just something extra, some strain that showed in the squint of his eyes, in a shadow on his face, in a catch of breath. “Can I be frank?”
“’Course.”
“Is it guilt?” I asked. That was the only thing I knew of that gnawed at a person like that, that made even quiet moments anxious.
He took a breath. “He called to tell me that the man he’d been building a case against—Rego James—was going to prison. At the time I remember thinking that he must have been on his way with a warrant and backup to the club that James ran all his businesses out of, and that he was going to arrest him.”
“But that’s not what happened.”
“No. You know what happened. Wojno gave James the heads-up that Adams was a cop, and James killed Adams and Billy Donovan that night in front of Hartley, who used that to blackmail Wojno down the road.”
I saw the sadness on his face and spoke before thinking. “You don’t blame yourself, do you, sir?”
It took a long moment before his gaze met mine. “I never followed up with him.”
“With Adams.”
“Yes.”
“Was it your case?”
“No.”
“Were you friends?”
“No, but he knew my husband.”
“Oh, so, were they friends?”
“Not friends, no. My husband knew Rego James as well.”
“So you’re connected to both Adams and James through your husband?”
“In a way, I guess.”
I squinted at him. “Why did Adams call you that night?”
“To tell me that my husband had acted very bravely in the face of danger,” he sighed.
“Then the update on James was more a courtesy just to let you know how things had worked out, or how he thought they would.”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but why in the world would you have followed up with Carrington Adams? The case had nothing to do with you, and the man himself was not your friend.”
“Are you thinking I’m looking for absolution, Jones?”
“No, sir, but I do think you’ve been blaming yourself since you heard what happened to him, and why in the world would you?” I was feeling again how I did about myself and Adams. Like, why the hell did I need to feel bad or answer questions? It had nothing to do with me beyond being the catalyst for Wojno’s betrayal. I almost resented Carrington Adams because both my boss and I were responsible for his legacy when neither of us had known him at all.
“You blame yourself for the people Hartley killed when he escaped from prison because you put him in prison and not in a grave when you had the chance,” he said flatly. “Don’t you?”
“I do,” I admitted.
“I think we all take responsibility for things that aren’t logical.”
Yes. “Perhaps,” I allowed.
“Go home, Jones. You’ve got to be on a plane very early in the morning.”
“Yessir,” I said, turning and leaving his office.
Ian was in the hall, and when I got close, he grabbed my hand and tugged me after him to the elevators. Inside, he shoved me up against the wall and sucked on my tongue. He would have never done it in the elevator in the middle of the day—too many people to witness a PDA—but it was late on a Sunday night and we were alone.
He kissed me breathless, grabbing my ass, pulling me close, and my hands were on his face, holding him there, making sure he couldn’t pull away. When he finally had to break the kiss for air, he held me there pinned t
o the wall.
“Enjoy this,” I told him, “because when we get home, you’re gonna be the one doing what I want, how I want.”
I heard his sharp exhale, and his hooded eyes never left my face.
“Now let’s go get a cab. I don’t wanna wait for the El.”
He nodded. “We should just go to impound and pick a car,” he suggested.
My wince as we got off the elevator made him stop walking. “What’s with the look?”
“There’s a Cabriolet,” I offered cheerfully before I bolted toward the front doors and out onto the street to flag down a cab.
He jogged to catch up with me. “The fuck is that?”
From the expression on his face, I couldn’t even bear to tell him.
REALLY, I was in no way surprised when we got home and Delaney was there, waiting outside our door with several men in the same military trench coats like Ian had on.
When we got closer, two other men got out of the passenger and driver’s sides of one of the parked SUVs, and they were in dress coats as well.
I paid the cab driver, got out on the street, not waiting for Ian to get out first onto the curb, and hustled around the back of the car so I could stand at his side.
“What’s going on?” Ian asked from where we were.
“Marshals Doyle and Jones?”
“Yes,” he answered coolly to one of the men who had gotten out of the SUV.
“We’re going to need you to come with us, Doyle.”
“Then I’m going to need to see a lot of ID,” Ian parroted, because, well, Ian. He was a smartass of the first order.
One of the men came forward, and from his stride and the way he flipped open his badge, I figured he was in charge. “Special Agent Corbin Bukowski, Criminal Investigative Division.”
“What the hell is this?” Ian groused.
I was about to say something else when another car pulled up alongside the curb, and this time the guy who got out of the passenger side immediately went to the door behind him and opened it, then held it open for the gentleman who got out. He was dressed exactly as Ian was, except his beret was black. When he was close enough, Ian stood at attention and saluted.