Imperial Stout

by Layla Reyne

  Nic agreed. “I’d go—”

  Two sharp Nos, a strange Boston-Irish mix in one stern word.

  “—but they know me,” Nic finished his sentence.

  Aidan raised a hand in apology. “And there’s no way Becca will believe you’ve flipped.”

  “We need a B&E guy who is already ours, who we trust. One of your agents? Or assets?”

  “Danny’s had enough excitement for one year,” Jamie chimed in.

  “Mel will have my ass if I risk his on this,” Aidan agreed.

  Cam’s suggestion was the last thing Nic expected. “I’ll go.”

  Nic’s first instinct was to argue but he bit back his no at the last second, not wanting to second-guess him in front of Aidan or Bowers. And besides, Jamie, blasting out from behind the tray table, was objecting loudly enough for the both of them. “No way, Cameron.”

  “It’s fine, Whiskey,” Cam tried to soothe Jamie.

  “Talents I don’t know about, Boston?” Nic asked.

  Dark eyes shot to his. “There’s a lot you don’t know about.”

  If Cam had the skills, he was certainly qualified, and there was no one Nic would trust more as their inside man. No one he’d trust more to rescue Abby, capture Becca, and help close this case.

  Before Nic could say so, Jamie grabbed Cam by the arm and tugged him out of the room. Aidan broke the astonished silence that had settled in their wake. “Has Becca or any of her new crew seen him?”

  Nic shook his head. “I don’t think so. He was kitted out in a mask and helmet at the condo raid. I don’t think he took them off until after Becca fled.” He craned his neck to glance at Lauren again. “Anywhere else I’m forgetting?”

  “The arraignment, maybe?” she said.

  “Negative.” He turned back to Aidan. “Becca wasn’t in the courtroom, and I don’t remember seeing her anywhere around the courthouse yesterday. We can check security footage to confirm, but I’d be willing to bet Percy was the only one there. And when we cornered him, he recognized me but he had no idea who Cam was.”

  “She still could have had eyes on him,” Bowers said, as the door swung open.

  “I won’t look the same to those eyes,” Cam countered, stopping at the foot of the bed next to Aidan.

  Fuming, Jamie stalked back to his spot beside Lauren, and Nic could tell it was all the former agent could do not to make a remark.

  Nic wanted—needed—to know what was up, for the sake of the mission, if not his sanity. But he wouldn’t ask Cam in front of Bowers. “Are you sure about this?” Nic said instead. “Your call, Boston.”

  “It’s the quickest, surest way to infiltrate, to find out who Becca is working for, and to rescue Abby. This is my job. This is what I’m good at.”

  Nic sank back into the pillows. No use arguing. Cam’s mind was set, and if his best friend couldn’t change it, Nic wouldn’t be able to either.

  “All right, Boston, it’s your rescue.”

  * * *

  Cam kicked down the volume on his headset before the screeches of “Uncle Cam!” blew out his eardrums. “Bobby,” he tried again, hoping his older brother could hear him over the kids. “I just need five fucking minutes of your attention.”

  “You try sparing five minutes with three kids always hanging off you,” Bobby replied, weary but laughing. “They miss their favorite uncle.”

  Truth be told, Cam missed them too, more than a little. He slumped on the end of his bed, next to his go-bag stuffed with the rattiest clothes he still owned. Torn jeans, threadbare T-shirts, ribbed tank tops, an old BC hoodie, and his ancient army surplus camo jacket. He held the coat to his nose, inhaling the lingering scents of shop grease and pot smoke. Two decades later, any smells should have been long gone—maybe they were and it was all in his head—but this jacket would always smell that way to him. Remind him of that part of his life—a mix of bitter and sweet. Vestiges of a life left behind, even before he’d moved here.

  He was lucky he’d kept this stuff. Luckier still that he’d brought it out with him to California. Then again, he’d had to make the U-Haul worth it. A bed frame and mattress, treadmill and weight bench, and a couple suitcases of clothes barely filled half the trailer. So the shit in the back of his old closet had moved cross-country to the back of his new closet. Would unearthing it all now unearth his old life too? A life he and his brother had vowed never to revisit.

