“All right,” Atlas said, rubbing his palms together. “How do we get our boy back home?”
Rook sighed and opened up one of the many logistics apps on his iPad. “Let’s get started.”
***
Moreau could feel the morning sun against his eyelids, but he kept his eyes pinched closed. He could hear voices in the hallway outside of his door. The nurse had already been in twice this morning.
He felt as if he were a barely tolerant audience member of his own life. And in this case, his life was a shitty local theater production. He could feel all the people who were buzzing around behind the curtain, attempting not to disturb him.
Well, too bad. Because he was extremely disturbed. And in pain. And fuzzy as hell from all the painkillers. And even fuzzier from the concussion.
His only consolation was that he was finally back in New York. In the bunker. Rook was here and now that Moreau had conveyed his wishes to him, there was nothing more to worry about. Rook would see to it that everything was taken care of.
Moreau heard the door to his room in the bunker open but he ignored it. There was nothing that could get him to open his eyes.
***
The next day, when sunlight hit his eyelids, Moreau cracked his eyes open. There was the sound of low chuckles and playful arguing from one corner of his room. He lifted his hand to his face and couldn’t stop the grunt of pain he made when his fingers came into contact with the bandage he forgot that he wore. He’d banged his head on something in the accident.
“Good morning, Sunshine,” said a familiar voice. Moreau willed his eyes to focus, but without his glasses couldn’t make out more than Atlas’s blurry form in the corner.
Moreau grunted and hoped it would do for a greeting.
Another form rose up from a crouch that Moreau hadn’t noticed and he immediately recognized Geo’s statuesque silhouette.
“What are you two doing?” His words were gruff and slightly slurred. They were some of the first words he’d spoken since he’d gotten to the bunker and let himself fade into oblivion.
“We’re setting up this TV for you, since this room didn’t originally have one.”
Moreau blinked around in confusion until he realized that though he was in the bunker, he wasn’t in his usual room.
“Why aren’t I in the crow’s nest?”
“It’s not exactly wheelchair accessible,” Geo said.
Atlas had made his way to the edge of Moreau’s bed, but Geo hadn’t moved from her post in the far corner.
Her words made Moreau’s stomach drop. He’d forgotten about his damn wheelchair. In a few days, he’d be able to upgrade to crutches, but it didn’t matter. For the foreseeable future, the long set of narrow stairs up to the crow’s nest were definitely out.
“Which room am I in?”
“You’re in the employee’s quarters, son,” Atlas said, and though Moreau couldn’t quite make it out through his blurry vision, he could hear the smile. “The digs aren’t quite as fancy, but you’re safer than a sardine.”
Moreau had never heard that colloquialism before, but Atlas was often saying silly things like that. “What?”
“He means that we’re all living on top of one another in this section of the bunker. Like sardines. Cedric is down the hall, Atlas and Sequence are on the other end, and I’m next door to you, across the hall.”
“Will you all be staying here?” Maybe it was the concussion, but Moreau was confused. The team only ever stayed all together at the bunker when their client was in danger.
“Yeah, until we figure out who—” Atlas cut off with what sounded like a pained grunt and Moreau was suddenly aware that Geo was standing alongside him. “Until you’re better.”
That didn’t make sense to Moreau, but he was starting to get fuzzy and confused and longed to fall back to sleep. He felt something touch his face.
“You’re squinting a lot,” Geo observed. “Is it your head? You’re in pain?”
Moreau tried to gather his thoughts before he fell back to sleep. “Yes. And no. I don’t have my glasses or contacts in.”
There was a beat of silence. “I never knew you wore glasses,” Atlas said. “That’s weird; I thought we knew everything about our clients.”
“Your assistant didn’t send any glasses or contacts when he overnighted your belongings to us,” Geo informed him.
“Luca probably doesn’t realize I wear them,” Moreau said.
“We’ll get them to you by tomorrow,” Atlas promised.
