by Finn, Emilia
“Go, go, go, go.” I try to hurry Jay on. “Come on, Bishop.”
“I’m trying.” His muscles flex and strain as he tries to close the cutters. “Hold on, Tate. I’m not letting you go.”
“Got it.” Gunner’s voice is like celebration and dread in one. “Disarmed.”
He literally picks Evie’s vest up and tosses it onto the stage, then he turns to me and begins pulling cords away to get a look. He takes the watch from the pocket, and in this moment, in this very second, my life flashes when his face pales.
“She had longer.” He looks to the useless vest as though in mourning. “She had three minutes.”
“How long does mine have? Gunner?” I grab his face. “How long?”
“One minute, twelve. Run.” He grabs the cutters from Jay’s hands and shoves him so hard he slams to the floor on his back. “Get up and run. You have one minute. Kane! Go.”
“Not going without Jay.” The oldest Bishop sprints to our group and grabs his little brother by the collar, only to literally lift him from the ground in one swoop. More than two hundred pounds, and he lifts him like it’s easy. “Cut it off her, Griffin. Get up. Let’s go.”
“There’s not enough time. We don’t have time to cut and run and escape the blast zone. Go!” He pushes me to my back so hard that the back of my head raps against the floor. Straddling my hips, he tears wires from my chest and goes to work. “Go! Fuck. Just go.”
“I can’t…” Kane’s eyes flicker between me and Gunner. “I don’t… I can’t–”
“If you stay, you will die! You will both die.”
“But if we run, you die.”
“Forty-nine seconds.” Gunner carefully, so very gently, cuts a wire with a set of what looks like mini pliers. “You already don’t have time. Blast is gonna knock you on your asses. Fuckin’ run!”
“Gunner…” Kane’s eyes almost spill over with tears. “That’s not how… we can’t leave you. Brotherhood, remember?”
“Bastard children don’t count.” Gunner’s eyes don’t leave my body, but he’s not thinking of me. It’s like he has no clue I’m here. He’s the machine, the computer that can compartmentalize. It’s a necessity to survive, so he works on my wires and doesn’t notice the torrent of tears that stream over my face.
With a muffled curse, Kane refastens his hands around Jay’s collar and pulls him out the front doors.
“Thirty seconds, babe. Hold on for me. Don’t die from a heart attack.”
“Fix it, fix it, fix it. Please, Gunner. Fix it.”
“I’ve got you, baby. I promised, didn’t I?” Tears fill Gunner’s eyes. “I promised I’d come back to find you.”
“Oh God. Oh God. Oh God. We’re gonna die.”
“I will never let you die. I promised. One or two? Libby? One or two?”
“What? One or two what?”
“We have two wires. Both black. One is gonna fuck us up. The other will fix this. One or two.”
“Oh my god. I dunno! What do your instincts say?”
“One. It should be one.”
“So choose number one!” I look down to the watch. “Oh god! Ten seconds. Pick number one!”
“But he’s got the number dyslexia thing. Did he do it right?”
“Oh God. Oh no. Seven seconds.”
“Pick one! I’m here with you. Whatever you choose.”
“I don’t know.” My voice is nothing more than a shaking whimper. “I don’t know.”
“One.” He closes the pliers around one of the wires as the watch counts down.
Five.
Four.
Three.
“It should be one.”
“I forgive you,” I cry. “Whatever it is. I forgive you.”
“It’s two.” When the watch reaches one, Gunner switches wires and lines the pliers up, and using his body weight as he comes down to drape his body over mine, he makes the cut.
I hear the snip.
I hear the beep of the watch.
And then I hear the heavy breathing we make on the club floor.
My eyes are closed. My heart has surely stopped, but I count in my head. I count ten breaths before I open my eyes and study the carnage around us. The club remains standing, and my heart slams against Gunner’s while he blankets my body with his.
“It didn’t go off.” I look around in shock. “It didn’t go off.”
Slowly, Gunner lifts his chest and looks at the vest sandwiched between us. His hands shake as much as Evie’s did earlier. His face is pale, and sweat slides over his brow like he’s been jogging for hours.
“Gunner.” I concentrate on my breathing and wait for his eyes. “I didn’t blow up. How’d you know to choose number two?”
“Because… I…” He licks his lips and sends me hurtling back to that day in the gym. “Jesus. I dunno. Because I was gonna go number two in my pants. Fuck, Lib.” He leans closer and presses shaking lips to mine. “He fucked it up. He always fucks it up.”
