There was too much truth behind that statement.
“We had months to decide. I wasn’t going to pull you all back for this. You had to make your decisions without duress. I couldn’t do to you what we ended up doing unwittingly to Gunner,” Avery told them all.
Dare flinched. It was apparent he felt as guilty as Avery did about that.
“I’m in,” Key said.
“You already know my answer,” Jem added.
“Someone’s got to keep an eye on all of you.” Dare crossed his arms.
“I want you all to know that I’m a better shot than Dare,” Grace told them, breaking the tension.
Dare turned to her in mock frustration. “One time. My hands were acting up.”
Grace took Dare’s hands into hers and rubbed them. “I want to be involved. You have to let me. Even though it might not be by blood, Gunner’s my brother.”
“We’re all family,” Avery said quietly. “And this is what family’s supposed to do for one another.”
“Section 8’s as much about protecting its own as it is about protecting the innocent. We’re all legacies. We all deserve to be a part of this,” Dare said.
“Let’s start thinking of ourselves as lucky to be a part of it instead of cursed,” Jem said, throwing a sideways glance at Key. Gunner was sure he’d eventually find out what that was all about. For now, all he needed to know was that they were bound by pain and pride. They would always know one another’s deepest, darkest secrets, a fact born of necessity. All secrets weren’t uncovered, not yet, but they would need to be put on the table. Because secrets could be used against the team.
• • •
Avery looked up when Grace came into the room. Drea had given her another pain pill without Avery having to ask. Now she’d settled back against the pillows, glad she’d forced herself to make the trip into the kitchen. She needed to show them that she was all right. That she would be.
Whether or not she truly felt that way would be her secret for now. Hers and Drea’s and Grace’s, since she knew she couldn’t pull shit on these women.
“Nice job in there,” Grace told her now. She pulled the door closed behind her. “They really needed that.”
“They’re hurting,” Avery said.
“They’re better now that they know you’re still in,” Grace assured her. She sat on the edge of the bed by Avery’s feet. Drea was on the other side, curled up on a pillow, her tattooed arm resting lazily above her head. Avery leaned back against the pillows as the pill began to work. The throbbing pain receded, replaced by a low-level ache she could most definitely handle.
“Do you guys want to be alone?” Drea asked.
Grace shook her head. “You seem to be in as deeply as we are,” she told Drea, before turning her attention back to Avery. “I didn’t know if I should give you these or not.”
For the first time, Avery noticed Grace had something tucked under her arm. She was holding three of the journals that Avery instantly recognized as part of Adele’s set. The woman had liked writing in a certain type of journal, with a certain pen, and she seemed to have never wavered from that. That in and of itself comforted Avery. It had probably comforted Adele too—it was something that never changed in what had to have been a tumultuous existence.
“Why not?”
“These should’ve gone before the others,” Grace admitted.
“I thought there was . . . something missing.” There had been, physically, a full year in which Adele hadn’t written anything. Avery thought a lot about what could’ve happened during that missing year. “I’d hoped she’d fallen in love.”
“She did. But something else happened to her too.” Grace held the journals tight against her body, still unwilling—seemingly unable—to part with them. “I didn’t want to scare you.”
And just then, Avery knew exactly what had happened to Adele. Drea seemed to know too, even though she didn’t know who Adele was. The room stilled and Avery reached out for the journals. Slowly, Grace relinquished them.
Avery put them in her lap, traced the leather bindings with her fingers. “Was she raped on a job?”
“Yes.”
“And the men knew?”
“She only told Darius. A year later,” Grace said.
Drea gave a low whistle under her breath, then said, “Tough broad.”
“She was,” Avery agreed, making a note to let Drea read some of the journals. She didn’t know exactly what the doctor’s deal was, but suspected Jem would, soon enough. The very fact that she’d basically saved Avery’s ass was enough to win her Avery’s devotion.
“I didn’t . . . Dare didn’t tell you because I didn’t want him to. I wasn’t sure I was ever going to tell you what happened to me,” Grace started.
“Grace, no . . .” Avery breathed.
“Dare didn’t tell you everything. He kept a big part of it private. You all knew how bad my time with Rip was, but . . .” She paused. “It was Rip’s men,” she explained. Avery knew Grace’s stepfather—and Gunner’s father—had locked her in the basement rooms of the mansion and tortured her for a year, but she hadn’t thought that he’d be capable of having his own stepdaughter raped. “It happened a lot that year. And it still comes up to bite me in the ass, and I hate it. And I know Landon didn’t rape you, but he still took something from you. I just want you to know, when I say I understand, it’s not just lip service.”
Avery grabbed her hand, squeezed it hard.
“I’m not saying I’m fine. I’d be lying,” Grace continued. “But I needed you to know I’ve been there. I know what you’re feeling. We’re all sticking together, but you and me, we need to rely on each other during the tough times. Because we’ll each have them.”
“Every time I close my eyes,” Avery started, was unable to finish. “It’s nothing compared to what you went through.”
“Do not even go there, my love. What we both went through was horrible.”
“Do you have nightmares?”
“Yes.”
