A Heart of Shame

by Kristen Banet

  “There’s a second body out that way, same story. The big guys are deciding to send you out. Sorry, Vincent. This is how it goes, sometimes.”

  Sawyer winced as Vincent let off a string of profanities in Italian.

  “We haven’t even gotten twenty-four hours. I needed more time.” Vincent snarled.

  “We don’t all get what we want, Vin.” James sighed sympathetically. “Who’s the witness you found?”

  “Hi.” Sawyer groaned.

  “Ah, Sawyer! I hope everything is going well for you. Vincent, she’s not going to be able to keep you out of jail the way someone like Jasper can if you kill me. Sorry.”

  Sawyer would have laughed at that, but it was a reality. No one would ever want her on their side in a court of law. The WMC would laugh her out of the room.

  “I mean, Shadow defending a Castello? The world would grind to halt, and you would both get thrown away. So, I’m safe, once again, from your wrath.” Vincent looked at her as James laughed. They both were probably having the same murderous thoughts about James. Sawyer hadn’t spent a lot of time with the man, but she was quickly realizing that he seemed to always have jokes.

  “The last time this came up, Quinn was my witness. He wouldn’t be very helpful, either.” he informed her quietly.

  “Texas tomorrow, huh?” Sawyer asked, looking away from Vincent and down to the phone.

  “That’s right. You guys will have to fly on this short of notice. The jet in Atlanta will be ready for you. Sawyer, it’s the same one you took from New York.” James was shuffling some papers around. “You’ll land in Dallas and pick up a few vehicles. Three Explorers. They’ll be your rides for the entire operation, and the IMPO is paying for them so… don’t break them… or blow them up… or let Elijah race them. Please?”

  “Can do,” Vincent groaned.

  “Where was this murder? And the second?” Sawyer asked, before James or Vincent could try and end the call.

  “Moran, Texas for the first body…” James trailed off. “The second body is in Albany, Texas.”

  “Damn, Elijah might have a fit,” Vincent mumbled. “We’ll get ready to head out, James. I’ll let the team know.”

  “You know why they are sending you, right?” James asked quietly before Vincent could hang up.

  “Yes,” Vincent sighed. “I know.” Then he hung up on James, and Sawyer stared at him until he sighed again. “They want to throw you out in the field as fast as possible, so you fuck up and they can end you. They weren’t excited when the team threatened them over your freedom. We’re all in the doghouse now.”

  “Makes sense,” Sawyer whispered, jumping down. “I’m going to shower. You can talk to all of them.”

  “Okay,” Vincent said with a grunt, looking more than a little frustrated.

  Sawyer got out of the shower an hour later and poured all her focus into the IMPO handbook. If they were going to try and make her fuck up, the WMC had another thing coming. She’d already been studying it for weeks, but she wanted to brush up on procedure and rights of a probationary agent. She needed to go in without needing the guys to guide her through it constantly. She liked being mildly self-sufficient, and she knew to put the time in to make that happen.

  The hours flew by, and before she knew it, a knock came to the door. She called out for whoever was to come in without looking up.

  “Hey, Sawyer,” Jasper greeted her. She closed the book and looked over. He didn’t have crutches. She looked down to his leg and laughed.

  “Nice leg!” She chuckled, standing up. He lifted it and balanced on his real, right leg to show her the prosthetic. “This is what Elijah’s been working on? He told me that you were just going to get one of the standard simple ones for the night.”

  “Then he lied to you.” Jasper chuckled. “Yeah, he and Zander worked on getting this for me.”

  “It looks cool as fuck,” she told him, grinning. She let him right himself before he lost his balance and looked up to his stormy blue eyes, seeing the happiness shining in them. “You know about the case in Texas, right?”

  “Yeah, I was expecting it,” Jasper said with a shrug. “He told us the moment we got in, before beginning a rant to Elijah about it. Elijah’s not looking forward to going home either.”

  “Home?” Sawyer asked, confused.

  “Elijah is from San Angelo, or rather, the area around it,” Jasper sighed. “He grew up in the sticks about two hours from the second body.”

  “Figures,” Sawyer snorted. She looked him over again and noticed the book he carried. “What’s that?” He held it out to her.