  “Say a few words to them?” Bobby said, snapping Cam back to the present. “Ma’s on her way over to babysit while Josie and I go out.”

  Cam set the coat aside. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

  A little comfort from home was due, especially after the past few days. A raid gone wrong. A kidnapping on his watch. Seeing Nic’s body tossed across the hood of a car. He’d thought his imagination was bad before, when it kept showing him Nic bleeding out in the street. Now he didn’t need his imagination; he had the real thing to go on, sans the blood. Nic’s unconscious form, lying motionless in the middle of the road, was there every time he closed his eyes. That sight was a big part of the reason he’d volunteered to take point infiltrating Becca’s crew. He’d be damned if Nic walked into the line of fire again on this case.

  Going undercover would also require him to play his full accent. Nothing like the unchecked Southie drawls of his nieces and nephews to help bring back his own. Full-strength, not the watered-down version his friends here thought was thick but sounded pitifully thin to his ears. A call wouldn’t be as good as being back there, but every minute on the phone helped.

  He asked each of them how they were doing in school. How his nephew was doing on the Pop Warner football team. How far his niece could kick the same football, determined to play with her twin brother. Cam held out hope the youngest of Bobby’s kids would follow his uncle’s footsteps onto the court—Cam had even put a tiny basketball in little Jack’s hands at Christmas—but with the way he worshipped his older siblings, Jack would probably go the way of the pigskin too.

  He’d have to hold out hope for his own someday.

  Just as Bella finished telling him about their field trip to Salem, a door slammed and Cam’s mother called out, “I’m here, with cannoli!”

  Shouts of “Nana” and “I get first pick” rang out as they all abandoned him for his mother and pastries.

  Laughing, Bobby came back on the line. “Now you know where you rank.”

  Cam couldn’t blame them, his own mouth watering. “Everything ranks below cannoli.”

  “We are the worst Irish family ever.”

  “Yeah, us and half the Irish families in Boston.”

  Bobby laughed out loud. “Only half?”

  “Truth, brother, truth.”

  Standing, Cam grabbed the straps of his bag and started to lift, only to be swatted by a clawed paw. Green eyes in a white-and-orange tabby face glared at him from inside his open bag. “Shoo, fur ball,” he said, patting the cat’s rump until it vacated his bag and room with an angry meow.

  Slinging the bag over his shoulder, Cam carried it down the short hallway to the front bedroom he’d set up as a home office and gym. No way he could afford the gym memberships here. Not that it ever got cold enough he couldn’t run outside. No snow and relatively little rain to contend with either. He should ditch the equipment and rent the room out. Bring in some spare cash. Buy an extra suit or two with it.

  “Hey, brother,” Bobby called. “Where’d your attention go?”

  “Sorry, sorry.” He dropped the bag in his desk chair. “Getting ready to go on assignment. Let me switch you to FaceTime.” He swapped the audio call for visual and propped the device against the stack of unopened mail on his desk. “Just got a lot going on here.”

  “You got a woman you’re not telling us about?”

  A man, maybe, but until that maybe became a firmer yes, he wasn’t going to spr
ing his bisexuality on his family. He’d never been serious enough, with anyone to bring them home, and he’d kept his college partying to campus. So, he’d chickened out and never corrected his family’s assumption. He felt like a coward every day for it, especially after Jamie had been brave enough to come out last year, and with the rest of his friends here who were out and proud. Another way he didn’t measure up. Granted his family had taken Jamie’s coming out in stride, sending wedding gifts and well wishes, but Cam didn’t know how they would take his. Having caused his family more than enough strife already, he didn’t want to create more unless and until he had someone special in his life. And it was too soon to tell with Nic.

  “Work thing,” he answered Bobby. “New assignment tomorrow.”

  “Where’s this one?”

  “Local.” He bent at the waist, opening the lower desk drawer and unlocking his safe there.

  “That why you called?”

