Zero Hour

by Megan Erickson

  Something flickered over Wren’s face, and when he looked back at Marisol, she was frowning. She opened her mouth to say something, but Erick beat her to it.

  “Get over here!”

  Roarke spun around. Erick beckoned from where he stood hunched over Jock, who was squinting at the computer in front of him. As Roarke walked toward them, he spotted Dade in the corner, the light of his laptop illuminating his face.

  “Did you find anything?” Roarke said as he drew up a chair next to Jock.

  Erick seemed too hyper to sit down, his face flushed. “He kept a lot of documentation.”

  Roarke squinted at the lines of code. This was his language; he had an easier time reading it than something written in English. It was the way his brain worked. He didn’t have to translate code in his head, it was a language all on its own, and the one his mind preferred. “Do we know when the zero-day sold?”

  “Day after Flynn was killed,” Jock said in a monotone.

  Roarke wiped his hand over his face. “So Arden needed him out of the way to get his payday.”

  “Yup,” Jock said, his fingers moving across the keyboard in a blur.

  “Excuse me,” Dade said from his corner. All heads turned to him, as if they’d forgotten he was there. Roarke kinda had.

  “What’s up?” Roarke asked.

  Dade plunked down a wireless speaker on the table and projected it out to the rest of them, and Roarke stood.

  Dade settled back in his chair. “Looks like Arden recorded some conversations for insurance.” Dade dramatically pressed his finger down on the keyboard.

  A voice garbled by a distorter filled the room. “I don’t have time for your research anymore. My deadline is tomorrow, and I need him gone or I’m out millions. I’m not paying you to spy on him. I’m paying you to kill him.”

  Roarke sucked in a breath; the words were like a kick to the solar plexus. This had to be Arden, speaking casually about killing Flynn. Roarke braced himself on the table in front of him.

  “And I told you, I’d have it done by your deadline.” The second voice wasn’t distorted, and Roarke assumed Arden kept this conversation in case the hired hit man turned on him. “It’s been hard to get him alone. As soon as his boyfriend leaves tomorrow, I’m on it. Unless you want me to kill him, too?”

  “No, I’d prefer less bodies,” Saltner’s voice said. “You mean that Asian guy?”

  “Yeah,” the hit man said.

  Dade stopped the recording, and the room plunged into a deafening silence. Roarke’s ears were ringing, his mind reeling. So this wasn’t about Flynn. This was in reference to the other guy they offed, because Flynn didn’t have a boyfriend…

  A muffled sob reached Roarke’s ears, and he jerked his head up. Erick stood by the door, his hand cupped over his mouth and a single tear slipping down his face as he met Roarke’s gaze.

  That was when Roarke’s mind went blank, when human emotions and words jumbled in his brain because they didn’t add up to clear data. “Wait.” Roarke’s voice didn’t sound like his. It sounded deeper, miles away. “What’s going on?”

  Erik dropped his hand as his eyes darted from Wren to Roarke. “I’m sorry. We were gonna tell you. All of you. Soon. But…” He shook his head, and the tears were coming harder now, dripping off his chin as his slender shoulders shook. He turned and ran out the door, Wren at his heels, her hair streaming behind her as she called for Erick to wait.

  Jock muttered under his breath, “Shit,” and Marisol stood with her hands on her hips, her eyes wet as she stared after Erick. Dade simply raised his eyebrows and went back to typing.

  Meanwhile, Roarke couldn’t move, frozen in place by the brand-new information that Flynn and Erick had been together. A couple.

  Hell, he hadn’t even known either of them were into men. Why hadn’t they told him? His mind tried to flip through his past words and deeds, wondering if he ever gave either of them the impression that he wouldn’t accept them, but he came up empty. Had they not trusted him?

  He shook his head—his feelings were secondary though. All this time, he thought Erick had been grieving for a friend. But he’d been mourning a boyfriend, and he’d kept it all inside. He must have been hurting so badly. How shitty of a friend was Roarke that he hadn’t even picked up on it?

  So he was fucking up left and right with the Lee family. He should just head up to Erie and do something to piss off their parents while he was at it.