“Can you remember your prescription?” Geo asked. “It’ll be easier for us to get new ones than to have your assistant rifle through your house again.”
“In my phone, there’s an app…” He was fading away. “I buy glasses. It has the information. Can’t remember my passcode.”
He felt cool fingers against his palm and Moreau automatically closed his hand around Geo’s before he fell asleep.
***
Geo stared down at Moreau’s tan hand closed around hers. She’d meant to lift his thumb to the home button of his phone to unlock it, but she’d somehow ended up holding hands with him while he drifted off to sleep.
How had she never noticed his hands before? She was certainly noticing them now. He had lovely hands. His fingers were wide and blunt, his fingernails clean and flat with slim crescents of white at each nail bed. There was a smattering of hair over his knuckles and Geo found that she liked that. He was always so movie star perfect, except for his hands apparently.
“Jeez,” Atlas muttered beside her and Geo jolted. She’d felt, for a moment, as if she were alone with Moreau. “Poor guy. This concussion must be really bad.”
Geo quickly unlocked Moreau’s phone and the two of them strode out of the room, into the hallway. “The doctor said it was bad.”
“I know. But he’s like, really out of it. It’s weird to see, you know? I never really realized how sharp he is until I saw him all wonky.”
Geo couldn’t agree more. It was extremely disconcerting to see Moreau confused and in pain. It was like someone had placed a paper bag over his internal candle. Everything was muddled and dim. She didn’t like it at all.
She knew exactly how to spar with an alert and healthy Moreau Davy. But a weak and recovering Moreau Davy? She had no idea how to handle that. She’d touched his forehead, for fuck sakes! She’d leaned down to him as if she were testing for a fever. She was grateful that Atlas either hadn’t thought it was strange or chose to keep it to himself.
“I found it.” Geo clicked in to his Warby Parker app. She went to his recent purchases and read the details. “Damn.”
“What is it?”
“It’ll take time to have a new pair of glasses made and shipped.”
“We can have the assistant overnight them faster than that.”
“No.” Geo shook her head. She’d met Luca before. “I know Moreau trusts that sniveling little twerp, but I sure don’t. I don’t want him snooping around Moreau’s house again.”
“Considering we don’t know who cut Moreau’s brakes?”
Geo lifted a droll eyebrow. “Yeah. Considering that.” She scrolled through Moreau’s app again. “We wear basically the same prescription. He can wear my glasses while we wait for his new ones to come in.”
Again, either Atlas didn’t think that was strange or he chose not to mention it.
***
Moreau was awake long enough that evening to eat dinner with a friend. Elena, Cedric’s fiancée, had come to sit with him. Actually, she’d been there when he’d woken up, and even through his blurry vision, he’d been able to read the tense concern in every line of her face.
“You look like my sister,” had been the first thing to come out of his mouth.
“Oh! Rise and shine, sleepyhead. I didn’t know you had a sister.” She fixed the blankets over his chest and automatically smoothed his hair in a mothering sort of gesture. Of all the people he’d ever met in his life, Elena went down in the recor
d books as having been the least starstruck of all of them. She was a very pragmatic and levelheaded environmental conservationist. Their very first conversation had been about all the ways he could use his celebrity to contribute to worthy causes. By the time they’d said goodbye to one another, she’d convinced him to donate several million dollars to the conservation fund for which she worked. A few months later, she had him starting a preserve in Canada.
“I don’t,” he answered groggily. “I was just saying that you and I look alike.”
It wasn’t untrue. They both had dark eyes and Mediterranean coloring. Elena was beautiful, but in an unconventional way, with her sharp features and too-big nose. She laughed. “I think you must have been conked on the head harder than I thought.”
“No. Really. We could be related.”
“You need glasses.”
“Actually…” He pressed his fingers into his eyes. “I really do. I left mine in California.”
“There’s some right here.” She pressed a pair of unfamiliar frames into his hand.
