The Strength of His Heart

by Victoria Sue

“I got a text yesterday. He’d borrowed a friend’s phone at school to text me because he said he got his own taken away from him by his dad. He said his dad hadn’t been mean especially, apart from saying he wasn’t willing to pay for a cell phone contract, but he had to get up at four before school to help on the farm. He also said he’s hungry all the time because no one gets it.”

  “Hell,” Vance spat out, and Sam glanced at him.

  “I’m guessing he needs the extra calories like you?”

  “Definitely,” Pete said with feeling. “We get an extra food allowance specifically for enhanced, although Aaron seems to be the only one who needs it especially.”

  “Did he give you any indication he was thinking of running away?” Finn asked.

  “No, I swear,” Paul said. “Or I would have called you yesterday. I texted back that Pete was away until today, and I would tell him, and he would tell you. He said he was gonna hang tight unless he died of starvation.” Paul’s eyes filled, and he ducked his head. “He was making a joke of it. But he wouldn’t have run without telling me.”

  Vance leaned closer to Paul, not taking his hand like he would a little kid but offering support.

  “I should have texted you myself.” Paul looked worried.

  Vance shook his head. “We’ll find him, don’t you worry.” Paul seemed to take that as a promise and cheered up. Sam knew these kids had history with Vance and Finn, but it was obvious they were close. Children weren’t born being discriminatory bigots. Unfortunately, it was something they were taught by assholes who should know better.

  Finn went upstairs to visit with the younger ones, and Paul followed.

  “This has hit him hard,” Pete said. “I feel so bad I wasn’t here, but I’ve been helping my daughter settle into her new place. She’s expecting twins in February.”

  “That’s great,” Gael said.

  “And how much vacation have you taken this year?” Vance teased.

  Pete rolled his eyes again, but his silence was telling. “I have a day off tomorrow.” He brightened. “Sergeant Connelly has invited them all for a barbeque.”

  “He has?” Vance sounded surprised. “Liam will be so happy to see them.”

  “Yeah,” Pete agreed. “I was hoping it might take Paul’s mind off things, but it might only reinforce Aaron’s absence.”

  “How are they all doing? Any problems?”

  Pete shook his head at Vance. “They’re all doing great. Your mom was here a couple of weeks ago. Something about a boy who was in the ROTC? Paul’s very interested.”

  “ROTC?” Sam queried. “Even though they can’t serve?”

  “Chamberlain High School has a very well supported ROTC program, especially being so close to MacDill AFB,” Vance explained. “A friend of Liam’s from elementary school has transformed, and his father is an instructor there. Because of his dad, Roman has been accepted into the ROTC even if he can’t serve as yet.”

  “Finn went a few months ago to the school to help put support in place,” Gael added.

  Finn came back downstairs after they had eaten more cake, and promised to let them all know as soon as they heard anything about Aaron.

  “How’s your shadow?” Gael teased Finn as they walked outside.

  “I think I just promised to host his birthday party.”

  Gael snorted. “Please let me be there when you tell Talon.”

  Gael went to collect Finn’s bag and drop him off at the airport in Finn’s car, because after the call with Talon, they agreed Finn needed to go see Aaron’s father. He would be met in Denver by the local feds.

  VANCE SMILED at Andrews, who was parked in the black-and-white opposite Sam’s apartment. The older cop nodded and grinned and lowered his window. “Hey, Connelly, you causing trouble?”

  Vance chuckled and stepped up to the car. He glanced at the thermos and the sandwiches on the dashboard. “Oh man, sorry. You got babysitting duty all night?” He nodded politely to the younger cop sitting next to him, who he didn’t recognize.

  Andrews chuckled and leaned to the side of Vance, putting his arm out to clasp Sam’s offered one. Sam bent down, and Vance saw the other cop’s eyes widen. “Sam?”

  Sam gaped in what looked like complete shock. “Jackson, what the hell?”

  Vance got out of the way quickly as the younger man scrambled to get out of the car and rushed around to Sam. He nearly ran up to him, and then a split second before Sam took a step backward, Jackson put on the brakes. Another tense second that passed so fast Vance could easily have imagined it, and then Jackson put out his hand, and Sam did likewise, and they drew each other in for a quick hug.