  “A journal,” he said, seeming a bit bashful all of a sudden. “Rather, a dream journal. I’ve been meaning to talk to you about it.”

  “You should have brought it up sooner,” Sawyer replied glumly, taking the journal from him. “I’m leaking my nightmares to you, aren’t I?”

  “Yeah,” Jasper whispered. “Start recording them, and we’ll see if that helps. I want to talk about maybe dream walking and working with you while your subconscious rules, and a couple other options. But for now… it’ll have to wait until after the case.”

  Sawyer opened and closed her mouth. She considered what she was going to say. She turned, put the journal on the desk and looked down at it. Jasper cared, he really did. She knew that and she…

  “I slept with Vincent,” she choked out, suddenly finding the words much harder to say than she thought they would be. Suddenly, this hurt so much worse, as her heart decided to remind her of everything stirring between her and her two old, sometimes idiotic, friends.

  “Excuse me?” Jasper stumbled over the words.

  “Last night,” she groaned. “We got drunk and started talking about Axel and Henry and, fuck. Yeah, it happened.”

  “We’re not telling Zander,” Jasper mumbled suddenly. “No way. He’ll fucking lose his head.”

  “It’s really not his business, either,” Sawyer snapped, frustrated that Zander’s feelings were so important. She didn’t fucking belong to him. “But he does need to know because everyone on the team is going to know.”

  “Why?” Jasper growled. “Why put him through it?”

  “Because I’m fucking tired of keeping secrets,” Sawyer snarled, “that’s why.”

  Jasper snapped back like she’d slapped him and then nodded. She could tell he was literally biting his tongue and watched him rub his left thigh as if it ached.

  “No more secrets,” Sawyer said again to make sure it was clear. “I’ll tell him.”

  “Let me,” Jasper snapped. “I’ll do it.” He turned to leave and then swung back to look at her. “You and him, huh? You and Vincent? A thing?”

  “No.” Sawyer sighed. He was pissed and confused. She’d hurt him, but she wasn’t going to do the whole ‘keep it a secret until it became too much to bear’ shit again. She wasn’t going to treat them like that. She was going to be better than that, and they deserved better than that. “We both know we fucked up. It happened… fairly spur of the moment and under the influence.”

  “You had a drunk, grief fuck with our CO,” Jasper growled. “I hope it doesn’t happen again. Sawyer, if anyone off the team finds out, they can rip you from us, and there might not be another team willing to keep you. The WMC will lock you up until they need you, for whatever they might need you for.”

  Sawyer winced. Yeah, Vincent was technically the team’s boss. Yup, this couldn’t get much worse. She hadn’t even considered what would happen off the team. She didn’t think Vincent had either. They hadn’t considered much when that kiss happened, only that they could try to steal a night together.

  Some heists were doomed to fail.

  “On top of that,” Jasper paused and released a small, crazed chuckle. “He’s Vincent Castello. He’s Axel’s brother, Sawyer.”

  “Oh, yeah, I fucking figured that one out, thanks,” Sawyer growled, mad at that coming from Jasper. “With no thanks to any of you telling me. I learned in th
e middle of a meeting before the fucking parking garage was blown to hell, and we all almost died. So, when I say I’m fucking tired of secrets, that’s from all of you, too.”

  “Fuck,” Jasper moaned. “I’m sorry.”

  “Me, too,” she mumbled, feeling guilty about hitting him with that. “How was Atlanta?”

  “Awful,” Jasper disclosed. “And none of us got laid.” She rolled her eyes and looked away from him, back to the journal on her desk.

  “I’ll use it. Thanks.” She sighed. “And nice leg.”

  “You’re welcome, and thanks,” Jasper whispered angrily and stormed out of her room. Probably to tell Zander about her escapade in a fit of rage. The damn slamming of the door hurt her ears and her heart.

  She gave it twenty minutes before the hotheaded red-head was in the room to yell at her.

  He never showed up.

  The silence around her hurt, too.