  Maybe he shouldn’t have. He’d just worry Bobby, who, if he told anyone else in the family, would worry too. But Bobby knew better than anyone the Cam he was about to become again. He was the only one Cam could talk to about how much that fucking scared him.

  From inside the safe, Cam withdrew the bag of tools long since retired. “Remind me, best way to jack an AmSec 8000 series vault door?”

  Bobby’s blue eyes widened, then the dark brow above them furrowed, a deep crease forming between them. “Why do you need to know that?”

  “The assignment I mentioned...undercover gig.”

  “Not someone else who can do that?”

  “’Fraid not.” He had the skills, and there were people he had to rescue. Others he needed to protect. This was his job.

  “You really need me to remind you?” Bobby said.

  Of course he didn’t. Despite the intervening years, Cam had done it so many times it’d be like riding a bike. If he’d really needed pointers, he would have asked Danny instead of worrying his brother.

  He tossed the tools into his bag, tossed the bag onto the treadmill, then sank into the desk chair. “Called for another reminder.” He pulled out his wallet and the library card again, smoothing a thumb over the name preserved in laminate. More than could be said for the owner’s body, which two decades later was still missing. When he glanced back up, Bobby’s eyes were likewise on the card, as sad and heavy as Cam’s chest felt. “We made a deal,” Cam said.

  Bobby blinked, casting aside the same memories likely plaguing Cam. “This is for work.”

  “Still, we said never—”

  “You got backup?”

  “Yeah, my partner.” The memory of Nic rolling over the car hood streaked behind his eyes again. If he’d go to those lengths for their CIs... “And the prosecutor on the case. He’s ex-Special Forces.”

  “Tell them about our deal,” Bobby said.

  Cam hung his head as his heart raced, turning the card over in his hands. Aidan had to know; it would have been in his file, in his psych evals. He hadn’t hidden the truth of why he’d joined the Bureau. No, that wasn’t the reason why his pulse sped. It hammered at the prospect of exposing his grimy past to the man who always had his shit together.

  “Tell them where your line in the sand is,” Bobby continued. “Make sure they hold you to it.”

  But could they, if he was on his own—embedded, undercover and cut off? He righted his head, meeting his brother’s concerned gaze. “If anything should happen—”

  “Don’t talk like that.”

  “You still ignoring what I do?”

  “I know it’s what you needed, for your sanity, but for the sake of mine, yes, I’m ignoring it.”

  They both chuckled, the tense mood lightening a bit, then more so when background calls of “Daddy” grew in volume.

  “Duty calls,” Bobby said. “You want to talk to Josie or Ma?”

  “Nah, I’ll just make them worry. Don’t say anything about this, okay?”

  His brother nodded his head of dark hair, going gray at the temples. “Call me when you get back. Or during, if you need me. I’m always here.”

  That devotion had saved both their lives, right when they’d been on the edge of throwing their futures away for good. “Love you, brother.”

  “Love you too.”

  Bobby clicked off and Cam reclined in his chair, closing his eyes and tipping his face to the ceiling, card held to his chest. What would Nic think when he learned that by-the-rules Agent Byrne was a figment of Cam’s imagination? Created out of necessity, but a persona nonetheless.

  Sighing, he pushed to his feet, pocketed the card and wallet, and checked his bag over once more. He zipped it up just as a knock sounded at the front door. He glanced at his watch. His appointment was early.

  Flicking off the lights, he pulled the hallway pocket door partway closed and crossed the living area to the front door, opening it to...not the visitor he expected.

  Not that this unexpected one was unwelcome.

  Nic stood on his doorstep, dressed down in slacks and rolled-up shirtsleeves, holding up a six pack of his favorite Imperial Stout. “Not much of this left,” he said. “Thought you might like to share some with me.”

  Cam held the door open wider. “Won’t say no to that.”

  Chapter Ten

  Nic strolled into the familiar house, his gait a little slower than normal. His body was confused, sore like it would be after an intense workout, stiff as if he’d sat at his desk all day, and if he turned the wrong way too fast, sore and aching would give way to a sharp stab of pain. All in all, not too bad for having been hit by a car eighteen hours ago.