  A guy hug.

  And every one of Vance’s warning bells rang.

  He had another second to note that Jackson was looking at Sam like he was God Almighty, as his mom would say, and then Andrews spoke again. “You two know each other, huh?”

  Sam flushed and took a step sideways, putting space between him and Jackson.

  “I knew Officer Piper in Atlanta,” Jackson volunteered.

  “When did you move here?” Vance wanted to know.

  Jackson flushed. “Last year. Mom remarried.”

  “Yeah?” Sam said and smiled. “How is she?”

  “Better now she’s got a grandbaby on the way.”

  Vance watched as Sam’s eyes widened slightly. “Barry settled down, did he?”

  Jackson nodded. “He and Ryan got a surrogate.”

  Ryan? Ryan was a guy. Vance stared at Sam, but Sam was looking at Andrews. “Like Vance said, sorry you got to sit here all night.”

  Andrews grinned good-naturedly. “You give me a shout if you see any trouble. I know half the station would have my hide if anything happened to the sarge’s baby brother, to say nothing of what the lieutenant would do to me.”

  Without waiting for a reply from Sam, he glanced back at Vance. “Expect to see a few of us on and off. Any whiff of trouble, you call down.”

  Vance swallowed. They were all like family to him. He’d wanted nothing more than to be a cop from when he was old enough to know what it meant when he saw his dad put on the uniform. He drew in a breath. And he’d done it. And he was in the FBI, which was so cool that some days he still felt about five when he’d had his first ride in his dad’s car, complete with siren and flashing lights. By the time he was seven, he had learned the Oath of Honor, and he used to stand in front of the mirror at home and recite it.

  Then he’d woken up with the mark.

  “Are there any cops you don’t know?” Sam asked lightly as they wished both cops a good evening, walked inside, and by an unspoken agreement walked straight past the elevator.

  But Vance was more concerned with the cop Sam knew. “That’s a coincidence, you seeing your friend.” He was fishing, he knew he was.

  “Not so much my friend,” Sam said. “I went to school with his older brother. I don’t remember Jackson much.”

  “Barry and Ryan?” Vance carried on conversationally.

  “Yeah,” Sam said and unlocked his door. “They had a civil union back before marriage was legal. I’m glad they are having a kid; Barry always wanted to be a dad.”

  Vance saw the swallow run the length of Sam’s throat.

  “Is Barry a cop?”

  Sam went straight to the fridge and pulled out two beers. “No, he’s a lawyer. First time I met him was in a courtroom.”

  “Uh-huh.” Vance took the beer Sam offered him and twisted the cap off. “And how long after that did you sleep with him?”

  Sam opened his mouth as if a big fat denial was gonna come pouring out, but he shut it and sighed. “Vance—”

  “No!” Vance slammed his untouched beer down on the counter. “Do you really think you’re so fucking irresistible that you had to pretend you were straight so I wouldn’t jump you or something?”

  “No, Vance, I—”

  But Vance wasn’t interested. He had never—never been so fucking humiliated in his entire li
fe. He whirled around and went to the bedroom, pulled out his bag from the other side of the bed, and started throwing in the few things he had out. Sam followed him.

  “It wasn’t like that, Vance.”

  Vance stopped and turned around to face him. “No? What was it like, then? I’m a big guy. Maybe you were worried I would get a little too hyped up, a little hands-on? Maybe you thought I wouldn’t understand if someone just didn’t like me?” Vance railed and stalked into the bathroom to grab his toothbrush.

  “Vance, stop,” Sam argued.

  “Or maybe….” Vance took a breath, and the knowledge and understanding sank into his gut like he’d been punched. “Maybe you just thought I wouldn’t understand the word no.”

  He watched as apology and guilt flashed in Sam’s eyes, and Vance’s knees suddenly wobbled, and he sank onto the bed. “Jesus. You did.” Horror nearly stole his breath. Someone twisted a knife deep in Vance’s gut. He did. Sam actually thought Vance would hurt him. Would force him. For a split second, Vance thought he was gonna hurl.