  12

  Quinn

  Quinn sat in the small office feeling closed in. He didn’t like the offices. They were too small, too tight, and had too much stuff in them. Vincent was standing behind his desk, explaining the Texas case to them, and Quinn checked out. They would tell him what to do and when. He didn’t need to follow along with the weird human things. He would offer his own opinion when it was asked for based on his own observations.

  “You did what, Vincent?!” Elijah roared. Quinn was startled enough to nearly fall out of his chair.

  “I didn’t expect you to be so angry,” Vincent muttered.

  “You picked the absolute worst night to do that,” Elijah stressed, and Quinn frowned. What had he missed?

  “To do what?” Quinn asked, and Elijah sighed, looking down at him.

  “He had sex with Sawyer last night,” Elijah said.

  Quinn watched his friend for a long a time, viewing how Elijah was taking that. He had a clenched fist, a sign that he was upset or frustrated. His jaw was set, and he didn’t have any sign of the normal, jovial attitude he normally did. Quinn rested a hand on his forearm and tilted his head to the side, trying to pretend to be okay. He held back his own possessive growl, swallowing it before it gave him away.

  “And?” Quinn asked, bringing his eyebrows together. He wasn’t in this fight. He wasn’t going to go there. Sawyer didn’t see him as that sort of male, a male worthy of her affection. He knew that. Modern, civilized females wanted strong and intelligent males, ones that understood them and vice versa.

  Quinn was just starting to enjoy reading for the first time in his life. He was the definition of not fit for a civilized human companion. He already counted himself lucky to have a friend in Elijah, and Elijah was more rugged than most humans. He was lucky to have any of them as friends. Until them, he’d only had his brothers, Shade and Scout.

  “See? Quinn doesn’t mind,” Vincent huffed. Elijah turned a glare on Vincent.

  “You picked the worst night,” Elijah said again. “The worst. I was just fucking asking Zander last night how he really felt about this. He’s not cool with it, by the way.”

  “I didn’t think he would be,” Vincent muttered, looking cross.

  Quinn just looked between them and finally groaned.

  “Is this that stupid, human thing where you seem to think sex and emotions are the same thing?” Quinn asked, rolling his eyes. Vincent coughed, and Elijah gave a small chuckle. Quinn wanted to mate with her, be claimed as hers, but he didn’t pretend to think it would be anything more. He wanted to be owned and used by her more than any female before her.

  Nothing more.

  He didn’t understand the feeling in the pit of his stomach or the ache in his heart. He knew what the concept of feelings were, but he had no idea how to identify most of his own. He knew he was insanely physically attracted to her, much in the way he was with Elijah. Quinn was friends with her in the same fashion as he was the rest of the team.

  This was something else. The idea of not being worthy of her brought on a feeling he’d never encountered before. Humans were complicated, and the emotions Quinn was feeling were a sharp reminder that he was human.

  He didn’t like it.

  “Yeah,” Elijah reassured him with a small laugh. “Yeah, this is that stupid, human thing.”

  “Get over it,” Quinn chuffed. He would try to as well. Privately. “You were granted the privilege of a strong female’s bed. Be happy. The other guys should figure out how to do it themselves instead of get on you for earning that privilege.”

  “Well,” Vincent cleared his throat. “It happened in my bed, but life just isn’t that simple, Quinn. And I know Elijah told you that Sawyer can’t be referred to as ‘a female’.”

  “I don’t see why not,” Quinn said with shrug. “Well, I do about the female. She’s a woman. Sawyer’s a woman, that’s the right word. I shouldn’t use female, even though she is one.” He knew better, he really did. He just slipped up every so often, another reason he wasn’t worthy of her.

  “I wish everyone thought like you.” Elijah chuckled. “The world would be so much simpler.”

  “I thought you were upset?” Quinn frowned at him. “Why are you upset? You don’t care about who beds who, I know that.”

  “I’m upset it happened last night. I knew it was going to happen, eventually,” Elijah informed him. Quinn nodded slowly. “I don’t think a drunk fuck was best course of action.” He directed that part at Vincent.

  “How do you know it was under the influence?” Vincent retorted, glaring at Elijah.

  “Well, you just confirmed it.” Elijah grinned. “And I know you. You were probably drunk as hell last night. Did you pull out the old home movies?”