  “I…” His tongue wasn’t working right. He needed to get out of here, to be alone. There was too much that wasn’t making sense, too many people and thoughts and feelings, and it was more than he’d had to deal with in years. He licked his lips and tried again. “I gotta go.”

  He made his way to the door and vaguely heard Marisol call his name, followed by Dade’s bored tone. “Let him go.”

  When he slammed the door behind him, they were arguing. Whatever, they were adults. He had his own shit to unfuck.

  He sat in his car with the engine running for a long time, fingers hovering over his phone’s keyboard as he thought about what to say to Erick. Was it just fooling around? Did they love each other? Roarke’s head pounded, wishing Flynn was in the passenger seat of his Mustang, bitching about the vents blasting cold air on his face and the way his knees always knocked the dashboard.

  Roarke would growl at him to quit being a diva, and Flynn would grin that effervescent smile that dripped with charm. And Roarke would grin back. No one could resist smiling around Flynn.

  Roarke squeezed his eyes shut, the grief once again threatening to drown him, to take him under. He’d been able to ignore it for so long because revenge had been the one overriding thought as soon as he’d heard about Flynn’s death. It had taken on a life of its own, evolving from a loaded noun into its very own emotion.

  He couldn’t let the grief win right now. He couldn’t retreat to that time right after Flynn died, when he realized he had no one. No mother, no father, and now no brother. No fucking family and only Erick to cling to. But Erick had been distant, lost in his grief. And now Roarke understood why. If Roarke let himself go back to that place, he’d never be able to finish the mission. With his heart in his throat, he finally typed to Erick, “You’re still my right hand, man. This doesn’t change anything.”

  He sent the text and waited. No response. He thought about driving to Erick’s apartment and banging down the door until his friend answered, but the guy had been through enough. It was probably better they both talked again after a good night’s sleep.

  Except Roarke knew his sleep would be anything but good. On the way home, he picked up a bottle of Jameson. He’d already broken the seal by the time he parked his car and took his first swig as he unlocked the door.

  He didn’t think after that, not about Wren or Flynn or Erick or about smashing Arden’s face. He drank and he drank until the room spun and the bottle slipped from his numb fingers.

  Only then did he pass out on his bed fully clothed and dreamed the dreamless sleep of the drunk and broken.

  * * *

  Roarke woke up to the sound of his ringtone. With a pounding headache that blurred his vision, he fumbled around for his cell, not even caring who was calling. He just needed that goddamn bleating sound to stop.

  His hand closed around his phone and he swiped blindly with his thumb before croaking, “What?” into the receiver.

  Jock’s voice came over the line. “Patch is deployed. Data is safe. Whoever bought that zero-day is gonna be mighty disappointed.”

  Roarke blinked, waiting for his brain to catch up. “Good work.”

  “Orange juice and Advil,” Jock said.

  Roarke wasn’t in the mood for puzzles. “What?”

  “For your hangover.” Then he hung up.

  Roarke took his phone from his ear and stared at it for a moment. Jock was a fucking oddball and way too damn observant for a person with no emotions.

  He rolled over onto his back, wincing at the so
reness of his muscles and the crick in his neck. His mind was moving at turtle speed, but it managed to conjure up last night. Wren storming out his door. That distorted voice. Erick’s face. Roarke’s stomach roiled and he dry heaved. He had to get up, eat something, get his shit together.

  He stumbled out of bed, used the bathroom, and trudged into the kitchen in his boxer briefs. He opened the refrigerator, staring inside, unsure what he came in there for in the first place.

  “Orange juice is on the top shelf,” Erick’s voice filtered through his headache.

  “Oh, cool.” Roarke grabbed it and froze, his head still in the fridge. Wait, how had he heard Erick’s voice? He stood up and shut the fridge door, before spinning slowly on his heel to see Erick sitting at his island.

  His hair was a mess, sticking up at angles. He scratched his blotchy face and peered at Roarke with bloodshot eyes. “Hey.”

  Roarke stared at him, then the front door. He returned his gaze to Erick. “How’d you get in here?”

  “I copied a key one time.”