He slipped them on. They were heavy and obviously much cheaper than he was used to, and the prescription wasn’t exactly right, but the room was suddenly pulled into a much sharper focus. He was both relieved and chagrined by that.
It was nice to see clearly, but it also hurt his tender brain. He knew that with a concussion, he wasn’t supposed to use his eyes for anything rigorous.
Elena’s expression looked even more worried now that he could see her clearly.
“Sequence sent up some soup,” she said, pointing to a tray that sat beside her.
He was relieved to see that there were two bowls. He wouldn’t have to sip soup like an invalid while she looked on in concern.
It was good soup, and the two of them chatted idly while he slowly worked his way through the bowl. Elena deftly avoided all tender topics of conversation, such as the car crash and his impending months of recovery, and when he started to get fuzzy, she kissed his cheek, cleared the bowls, and excused herself.
A few minutes later, Leary, one of the nurses, came in. He was brawny and loud and Moreau had liked him right away.
“How you feeling tonight, Mr. Davy?”
“Leary, I wish you’d call me Moreau.”
That made Leary’s ruddy cheeks even ruddier. “I’m trying but I always panic at the last second.”
“Just call him Davy like the rest of us mere mortals do.”
Moreau turned, he hadn’t realized that Geo had come into the room with Leary. She stood with her hands in the pockets of her black slacks and her back against the door. His stomach flipped at his first in-focus look at her in weeks. She looked gorgeous and imperious and so normal that Moreau felt something loosen in his gut. He hadn’t realized just how much he’d needed a tiny speck of normalcy in his life right now.
“After I change the dressing on your leg, we’ll get you to the bathroom and then bedtime? How does that sound?” Leary asked. He leaned forward and pulled off the bandage at Moreau’s forehead. He made a sound of approval. “And it looks like the bandage on your head can come off permanently. You’re looking great up there.”
Moreau was very mindful of Geo standing in the room while a nurse pawed at his aching body. He tried to ignore her presence, which was almost impossible when every cell in his person was extremely keyed in to her presence. “I’d like a shower tonight, if that’s possible.”
Leary frowned. “Are you sure you have the strength for it? It might wipe you out.”
Moreau nodded. “I hate sleeping without a shower.”
“Do you…” Geo cleared her throat and stared only at Leary. “Need assistance for that?”
Leary immediately shook his head. “No, no. We’ll manage on our own. The fact that it’s a walk-in shower will help a lot.”
Leary helped Moreau from the bed into the bedside wheelchair and Moreau attempted not to look at his splinted leg. It was awkward and obtuse and felt foreign and achy and itchy. He’d broken bones before, but never like this.
He was painfully aware of Geo in his space. He turned to look at her. “Did you need something, Savannah?”
Her eyes narrowed at his semi-polite dismissal of her, and his use of her given name. But after a moment she just shook her head. “Just here to lend a helping hand.”
She held the bathroom door for Leary but she thankfully didn’t follow them in there.
A half an hour later, Moreau emerged from the bathroom, freshly showered, teeth brushed, and completely and utterly exhausted.
As his eyes drifted closed, he was dimly aware of Leary writing something on a clipboard and then leaving the room. Moreau felt the glasses gently lifted off his face, then the lamp was dimmed and he was out before he had time to even wonder who’d done it.
***
It was the next day when Moreau was cogent enough to start to put the pieces together. He was finally realizing that every time one of his three nurses was in the room, so was a member of Rook Securities. He remembered Atlas’s disclosure that they were all staying there in the bunker.
They were guarding him. From within the bunker. Which meant that they were on lockdown with him.
Which meant that he was in danger.
Doctor Burke visited Moreau in the morning and it was Rook who sat in this time. When Burke had left, heartily approving of Moreau’s progress, Moreau had stopped Rook from leaving with him.
“Tell me what’s going on, my friend.”
Rook sighed and rocked back onto his heels before he pulled up the desk chair to Moreau’s bedside. “I’d hoped to wait until you were more recovered.”