  “Damn you,” Vincent growled. “Yes. We were drinking. We were telling each other stories. We didn’t think it through. She tried to kill me on accident when she woke up. It happened, and it won’t happen again.”

  Quinn sat up straight at that, and Elijah choked on his tongue. Quinn hadn’t missed what Vincent just said. What had their leader done for Sawyer, the deadliest predator in the house, to try and kill him?

  “She tried to kill you on accident?” Elijah sputtered out. “Back the fuck up. What?”

  “She had a flashback when she woke up,” Vincent whispered, looking away from them. “She didn’t know where she… she thought I was Axel.”

  “Oh, fuck,” Elijah mumbled, finally falling into his seat. “Oh, fuck.”

  Quinn thought about that for a minute. Vincent did have a resemblance to Axel, and Quinn knew what Axel had done to Sawyer. Quinn could relate to it on a level that made him uncomfortable. A part of him knew exactly why Sawyer would try to kill someone who reminded her of Axel. He knew so well. He just didn’t know how to relate that to them or to her. He never could find the words to express the very real pain he felt at Sawyer’s past—at his own.

  He did understand this feeling, the gut wrenching pain when he thought of the young boy. Young boys, in his dreams. That pain in his heart was the most human thing he’d ever felt. And that was without the thought of the pain at losing an animal bond. He couldn’t imagine what he would do to someone who took Shade or Scout from him.

  “I woke up when she jumped out of the bed. I sublimated away when she came after me,” Vincent continued as Elijah rubbed his face. “That must have pulled her out of it. She… she left after that.”

  “Jesus,” Elijah groaned. “Well, this was just fucked up for everyone. Wait until Zander and Jasper find out.”

  “He what?!” Zander’s scream made Quinn’s ears hurt.

  “Yup. Right on time.” Elijah seemed like he’d known all along. “You might need to do that thing to stop him from destroying our office.”

  Vincent swung toward the door as Zander shoved open, making the door slam into the wall with a thud and crack. Quinn went wide-eyed at the anger Zander was showing. He understood wishing to claim a woman as his own, but Sawyer wasn’t the type of woman to be claimed. Even Quinn knew that.

  “I�
�m going to fucking kill you,” Zander growled, storming towards Vincent. Quinn and Elijah both stood but their moves to separate the two weren’t needed.

  Vincent grabbed Zander’s shirt and slammed him into the wall before Zander had a chance to make a move. Quinn knew Zander was a good fighter, but Quinn knew that one should never fight with that amount of anger. Vincent’s cool head prevailed and gave him the upper hand.

  Quinn watched Vincent touch Zander, who was cursing, on the face. Then Zander stopped moving completely. Only the slightest rise and fall of his chest. Vincent had used his petrification, something he rarely did. It drained him quickly to hold it, especially without continuing to touch the victim. Quinn cast a glance at Elijah, who shrugged and sat back down. Quinn did as well.

  Vincent’s petrification could do one of two things. Something called a soft petrify, allowing the person basic life functions, and even speech—if the Magi allowed it—and a hard petrify, which would effectively stop all functions. A stone-like petrify. Both could be broken. Hard petrification had lasting damage to brain function and the health of the victim. Vincent rarely used the power at all, and when he did, it was only soft petrifies. No one could move a petrified person, and it required physical contact to start. Its limitations made it difficult to make terribly useful.

  Vincent straightened his shirt and looked toward Jasper, standing in the open door. Jasper looked between them all and shuffled in, looking pissed off, but didn’t make a move. Quinn glanced at him and noticed the new leg. Elijah had already shown it to him and explained what it was so Quinn didn’t make any inappropriate comments on accident. Quinn thought it was quite interesting, truthfully. A good way for humans to compensate for injuries where, in the wild, they would become prey to other beasts, or unable to fend for themselves.

  “Now,” Vincent growled, stomping to close the office door. It made Quinn feel trapped, especially now that five large males were all crammed into the small office. “I’m going to leave you there, Zander, until I figure out exactly what you know. I hope you didn’t fucking behave that way with Sawyer. She doesn’t deserve that fucking nonsense from you.”