  Of course he did. “Um.”

  Erick gestured to a glass in front of him. “For your juice.”

  “Oh. Right. Thanks.” Roarke tugged the glass in front of him and poured a full cup of orange juice. He chugged half of it before wiping his hand across his mouth and staring at his best friend. He wasn’t sure what to say. Did Erick want validation they were okay? Of course they were okay. Sure, Roarke felt a little rocked that his best friend and brother hadn’t been truthful, but Erick was a visible wreck, and Roarke wasn’t going to rail on him for keeping his relationship private. “Um, I don’t know what to say here. Did you get my text?”

  Erick was staring at his clasped hands on the counter. “Yep.”

  Roarke swirled his orange juice, and downed the rest of it. “Do you want anything? Water? Coffee? Eggs—”

  “I loved him.” Erick’s voice was reed thin, riding a wire.

  Roarke dropped his glass onto the counter with a clatter. “Erick—”

  Erick lifted his head, tears leaking from the corners of his eyes. “We had it planned when we were going to tell everyone. Remember that barbecue we were going to have? The one where Flynn got mad because I wanted to grill turkey burgers?”

  Roarke smiled at the memory of the two fighting. “Yeah.”

  “That’s when we were going to announce everything.”

  “Look.” Roarke wished he didn’t have a blood alcohol content while having this conversation. “I’m not mad. You don’t have to assure me I was going to know soon. But if you want to tell me, I’d love to know how this happened. I didn’t know Flynn was gay. Or you.”

  Erick ran his hands over his face. “Flynn was Flynn. I’d never been with a guy before, even though I’d thought for a long time I was attracted to them.” Erick bit his lip and glanced at Roarke, who kept his face neutral. He didn’t want to spook Erick into shutting down. “Flynn had been with men before, and you know, Roarke… he’s so… he was so damn charismatic.” Erick’s shoulders seemed to lose tension as he lifted his head to stare at the ceiling before dropping it back down to meet Roarke’s gaze. “So we started us. And it was the most perfect thing in my life.”

  Roarke started toward him—to hug, to console, something—but Erick held up a hand to stop him and took a deep breath. “We had plans. We were going to travel and get a dog, maybe a cat. I wanted a Nemo fish. So many plans.” Erick’s voice deepened, growing rougher. “He took the job with Saltner Defense for me.” He pounded on his chest. “He was going legit so we could settle down. Pay taxes. Be productive members of society.” His hands clenched. “So it eats at me like a fucking cancer every goddamn day that Flynn is dead because of me.”

  In two strides, Roarke was at Erick’s side, clasping him against his chest as Erick let loose a torrent of sobs that he’d valiantly held back. Erick’s entire body shook, his gasps sounding painful as he soaked Roark’s chest with tears.

  A part of Roarke wanted someone else to blame for Flynn’s death, but he could have blamed himself, too. He was the one who started programming, who encouraged Flynn to do it, too. They wouldn’t be in this mess at all if Flynn had gone into nursing or teaching or something fucking legal.

  Instead he’d followed in his big brother’s footsteps and paid for it with his life. So no, Roarke couldn’t blame Erick. Not one bit.

  “It’s not your fault,” Roarke said. “I know you know that. But guilt is a motherfucker.”

  “I’d give anything to have him back,” Erick said, his voice a bit clearer.

  “I can’t believe you kept quiet about your relationship this whole time. How are you not angrier?”

  Erick pulled away. “I am angry. I’m fucking pissed. But I can’t live like that every minute. This mission is the reason I’m not still in a blanket fort in my apartment. This revenge gave me life again.”

  “I know the feeling,” Roarke said grimly.

  Erick’s smile was wan. “Yeah, I know you do.”

  Roarke sat down heavily on the stool beside Erick, his legs not supporting him as well as he’d like. “I wish I would have known. Was he nervous about telling me? Did he think I wouldn’t have understood?”

  “He was nervous, but he didn’t think you wouldn’t accept him. He was worried it would affect your relationship with him, that it would affect your friendship with me. No matter what, this would have changed the way the three of us interacted, you know? Not necessarily in a bad way, but it would have changed.”

