Fortune and Fate (Baum's Boxing Book 2)

by E M Lindsey

  “Claire,” Cole said quietly, “do you want to take Kevin out of his harness and play fetch? Is there enough room here for it?”

  “Yes!” she said excitedly. “Daddy, it’s so big and pretty.”

  Cole smiled and carefully reached over to pull the harness off Kevin who stood up and gave a high-pitched yawn. “Just find a stick for him, okay my love? He’ll chase it if you bang it across the grass. Take the leash and let me and your mum have a grown-up talk.”

  Distracted by the pup, she didn’t seem to mind at all, and Cole listened for the way her footsteps faded, though didn’t entirely disappear as she and Kevin attempted to find a proper fetching stick. Once she was far enough, Cole shifted in his position, though he didn’t bother rising. He tipped his head up toward the sun to feel the heat of it on his cheeks.

  “Is this the part where you tell me you’re coming after me for custody?” Isabel asked quietly, defense in her tone.

  Cole’s head snapped up, his expression startled. “Sorry?”

  “I know this is my fault,” she told him. “Believe me, I’ve done nothing but torture myself over letting him get to me like that.”

  Cole hated that he felt sympathy for her in spite of his anger, but he couldn’t seem to help it. “I don’t want to take her from you, Isabel. I just…I just want what I wanted before. I want to be with her. I want you to trust me that I can do this, even if it’s different to you, or even if it isn’t perfect.”

  “I do trust you. Christ, Cole,” she said, and he heard a shuffling sound like maybe she was adjusting her clothes or running a hand through her hair. “René convinced me you’d be dangerous if you had her—that your blindness would lead to her getting hurt. Then, when he insisted we come and stay with you when we got that call, I was so confused. He would be good to your face, but the moment we were alone he’d point out all the ways it would go wrong, all the things that would put her into danger that you couldn’t see.”

  “He wasn’t wrong,” Cole said quietly. “If I’d been able to see, I would have seen my boss for who he really was.”

  “And yet you still managed to get people in there in time to stop René and save Claire. And Ryan,” she said as an almost afterthought.

  Cole felt another pang in his chest, and he sighed. “Trust me, it was hardly heroics. Someone sat behind me and read a computer screen, and I went through the motions of decryption until he got the confirmation that René had been captured and everyone was safe.”

  Cole startled when her small hand touched the back of his wrist. “I’m sorry I ever made you feel like you weren’t enough. I was afraid. Our relationship was always so…” she trailed off and then laughed. “I never understood it. We didn’t truly care for each other, but I got the greatest gift out of it. And I was so jealous. You were never there, but she loved you so bloody much. And she loved me, but she also hated me, and every time she hated me, she wanted you, and you never got that side of her. In hospital, seeing you like that, I knew this was the opportunity I had to make things equitable, but I had never…” He heard her words stutter to a halt, and he turned his hand, taking her fingers between his.

  “You had never?”

  “I knew the job was dangerous, but I never thought you’d be hurt. Killed, maybe, and I didn’t want that either. But I saw you lying there covered in bandages and you were blind and scarred, and I knew that somehow you’d survive, but I kept thinking…if it had been me lying there, my entire life changed like that, I wouldn’t have been able to cope. I met René just after that. He told me how many soldiers injured like you take their own lives, and I didn’t want Claire to live through that.”

  Cole’s heart wrenched—at Isabel’s lack of faith, at René’s manipulation, and at the truth of those words because they were factual statistics, and Cole couldn’t deny he’d had dark thoughts like that more than once, and he doubted they’d ever truly go away. “It wasn’t the right thing to do. She was all I had left, and you took her.”

  Isabel sniffed and her voice was thick when she spoke again. “I’ll never forgive myself for…”

  “Don’t,” Cole said, a little harshly, though he softened the blow of his words by gently squeezing her fingers. “Don’t condemn yourself to that, Isabel. It’s over. We survived, and I can’t say there’s not other things out there—dangerous, terrifying things—but I’m finished with all of it. I just want,” he stopped abruptly because he wasn’t sure he was brave enough to say it aloud.