  Pride forced his legs to work, and he stood up and reached over for the bag. “I’m out of here. I’ll get Andrews to call me a ride.”

  “No, Vance, you—”

  “No Vance what?” Vance nearly shouted. “Twelve weeks I’ve had your back whenever you’d let me. I never complained. I stood there and let Ramirez treat me like shit because I was your partner, and that means something, to me at least.” He swallowed down the anger because he was shit at losing his temper. He didn’t shout. He’d always been the peacemaker between his brothers. He’d get mad and just cry. Pathetic. He was pathetic. No wonder Sam—

  “Vance.” Sam’s hands were clamped to Vance’s arms, and he shook them. Actually shook them to get Vance to listen. But he couldn’t.

  “I have to go.”

  “You can’t.” Sam stepped right up to him.

  “I will. I have to. I—” But the words were cut off because Sam just reached up and grabbed the back of Vance’s neck and pulled.

  And then Sam’s lips were on his.

  Kissing.

  Or at least Sam was kissing him, because Vance was frozen. He felt Sam’s lips widen into a smile, and he leaned his head back just an inch. “Sit down,” Sam whispered. Vance sat. Not because his brain was firing on all cylinders and understood the instruction, but because his legs seemed to know how to obey an order. Sam nudged Vance’s legs wider, and Sam stepped into them. With Vance sitting, they were face-to-face. Sam cupped Vance’s head in his hands and brushed a thumb over Vance’s lips, still wet from where Sam’s lips had touched them.

  Vance was sure he should say something. Something intelligent, articulate, a word even. Something that demonstrated he was speaking the same language that Sam was, but everything he had ever learned vanished from Vance’s brain so fast, it never stood a chance of reaching his vocal cords.

  “Oh.” He swallowed. It was more a noise of surprise than an actual word, but Vance wasn’t gonna split hairs or count chickens or—mmff. That definitely wasn’t a word either, but at that point Vance didn’t really care because Sam’s lips had covered his again.

  And they were every bit as soft as he knew they would be.

  His hands seemed to know what to do as well, because they slid around Sam and settled on his ass. Whoever thought Sam was too short or that Vance was too tall didn’t know what they were talking about.

  Oh, wait… that had been him.

  But the way Sam stood, pressing into him, grinding into him, he was the perfect handful.

  Or his ass was, anyway.

  “Vance, this is such a bad idea when we’re partners.”

  Had that been a question? Did Sam really think Vance could either think when the most perfect lips he had ever tasted were alternating between kissing his and investigating the skin on his neck, or would care? At all?

  “Mmm,” Vance mumbled as his fingers delved under Sam’s waistband and reluctantly let go of his ass in search of a bigger prize at the front of his pants.

  “Vance?”

  Vance paused for a second and tried to work out if that had been a question or a plea and looked at the beautiful man standing in front of him. Right in front of him. Close. He wasn’t moving. He actually probably couldn’t move because Vance had him in a death grip….

  He loosened his arms. He would cut them off before he scared Sam. “I loved you with blue hair.” He watched as Sam gently tugged his bottom lip with his teeth as if he had forgotten he didn’t have the ring in, and Vance bent forward to mouth his nipples through his shirt. He groaned when he felt the small bar. “Please let me see.”

  “I’m—I don’t know,” Sam whispered, and he took a step back. Vance stayed where he was even with everything in him screaming to follow. His dick was certainly pointing in Sam’s direction.

  Sam nodded as if Vance had said something. “We need to talk.”

  “Breaking up with me already?” Vance didn’t care. Well, he did obviously, but—“Anything you want.”

  Sam smiled and tilted his head. “I need to explain. Yes, you’re right,” Sam said. “I lied about being gay”—Vance jerked back—“but not because I didn’t trust you not to stop.”

  “Because someone else didn’t?” Vance watched as Sam’s eyes darkened, but not with lust, with a memory that hurt. “Someone bigger than you?” He put as much gentleness into the question as he could, cradling each word deliberately.