  Roarke tried to imagine family dinners with Roarke and Flynn sitting together at the table, kissing, holding hands. He could have seen all the joy they brought to each other’s lives. He could have been a witness to their love. And instead it had been taken from him. From Erick. From all of them.

  That fire in his blood, that driving need for revenge, was still there, brighter than ever, pushing through the haze of alcohol.

  “I’m sorry I never got to see how happy you were together,” Roarke said.

  Erick’s lips twitched. “Me too.”

  “Was he, uh, was he a good boyfriend?”

  Erick’s smile was genuine now. “The best. He used to…” He paused. “Do you want to hear about us?”

  “Yes,” Roarke said quickly, wanting Erick to keep talking, to remember the good times. And to remind Roarke why they were all putting themselves at risk.

  Erick nodded. “If he spent the night at my place, he’d leave me notes on my bathroom mirror. Dumb shit that made me laugh, like ‘I hate your smile. It’s really bad and doesn’t make me want to kiss you at all.’” Erick’s cheeks were reddening, his breath quickening as his eyes grew brighter. “Or ‘You should do more squats. Your ass definitely doesn’t make me want to fuck you.’” Erick blushed.

  A hole opened up in Roarke’s heart, thinking of his brother joking with the love of his life. He rubbed his chest, squeezing the skin painfully as grief scratched and clawed at his heart. “That sounds like Flynn.”

  “I wasn’t sure what to do when he died. You were grieving, too. I didn’t want to place all this on you. The time wasn’t right. I loved him, but so did you.”

  All Roarke could do was nod. Fuck, why did this have to be so painful?

  Erick blew out a breath. “I’d built this all up in my head so much.”

  “Telling me?”

  “Yeah. And now I have, and it finally feels like I’m not constantly drowning.” He slapped Roarke’s cheek gently. “We’re cool, right? No secrets now.”

  “We’re cool,” Roarke said, then swallowed because there were secrets. There were definitely secrets, and it was probably time to spill it all. “But there’s probably something you should know.”

  “Are you gay?” Erick said, his brows furrowing.

  Roarke barked out a laugh. “No.” He scratched his head and let his hair fall into his eyes. “Your sister and I have a thing.”

  Erick’s expression was frustratingly neutral. Roarke waited until Erick
bobbed his head. “And…?”

  “You want details?”

  “Well, what’s a thing?” Erick stood up and turned on the Keurig machine to make a cup of coffee. He didn’t turn around. “When did it start?”

  Roarke listened to the hum of the machine starting up and stared at Erick’s back. “I think you know I’ve always had a thing for Wren.”

  Erick paused with his hand halfway to the cabinet to get a mug. “Yeah, I think I did.”

  “Look, man. I don’t want you to be angry. We tried to resist what was happening between us. Hell, that was half the reason I didn’t want her involved.”

  “I thought it was a little sister–protective thing, I guess.” Erick placed a pod in the Keurig, slammed the lid shut, and pressed the button.

  “Sure, it was that when we were teenagers. Maybe. I think I was always half in love with your sister,” Roarke admitted. Maybe the alcohol last night was a truth serum because this was more than he ever talked about himself. Wren was the one thing he kept locked up tight. Confessing his feelings for her, even to her brother, was like releasing a bird from its cage. It could fly any which way or smash into a window. “And now she’s back, all grown up and so damn…fiery. And brave and smart.”

  Erick pulled his mug from the Keurig and took a sip before turning around. He leaned back on the counter behind him, his eyes on Roarke over the rim of his mug. “You seem conflicted, like you don’t want to do this.”

  “I don’t,” Roarke said quickly, and Erick’s body stiffened. “That came out wrong. I do want your sister. More than anything. But I don’t want to get involved with her. Our lives are not normal, and staying together after this mission would be dangerous for us both, but mostly for her. How can I live with that?”

  That seemed to hit Erick where he was vulnerable, because he flinched. “So how did this happen?”

  “It happened because we want each other. Although maybe it’s over before it began. She’s pissed at me now. Stormed out of here last night before we came to HQ.”