  “I told that man—Christopher—I told him I wanted to stay here.”

  Cole’s eyebrows flew up in surprise. “Why?”

  “Because you want to stay. Because I saw what your face looked like when you were with Ryan and I know you’d give that up to come home and be near Claire.” She let out a slightly bitter laugh. “There’s nothing in Sheffield for me anyway, Cole. Your mum has refused to see Claire since she was born—not that I’d really want her involved, and my sister fucked off to Paris with her latest boyfriend, and I have some dead-boring office job that I can do anywhere. But what I can do is offer to start over here, so you don’t have to sacrifice any more than you already have.”

  Cole let out a tiny laugh, the sound pained with emotions he was too afraid to release. “That’s…I don’t know what to say, but I don’t think it’ll be necessary. I’m not sure Ryan will ever be in a hurry to forgive me for what I put him through.”

  Isabel squeezed his hand back, then drew away. “I know you can’t see his face, Cole, but surely you could hear it in his voice every time he spoke to you. Surely you could feel it every time he touched you. He’s madly in love, and this was terrible, I’ll grant you, but I don’t think it’s enough to drive him away. He nearly gave his life to protect your daughter, and that means something. At any rate, what’ve you got to risk by trying?”

  Cole bit down on his lower lip, hating how right she was. He had a lot to do before he could find Ryan again and try to explain, but for the first time in a long time, there was a glimmer of hope on the horizon.

  19.

  “So not a word?”

  Ryan looked up from the heavy bag at Noah who was sitting on one of the mats stretching his legs. He felt a pang in the center of his chest as he shook his head. It had been almost a month since he’d been dragged from the warehouse by Wes and a group of Super Secret Agents—or that’s what he’d taken to calling them, though they were some official military organization with names he didn’t bother remembering—and released. He’d given his statement and he’d met with McCaig once, damn-near knocked to his ass when he found out who the guy really was and what he was up to.

  He got almost no information on Cole other than he’d been manipulated by a man who was trying to find something, and that René had been on the other side of that manipulation taking advantage of Cole’s vulnerability. It made him furious all over again, wishing he could resurrect the dead man to beat him within an inch of his life. Wishing that René wasn’t some international terrorist so that he could demand his release and then end him for Cole’s sake, and for Claire’s.

  But he couldn’t do any of that. He was left impotent in his anger, forced to take it out on heavy bags and Adrian when the man was willing to go a few rounds with Ryan in the ring. And he was left with total silence. The first few weeks, Ryan found himself driving by Cole’s to see if anything had changed. At one point a clean-up crew had come by to right everything, and nothing had been moved out, but the place remained empty.

  Cole was MIA and Ryan had no way to reach him. His former number was now out of commission, McCaig had moved on, and Ryan’s cases were back on his desk.

  “I lost you,” Noah said, dragging Ryan back to the present.

  He sighed, pressing his forehead against the cool bag, then pulled away and flung his gloves off to the side. “Sorry. I know I’ve been a serious bummer lately. I just…fuck, man, I miss him.”

  Noah pushed himself to his feet and took Ryan’s hand. “I know. I mean, I don’
t know. I can’t even imagine what you’re going through. I thought my situation was the most insane thing I’d ever see in my life, and then you go and get yourself involved in s-some international k-kidnapping espionage shit and you almost d-die and…”

  “I didn’t almost die,” Ryan said, though that was entirely a lie. One that he was working through with his therapist because he had to come to terms with the fact that it could have all gone a very different way. “You’re just being dramatic.”

  Noah punched him in the arm. “You f-fucking know I’m n-not.” The momentary presence of his stutter meant that Noah had truly been affected by what happened, and Ryan pulled him in for a tight hug.

  “I’m okay.”

  Noah nodded, then pushed him away and swiped at his face. His eyes were dry, but the worry was still etched across his features. “So, you’re fine. Good. You’re sad but you’ll get over it. That’s settled.”

  Ryan rolled his eyes. “That’s settled.”

  “Can we talk about your brother, then?” Noah pressed.