“I’m well enough for you to tell me why the team is babysitting me.”
Rook leaned forward, his elbows on his knees and held Moreau’s eyes. “Do you remember the accident?”
With a frustrated grind to his teeth, Moreau had to shake his head no. He couldn’t and it was irritating him to no end. He froze his head mid-shake when his temples began to pound. To use one of his favorite English language idioms: concussions were for the birds.
“All right, there's probably a much better way to say this, but I’m just going to come right out. Your brakes were cut.”
The words didn’t quite make sense to Moreau. He thought for a second that Rook had cut off in the middle of what he was saying. In his befuddled state, Moreau’s concussed brain filled in the rest of that sentence with nonsense. Your brakes were cut… from stone. Your brakes were cut…ting edge. Your brakes were cut… from a different cloth.
But yeah. None of that made any more sense than what Rook had said. “You mean to say…”
“Someone cut your brakes, Moreau.”
He was still computing. “In the Volvo?”
“Yes.”
“But. But why?”
Rook was quiet for a minute. “Motives are unclear as we don’t have any suspects. But probably to kill you.”
With the word kill everything suddenly filed into place like the last Tetris piece that fit perfectly and deleted four rows at once.
“The team is protecting me, even here in the bunker, because they—you—believe there is a threat to my life?”
“Yes.”
“But who would you be protecting me from within these walls? It is only us and the nurses.”
“We vetted the nurses as well as we could in such short notice, and of course, required them to sign NDAs. But the only people I truly trust with your life is my team, Moreau. And we’re keeping a team member as your shadow until you’re well enough to get these nurses the hell out of my bunker.”
Moreau looked at the ceiling. “Who would wish to kill me?”
“That’s something I’ll be very interested in talking with you about once you’re feeling better.”
Moreau shoved his fingers under the heavy glasses and rubbed at the bridge of his nose where they’d left a big dent.
“We ordered you new glasses, by the way. They should be here tomorrow or the next day
.”
Moreau pulled the heavy frames off his face and peered at them, in a nearsighted sort of way. “I never thought to ask where these came from.”
“Geo.”
Moreau put the glasses back on and squinted at Rook. “Hmm?”
“They’re Geo’s. She’s letting you borrow them for a while.” Rook stood. “There are a few things I’d like to get done, but I’ll check in on you in a few hours.”
Moreau nodded. When the door closed behind Rook, he was lost in thought for a long time.
CHAPTER THREE
That evening, Moreau couldn’t sleep. He was irritated, itchy, achy, fatigued and wired all at once. For a man who was very much used to autonomy, being laid up was a hellish experience for him.
Deciding he wanted to watch television—or at least listen to it—he leaned over his nightstand and tried to reach the remote control. It was too far. He stretched until he felt a shooting pain in his ribs and he promptly stopped. In all of this mess with his leg, he’d sort of forgotten that he’d broken ribs as well.
He frowned at the remote control before inspiration struck. There was bound to be a member of his security team posted guard in the hall. If they really were so worried about his safety, there would always be someone within shouting distance. “Babysitter!” he called, knocking his knuckles on the wall behind his head. “Babysitter!”
He heard footsteps in the hall and then the door swung open. As it always seemed to do, the doorway perfectly framed Geo as she stood there with one hip cocked out and a frown on her perfect face. “The fuck you call me?”
“I was simply calling out for my babysitter.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You need someone to tuck you into bed, Davy?”
With a zinging burst of energy that he hadn’t felt since before the accident, Moreau fixed his face into what he’d been told was a panty-melting smirk. “If you’re doing the tucking…”
The smirk had zero apparent effect on Geo. The same way everything he did had zero apparent effect on Geo. “What was it that you needed?”
Now that she was there and talking to him and getting his sluggish blood to zip through his veins, he found that he didn’t want to admit to something as pathetic as wanting to watch television and not quite having the arm-span for it. “I’m bored.”
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