“Did he fuck the other vest up?”
He leans over me to grab the cutters Jay abandoned earlier. Almost like he’s in contemplation, he snaps the lock from my cage and goes to work on the third. “No, he got the other one right.”
“So if you’d guessed wrong on the other one, we’d all be dead?”
He nods. Snips. And leans over me to cut my cuffs. “Yes. We’re running on fifty-fifty odds at this point.”
“That’s just…” I draw in a long breath when he releases my hand with one fast snip. “Jesus, Gunner. That’s not good enough.”
“I know. Come on.” He climbs off my hips and helps me sit up. Unlatching the cage with gentle hands, he helps open it up and feed my arms through. “Careful, babe. It should be dead, but I’m doubting myself.”
“Don’t doubt.” My voice cracks as I escape the contraption and move as far from it as possible “Don’t doubt. We don’t have time for doubt. Come on.” I grab his hand when all he does is sit on his haunches and study the allegedly-dead vests. “Let’s get out. We’ll send the bomb squad in to dispose of them.”
“Yeah.” He slowly climbs to his feet and turns to study the rest of the messy club. Olly’s Colt lays discarded on the dance floor like some odd memorial to a war we never signed up for. Blood splatters form a pattern up the glass where liquor bottles are displayed for patrons’ delight.
The world is silent, because everyone has already been sent back six blocks.
“I’m not sure I’ve ever been in such a silent world before.”
“They left us,” Gunner murmurs as we approach the doors. “They left us like mongrel dogs tied to train tracks.”
“No, they…” I frown and try not to let his words hurt us. “No, they were ordered back. We’re alive. Let’s be happy that–”
“Let us pass!” Kane Bishop’s booming voice brings our eyes up as soon as we open the club door. He and Jay fight against Spence and Romeo’s holds. The soldiers use all their strength to push the brothers back, but it’s a battle that the Bishops refuse to lose. They fight dirty against their friends and make headway with every second that passes, but then the door slams shut at our backs, and four sets of eyes come to us in the otherwise silence.
Romeo trips forward, because Jay stops fighting him. Spence spins, and when his eyes stop on us, he releases the oldest brother and drops his hands to his knees as though he needs to catch his breath.
For the first time in Gunner’s life, armed to their teeth and running at full pelt, his brothers run toward him with acceptance and love in their eyes, rather than hatred.
Epilogue
Gunner
Diamond-studded wedding gowns. Extravagant flowers. Fancy church and expensive suits. This wedding is attended by Fortune 500 money, and pro athletes who’ve fought for tens of millions per bout.
Lawyers, doctors, security. And cops.
There’s money in every pocket. Money in every bank.
I sit in the very back row of Jay Bishop’s we
dding ceremony in a black suit that blends in with everyone else’s. Collar on, coat over that, none of my ink showing, except for that on my hand.
Two baby girls sit mere feet from me. Black hair. Icy blonde hair. Sweet little smiles and bright blue eyes. They play with teething rings, and have no clue that today marks something big in their short lives.
Their Uncle Jay is getting married, Aunt Sophia finally said yes, and the fact their father trusted me and Libby to mind the girls during the ceremony doesn’t go unnoticed by anyone in this church.
Luna and Rose Bishop are Kane’s most cherished possessions. His daughters, the very thing he would go to war for, have been trusted with me – the bastard brother – while he’s busy helping Jay get hitched.
It’s humbling, considering only a few months ago, he would have run me down and felt no remorse when my obituary turned up in the newspapers.
Luna gah-gahs and smacks her sister with a rubber ring, but instead of screaming about it, the smaller baby turns around and smacks her back.
“Here.” Libby reaches forward and grabs the black-haired baby, then she turns and dumps her in my lap so the red dress with little white dinosaurs floods over my thighs, and the wriggling baby giggles and draws her father’s eye.
He stands all the way at the front, and we sit in the very back. It was an attempt to keep the clingy babies from following their mother to the altar and stealing the show. But despite the distance, Kane’s ears are finely tuned to know his girls.
Jay speaks his vows, he promises himself to Sophia and agrees not to be a hotdog all the time. But Kane’s eyes stay on us for a moment. He studies Rose in my lap, then studies Luna in Libby’s lap. Once he’s satisfied with his scan, his eyes come back to me and smile.
We’re… brothers.