“Gunner does too. But I don’t think they’re all from me. I think . . .”
“Living with Rip is enough to do that to anyone,” Grace whispered.
“I guess we’ve got our very own support group,” Drea said softly.
“Ah, dammit.” Grace took the doctor’s hand in hers. “The Fates have a way of bringing those we need right to our door.”
“Or they have Jem do it,” Drea said, and that got a laugh from all of them. “My ex is abusive, just like my parents. You’d think I’d have learned to avoid the wrong kind of people.”
“I think maybe you’ve finally found the right kind of people,” Grace told her. Avery noticed that she sounded so sure of herself, wondered if Grace’s sixth sense was kicking in something fierce about Drea, or if, like Avery, she just sensed that the doctor needed them.
Either way, it didn’t matter. For the moment, they had one another.
Chapter Twenty-four
Jem made a few calls and the next morning, he got an e-mail file he printed out for Gunner to see.
“These are Maria Landon’s hospital records from the night she gave birth,” Jem told him.
Gunner took the seat next to him. “I hope you don’t run out of favors anytime soon.”
“No chance of that,” Jem assured him. “Doctor’s notes indicate that the second birth was a surprise.”
“How the hell can you read that chicken scratch?” Gunner asked.
“Been reading hospital records my whole damned life, Gun.” Jem ran his finger along the lines of scrawl. “Okay, yeah, so second baby came five minutes later. Doc was delivering the placenta when Mom started yelling and contractions started again. Said baby was blue when first delivered but roused quickly. No permanent damage.”
“Yeah, right,” Gunner muttered. “How wo
uld we know if they’re identical or not?”
“Look, DNA testing wasn’t done back then. Obviously, there wasn’t an ultrasound or no one would’ve been surprised. Doc notes that twins shared the same placenta, but that’s not always an indicator of anything. Nurse noted that footprints looked alike.”
Gunner leafed through the file and pulled out the inked markings from the two boys and held them up, side by side.
“Why the hell wouldn’t Landon have mentioned the fact that he’s a twin to you?” Jem asked. “I mean, an identical twin’s not exactly run-of-the-mill.”
“I guess he never thought the guy would try to impersonate him.” Gunner thought back to what Landon used to say about family. From his first moments on the island, when Gunner stood stiffly in Drew’s office, not sure what the hell to do, Landon had gone out of his way to be kind.
“Your father didn’t have to do this,” Landon told him. “I never asked him to.”
“But he did,” Gunner bit out. Wondered why it was so important that Landon tell him all of this.
“Sometimes family has their reasons.” Landon motioned to the helo that was waiting on the lawn. It arrived after Powell’s had left, and now Gunner watched a man walking toward it, carrying a bag slung over his shoulder. The man never looked back, but Landon had looked so damned sad.
“I asked my brother to leave,” he said.
“So maybe you don’t give a shit about family either,” Gunner told him, waited for the slap or maybe he’d been secretly hoping Landon kicked him off the island too.
Instead, the man looked at him with a sad look. “James, I care too much about family. Maybe someday you’ll understand, maybe you won’t. But our family can be the most fucked-up part of our lives. If we’re not careful, they can ruin us.”
“I thought he was trying to tell me he understood about my father being the biggest prick on the planet,” Gunner said.
“And here I always thought my pops won. But hell, yours does have him beat by a mile,” Jem said, and Key clinked his beer to Gunner’s, said, “Hear, hear!”
Gunner shook his head. “So glad to win this round of ‘my family’s got the biggest asshole.’”
Jem shrugged. “Safe to say none of our childhoods were peaches and cream.”
“Except Avery’s seems like it was pretty damned sweet,” Key said, then turned to Gunner and added, “Yours too, until your mom died.”
“Both our parents were poster children for don’t spawn,” Jem added.
“My mother could earn a spot on that poster,” Drea said quietly. Gunner had seen her come to the doorway a few minutes earlier, was sure the brothers had noticed it too. But rather than scare her or go silent, they’d continued talking in the hopes that she’d be comfortable enough to join in.
“Come have a beer, chère.” Jem grabbed one from the fridge without leaving his chair. She only hesitated for a moment before joining them, taking the vacant chair next to Jem. She took a long sip and then said, “So, is the prerequisite for being a supersoldier—”
“I was a sailor,” Gunner pointed out, but she continued. “—a shitty childhood?”
“Most of the time, yes.” That was Dare, coming in from his run. He gave Drea a small smile. “What doesn’t kill us, right, Doc?”
“So far, that’s been right,” she told him. “I’ll let you guys get back to your work.”
When she left the kitchen, Gunner filled Dare and Key in on what else they’d discovered.
“We’ve got to protect Gunner from the CIA,” Dare said.
“In all of this, the CIA’s the least of our problems,” Jem told him. “Landon’s got a hell of a lot of protectors. They’ll all turn on Gunner, because if Donal’s killed Drew and he’s impersonating him, they probably have no idea.”
“There’s one other scenario,” Gunner told them. “What if Drew and Donal have been in on this from the start?”
“Guess there’s only one way to find out,” Jem said. “I’ll go through the bank accounts.”