  Cam shut the door behind him. “They give you some good drugs?”

  They’d tried; he’d refused. He’d also tried to refuse the X-rays and head CT the doctors had recommended, wanting to leave with the rest of the team once they’d finished the debrief in his hospital room. Bowers had ordered otherwise, and for once Aidan had agreed with him. Bastard.

  Hours later, he’d finally been released, but by the time he’d returned to the Federal Building, Cam had already left. After checking on Tony, calling Scott’s and Mike’s attorneys for perfunctory plea negotiations, and replenishing the caffeine and sugar stash for Lauren and Jamie, who was consulting on Cam’s cover build, Nic had left the City too, detouring by the brewery to check in with his assistant managers. He should have gone home from there, to his duplex a few blocks away, but he’d driven to Cam’s place instead.

  Not the smartest idea—he was putting Cam in more jeopardy than he already was—but after being flung over a car, after the way Cam had looked at him in the hospital with those swirling black eyes, after Cam had volunteered to take point on a case that had already gone from bad to worse, Nic was getting that second kiss before it was too late. He was also getting an explanation for why Jamie didn’t want Cam on this assignment.

  “Wouldn’t be here with these—” he lifted the beer bottles in their cardboard carrier “—if they had. I took worse hits in BUDs training.” Worse falls too, including the one that’d ended his SEAL career. He stood in the middle of the living area, glancing around. “Didn’t change much.”

  “Aidan left most of the furniture, which was good, since I didn’t want to haul mine cross-country.”

  Cam shuffled past him, slipping the carrier from his hand. Nic stifled his gasp at the sizzle of heat running up his arm. If his hospital room hadn’t been packed when he’d woken this morning, would he have gotten that second kiss, then? The way Cam had looked down at him, had spoken so softly, would have tempted Nic into pulling him down by the tie and forcing his tongue between his lips, if they hadn’t had an audience. Cam’s tie was gone now, as was the rest of his suit, replaced with a gray FBI T-shirt and worn jeans, the view of Cam’s ass in the latter a sight Nic enjoyed immensely as he followed him into the kitchen.

  Pull
ing free two bottles, Cam set them on the bar separating the kitchen from the dining area and shoved the rest in the fridge. Nic rooted around in the drawers for the bottle opener, and the mood was comfortable, until it was shattered by a furry beast jumping onto the bar. Nic fumbled the bottle opener, the metal clanking against granite. “Jesus, fuck, it’s huge.”

  Cam stepped to his side, laughing. “I wanted a dog, but with the job, a cat made more sense.”

  “This is not a cat, Boston.” Nic reached out a cautious hand. The animal ducked its head, then butted his curved fingers, nuzzling for a pet. Amused by the affectionate beast, Nic smiled as he scratched behind its ears. “This is a mini-mountain lion.”

  “Maine Coon, actually. He acts like a dog. As close as I could manage.”

  “What’s his name?”

  Cam grinned. “Bird.”

  Nic shot him a baleful side-eye. “You named a cat Bird?”

  “I know you got hit by a car today, Price, but come on, put it together.”

  Nic glanced back at the cat. White and orange tabby, green eyes, thin green Boston Celtics branded collar around his neck.

  Oh, in surprise, then oh, in disgust. Nic couldn’t have stopped his eyes from rolling if his life depended on it. “Should have fucking known. Better than Larry, I guess. Or worse, Brady.”

  Cam hid a wider smile around the mouth of his beer bottle, and Nic couldn’t stop himself from staring either. Or from the heat that warmed his cheeks when Cam made a satisfied hum in the back of his throat.

  Tearing his gaze away, he forced himself to pause his desire’s objective and address the other objective first. “You ready for this tomorrow?” he asked.

  Cam looked like he wanted to swallow a whole bunch of conflicting emotions with his next gulp of beer. “Best way to rescue Abby.”

  “Thank you,” Nic said, infusing his voice with all the gratitude he felt, “for keeping that as your priority, even if you still don’t trust her completely.” If not for Cam, he’d feel like he was shouting at the wind.