  Sam nodded briefly. “I glossed over it earlier, but foster care was a nightmare I didn’t think I would ever wake up from.” Vance wanted to take him in his arms, but he stayed still. He didn’t think it would take anything to spook Sam, and he wanted to hear. Wanted to know what made him afraid to admit something so basic. Being gay was very important to Vance, but he was incredibly lucky. In the same way his family had accepted him being enhanced, who he slept with made no difference either. There were so many people who had it worse.

  “I got placed with two separate couples. The first one was great, but they got divorced. Brian went off with his secretary, and Sheila had to move in with her sister and her two kids. No room for any more, so I got sent back to the group home. Stayed there for about three months until another couple wanted me. They were great, but their daughter was mixed up. She was self-harming already in secret, and four months after I arrived she tried to kill herself.”

  “Surely they didn’t blame you?”

  “No.” Sam shook his head. “The crazy thing was, even though I’d settled, was finally in school, and got along with them, my caseworker arrived like she knew better and pulled me straight out. The group home I had been in before was full, so I had to move away and change schools. The home had five kids, and the oldest two were sixteen-year-old twin brothers who ruled the place like Nazis. There was a thirteen-year-old African American girl they picked on unmercifully. They thought I was all-American and didn’t like it when I wouldn’t join their Aryan brotherhood, and the other two kids there were just as terrified. It helped Camilla because their focus was me, and there was nothing I could do.”

  “But what about the manager?” Vance asked even though he meant to stay quiet.

  “I don’t think I ever saw her sober, but she was good at covering it when the caseworkers came around. Churchgoing, and Paul and Rix went every Sunday like clockwork. They would have had half the church swear they wouldn’t hurt a fly. I learned to survive there until Paul and Rix aged out.”

  Vance swallowed. Sam said it so matter-of-factly, like it was nothing.

  He sighed and looked at Vance. “I decided surviving another two years was better than the possibility of being sent somewhere worse.”

  Vance scooted back on the bed, deliberately not letting his reaction show on his face, and patted the space next to him in invitation.

  Sam’s eyebrow rose, and Vance tripped over the words he suddenly needed to say more than he needed to take his next breath. “Just to talk. As much as I want nothing more than for y
ou to kiss me again, I would never do anything you don’t want, and I wouldn’t harm a hair on your head, whatever color it was.”

  Sam sat—reluctantly maybe—but at least he wasn’t running or asking Vance to leave or any of the other horrific decisions he could easily make. “I’m not a child. I don’t need looking after.”

  “Neither do I. Did you stay in the hospital with me because you thought the nurses weren’t capable of taking care of me?”

  Sam shook his head slowly, and Vance stiffened. “Was it guilt?”

  “Some,” Sam admitted and scooted a little closer. “But not all. I know stuff happens, and yes, I felt awful for the whole mess. I would have died.”

  Vance closed his eyes in resignation and then stilled when Sam’s hand covered his. “But it wasn’t guilt that made me kiss you.”

  “Are you sure?” Vance half smiled, opening his eyes.

  “Maybe I should double-check,” Sam deadpanned. “I mean, once isn’t really a good sample to base any decision on.”

  “No.” Vance shook his head vigorously. “This is important enough to need thorough and extensive research.”

  “Should I experiment on a cross section of population?”

  Vance growled, then slammed his hand over his mouth in horror.

  Sam chuckled. “What were we saying about alphas?”

  Vance looked at him. Sam was smiling at least. “I don’t turn furry on the full moon.”

  Sam shook his head and undid the second button on Vance’s shirt. Vance stopped breathing. The light brush of Sam’s fingers seemed to touch him in all sorts of places. He moved to another, and Vance took a hurried gulp of air.

  “You don’t need to,” Sam said solemnly and ran his fingers through the reddish-brown hair that covered Vance’s chest. Vance idly wondered if Sam could feel the pounding of his heart trying to escape the cage that surrounded it.

  “This isn’t a good idea,” Sam said, but he undid another button. Vance didn’t answer. Sam seemed capable enough of contradicting his own statement. “You’re white picket fences and little league.”

  “I’m not little anything,” Vance managed to groan out, seriously wondering if either the fabric on his pants was gonna rip or he was going to get a hernia or something if he couldn’t pull them off.