Gunner’s phone buzzed on the table. He glanced at the number. “It’s Landon.”
Jem hooked it into the computer so they could trace it and nodded. Gunner pressed and said, “What do you want, Landon?”
“You.”
• • •
Avery knew something was wrong. She’d always been intuitive, but after working with Dare and Jem and the others, her instincts had gone into overdrive. She’d hauled herself out of bed and limped toward the kitchen, holding her side.
The men were so focused they didn’t hear her. If they had, she didn’t doubt that one of them would’ve carried her away from here.
Landon’s voice was in the room. She clutched the doorjamb as a wave of panic hit her. She knew he was on the phone, not there in person, but she hadn’t realized that his voice alone would have such an effect on her.
And if he was in front of you, how effectively could you hurt him then? a small voice inside her asked harshly. You have to handle this.
“You’re not getting me, Landon. You broke too many goddamned promises,” Gunner was saying, his voice calm and controlled. She knew by the set of his shoulders he was anything but.
“I’m guessing you don’t want your friends safe?” Landon asked.
“Oh, I do. But that’s not going to happen by doing anything for you,” Gunner told him. “Hear this—we are coming for you. As of now, you’re the one who’s being hunted. I’d make sure I kept looking over my shoulder if I were you. One of these times, you’re going to see me. And I’ll be the last thing you do see before you hit the ground.”
Gunner reached out, severed the connection, and there was dead silence in the room. She wanted to back away, but she couldn’t be quick enough about it.
“He will never hurt you again, Avery,” Gunner said then. “Do you hear me?”
He’d known she was there the whole time. “I do.”
As she’d spoken the words, the house began to rumble under her feet. She didn’t know exactly what was happening, but she saw the war in all the men’s eyes, and then they were moving fast.
Later, she’d look back and not understand how they’d managed to escape so efficiently. She didn’t know that Jem, Dare, Gunner and Key had an emergency plan in place, that they had supplies in the cars they kept in a garage around the corner. That they didn’t leave anything in this house they weren’t prepared to lose, information-wise.
Now all she knew was that someone grabbed her and they were running. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from screaming, from fear and pain, and whoever carried her knew that. Because as soon as he put her down, Drea was next to her, injecting her with a mild pain med—that’s what she told Avery. And then the truck was moving, fast.
She heard the explosion—it rattled the car windows, shook the road beneath the truck. Saw the fire reflected in the back window.
“Please . . . did everyone . . .”
“Everyone’s out,” Jem said. “Gunner’s in the other car with Dare and Grace. You’ve got me and Key here, with Drea. We’re all safe, Avery.”
As he said that, the sound of the chopper’s whirring blades grew clearer.
No, they weren’t safe at all.
• • •
It had always been part of the plan to separate Gunner from Avery if something went down. Although Gunner wasn’t happy about it, he understood the reason for it.
Now, as the dark trucks with the tinted windows tore down the road toward the highway, Gunner glanced back and watched the chopper hover over the house.
They’d gotten away—that was the most important thing.
“How did they find us?” Dare demanded, and that was the second most important thing, because hell, if Landon found them this many times, this easily, it was no coincidence.
“Gunner’s phone’s clean,”
Jem said over the speaker of Dare’s phone. “We only forwarded the number, but it’s a new everything else.”
“Can’t he ping the number?” Key asked.
“Not the way I have it set up,” Jem said.
“They’re still coming,” Grace said. The whoompa of the helo’s blades was relentless in the night. Even driving without their headlights on, the helo was tracking them.
He heard Key’s voice. “Gunner, pull away from us. See which way the helo goes.”
Gunner did, taking the corner fast, the truck shaking. He flew down the highway, mixing in with other cars in the hopes that Landon wouldn’t be taking out everyone on the highway.
His worst fears were confirmed. The helo was following the truck Avery was in with Jem and Drea.
• • •
Avery heard the chopper’s blades follow their truck, not the one Gunner was in, and she knew they were in trouble. “It’s got to be me,” she said.
“How the hell are they finding you?” Jem asked.
“It’s not possible,” Avery said. “I have nothing left from before. Everything’s new.”
Drea was staring at her. “Tell me about the stitches under your right arm.”
“What stitches? The ones you gave me?”
“Doc, no offense but—” Jem started but Drea waved him off. She moved Avery’s short sleeve up and pointed to a row of black heavy stitching.
“I didn’t stitch that,” she told Avery. “I saw it, figured you guys were in a dangerous business, so I didn’t think to mention it.”
“Why would Landon slice her and then stitch that one spot?” Key asked. “Unless he planted something in there.”
“No fucking way,” Jem muttered. The chopper was closer now, and Jem swerved off road into a wooded area to try to slow them down.
Drea was probing Avery’s arm with her fingers, lightly at first and then harder, a frown on her face. “I can’t feel anything. He could’ve put it in deep enough so a doctor wouldn’t.”
“And he counted on her having so many cuts she wouldn’t notice one extra. He was hoping the doc who helped her wouldn’t notice,” Jem said, and Drea let out a nice long string of curses that Avery knew were directed at Landon.
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