  Ryan forgot that a few weeks before, he’d mentioned to Noah the strange man in Rhys’ living room the morning everything went to hell. He’d seen Rhys twice since then, but the pair of them had been too busy to really talk about anything other than Rhys expressing his relief that Ryan was okay, and Ryan insisting he couldn’t talk about what happened.

  “Have you brought it up?” Noah went on.

  Ryan shook his head as he went for his water bottle. “No, I haven’t. What the fuck do I even say? Hey, so you know how you’re super straight? Well it looked like a morning after with some total stranger, who looked decidedly male, in your living room the other morning. What’s up with that?”

  Noah laughed, shaking his head as he stole Ryan’s water and gulped some down. “Well,” he said, swiping his mouth with the back of his hand, “that would be one way to do it.”

  “I think you and I both know we don’t out people to their faces before they’re ready,” Ryan chided. “I mean, I don’t know why the fuck Rhys wouldn’t tell me about this guy but…”

  “Oh shit, speak of the devil,” Noah interrupted. He jutted his chin toward the front of the gym and Ryan watched in mild surprise as Rhys appeared, looking as GQ as ever with his expensive track bottoms and tank top. Ryan almost choked on his own tongue when the ginger-haired stranger from the living room followed right behind. Ryan opened his mouth to tell Noah that it was him, but Noah silenced him with a grip on his arm. “Oh my god, that’s Trevor.”

  Ryan froze. “Wait. What? Trevor, like the guy from…”

  “Like the guy from,” Noah parroted. “The one from my department who was fired for fucking a sorority girl.”

  Trevor.

  Rhys’ visit came barreling back to Ryan, the morning he’d showed up at Ryan’s office asking him about Noah’s incident, about whether or not Barnes was going to be convicted. It was complicated, Rhys had said. Now, just maybe, he understood why.

  “Oh my god wait,” Noah hissed, leaning in to him, “is that who you were talking about?”

  Ryan swallowed thickly and nodded. “That’s him.”

  Noah blew out a puff of air. “Shit. Shit. This is going to be so awkward. I can’t believe your brother’s fucking him.”

  “Well, we don’t know that for sure,” Ryan pointed out, but their speculation came to a halt when Rhys spotted them and led the way over. Ryan immediately noticed the way Trevor paled when his eyes fell on Noah, and his steps faltered a moment.

  Rhys, as always, offered his most charming smile and dragged Noah into a hug before greeting Ryan with a clap to the shoulder. “Hey. Got a room we can talk in? I think Trevor’s about to piss his pants with nerves.”

  “Oh fuck you,” Trevor said, his voice scratchy, higher than Ryan would have expected from such a big guy.

  Rhys laughed and reached back to squeeze Trevor’s wrist. “Seriously though.”

  “We can use the boxing room,” Noah said. He glanced to the front desk where Adrian and Anna were going over something on the computer, and his face softened when Adrian offered him a smile and started toward them. That done, he turned on his heel and led the way into the private room.

  When the door swung closed, Ryan surveyed the scene—his brother acting as a defense for Trevor, the man Noah had talked about being fired for indiscretions with a student, Noah who had been dragged into the middle of it for petty revenge, and Adrian who loved Noah beyond all reason.

  “Should I…I should,” Ryan started, scrubbing a hand down his face. “I should go. This seems like a private matter.”

  “Actually,” Trevor said, stepping away from Rhys, “if you could stay? Rhys said you were integral in getting Noah out of his predicament at the university.”

  Ryan shook his head. “No. Trust me, I didn’t do much at all.”

  “Ryan,” Noah said quietly, then he turned to Trevor. “Charlie had something on you, didn’t he?”

  Trevor’s cheeks pinked and he turned his gaze up to the ceiling. “Yeah uh…yeah. He did. He had someone in his pocket there—people from HR, Admin…”

  “Lowe,” Noah said quietly.

  Trevor swallowed thickly, then nodded. “I’m not sure how he found out what he did about me. But there wasn’t anything I could do. I couldn’t come forward without having to tell everyone what he knew, so I couldn’t…” He cleared his throat. “I wanted to throw my lot in with you, Noah. To give you back up and prove that you weren’t the only one he was coming after, but I couldn’t.”

  Noah took a step toward Trevor. “I get it. He silenced me for longer than I deserved to be silenced, and it…” he let out a slightly bitter laugh. “It ruined my job there. I couldn’t go back even if I had wanted to, but it was worth it. For me,” he added, then glanced back at Adrian and smiled. “But I didn’t expect anyone to put themselves in that position.”

  Trevor’s next breath trembled. “Someone else knows.” He dug into his pocket and pulled out an envelope folded in half. “It’s a letter—typed, no idea who sent it, but whoever he was working with must have found out I had applications out because they told me if I don’t withdraw them, they’re going to go public.”

  “Can you tell us,” Noah began, but his words were cut off when Trevor shook his head.

  “I can’t. It’s not just one thing and I’m n-not ready…” he stuttered.

  Rhys took a step closer to him and touched his arm. “You don’t have to.”

  Nodding, Trevor rubbed at his eyes. “The thing of it is, it probably won’t prevent me from getting a job anywhere. I mean, not really, but it won’t matter once it’s out and I can’t…I just can’t.”

  Ryan watched Noah’s face drop into abject fury over Charlie still having this kind of power over everyone. “Was he right? About the girl?”

  Trevor shook his head, letting out a tense laugh. “She was my cousin. He never intended on using that—he knew it was too easy to prove who she was. He just used that as a reason to have me fired, and he used the rest to make sure I wouldn’t fight it.”

  Curling his hands into fists, Noah took a step back until he reached Adrian’s solid form and sank into Adrian’s half embrace. “What does he want from you?”

  “He won’t say,” Trevor admitted. “But someone broke into my car the other day, and I’m pretty sure when I went in to work—I’m working down at Plato’s, tending bar there for now—someone followed me after my shift. Rhys thought maybe I could…that I could take some self-defense classes here.”

  “Yes,” Adrian said gruffly, tightening his hold on Noah. “We can start right away.”

  Noah glanced back, his eyes swimming with gratitude. “And anything else you need, okay?”

  Rhys’ shoulders sagged with relief, even as he said nothing. He just carefully removed his hand from Trevor’s arm and took a step toward Ryan.

  “Why don’t we do some basics now?” Adrian suggested, glancing at all of them. “I have time. My one student isn
’t,” he stopped abruptly, realizing the implications of his words. Cole had been his one student, and he wasn’t coming back.

  Ryan felt his heart twist in his chest, and he affected a smile which he was sure looked like a mockery of what it should have been. “It’s fine. Really.”

  Noah gave him sad eyes, but he turned back to Trevor, the situation at hand more important than Ryan’s missing not-quite-boyfriend. Staring down at his feet, he didn’t look up again until Rhys touched his shoulder.

  “Let’s get out of here for a minute?” he offered.

  Ryan nodded and hurried away, not wanting to think about Cole right then. They walked into the main gym area, and Ryan led the way past the front desk where Anna was still working, to one of the empty offices.

  “So,” Ryan said when the door was shut.

  Rhys dragged a hand down his face. “I know what you’re going to ask, and all I can say is that it’s really complicated.”

  “Are you fucking him?”

  Rhys blushed. “We…have. Twice. But it’s not a great idea right now.”

  Ryan almost laughed, but he managed to hold it back. “So, you’re…experimenting or…”

  “I’m bisexual,” Rhys said, no hesitation in his voice. “I’ve known for a while.”

  Ryan blinked at him, a little stunned by the easy revelation. “Why didn’t you tell me before? Shit, Rhys, I mean I’m beyond grateful you feel like you can tell me now but… You have to know I wouldn’t have judged you.”

  Rhys shrugged. “I…logically I knew. Of course I did. But people like me get shit all the time for it. I’ve always dated women, and the men I have hooked up with think that I’m just experimenting, or that I’m still in the closet or…or whatever. They never trust me that I am who I am. I wasn’t sure if you felt the same way.”