Reluctant, perhaps. But the suspicion is gone, as are the bad attitudes – mostly. Jay seems inclined to get over the fact I hit on his girl, especially now that she wore a dress that looks an awful lot like a tutu on their wedding day.
She’s his dancer, and she’s obliging his fantasies in front of everyone they know.
“I now pronounce you husband and wife.” Angelo, their officiant for today, grins and gives a flick of his wrist, as though to say ‘off you go.’ “You may kiss your bride.”
* * *
Libby
Jay is a married man, which means Spence is back to being our class clown. Jay has to remain dignified – for a minute, at least – so it’s Spence that makes a dick of himself and his sweet girl, Abigail, on the dance floor. Her brothers are in attendance today, and Spence gives absolutely zero fucks about their disapproving glares as he fondles her and makes her giggle like a school girl. His seven-foot stature dwarves her tiny body, but she controls her giant, and with the come-hither eyes, forces him from the center of the room and out the double doors so they can disappear to… well, I suspect they’ll continue fondling someplace else.
Kane dances with all three of his girls. The Bishops create a tiny dance circle; he holds one baby, and Jess holds the other, and together, they press close and sway.
And not so far from them, Jay moves with Soph and whispers things in her ear.
With my arms wrapped around Gunner’s neck and my toes aching from standing on them so I can reach him, his arms wrap around my hips and his lips press to my skin. Chest to chest, we move together, and round out the circle of brothers.
For the first time ever, three Bishop brothers are in the same room, happy, dancing, and carefree.
None of them were given a life where this could be such a thing. Forever in fight mode, always watching their backs, for the longest time, they were three separate entities. Three separate brothers who had to do their very best to survive, because their father drove them in different directions in hopes to fracture their strength.
It wasn’t until now, once Colum was dead and their enemies laid their arms down, that the three of them could truly be together again, without threat, and with genuine happiness shining in their eyes.
One could say that they all look like their father. And it’s true; they have the same jaw, the same shape to their eyes. Two of them have Colum’s eye color, but all three have the hair and nose. They all have this deep belief in kill or be killed, but they fight it back, they beat the poison Colum Bishop pumped into their veins, and by being here today, they prove their emancipation from the hell Bishop Sr. created.
All three are happy. They’re surrounded by people that love them, and though it is most certainly an army they control, it’s an army of love. An army of respect and brotherhood.
It’s the very thing Gunner silently hoped for, and everything he now has.
He was an only child, and now he’s one of three. He had no sisters, but now he has many. He never expected to be part of a family, but now he has two nieces, and another on the way.
Everything is how it’s supposed to be for him, and though I begged and pleaded for him to let me make the move, to relocate to the city and take up residence in the plaza where I would always feel a little green when looking out the window, despite my numerous requests to be the one to move, he saw through my bullshit and wouldn’t allow it.
He knew I didn’t want to leave my cop family. He knew I’d never truly settle as a trophy wife in the city. And more than that, he wanted to be closer to his brothers, so he packed up and created a new arm of Griffin Industries. The plaza remains, and Annaliese runs that place now, as she always has, but Gunner has opened his own smaller office here.
It houses twenty or so staff, four of which are assistants to help in his quest to speak to as few people as he can, and Checkmate has signed an exclusivity agreement with Griffin for tech, and for, well… the other stuff.
The explosive kind of stuff.
Mostly, Jay and Kane skip out on their own work to hang out with Gunner, because while they thought building computers was cool, building explosives is infinitely way more awesome.
Because of Gunner’s relocation, I didn’t have to leave my job, my chief is happy like a pig in mud, and now Gunner and I share a home a few blocks from Kane and Jay, and we see them every single day. It’s a codependence I’m not sure any of the brothers wish to cure themselves of, and it’s certainly not something I’ll ever dissuade.
They have a lot of catching up to do, and despite the fact Jay basically ignored Gunner’s existence for most of our travels while searching for Olly, Kane still feels like he has catching up to do. Jay had two months with Gunner that Kane didn’t, and Kane, being the oldest, feels compelled to be the father figure. The caretaker. Which means he needs to make up that time, and bond with the guy that he’s now accepted as his little brother.
Kane was being honest that day in his boardroom – he loves fiercely. If you’re out, then you’re dead to him, but when you’re in, you’re in.
And now Gunner is so far in, he’s not sure what to do with himself. He’s lived a solitary life, and now he finds himself so surrounded by people that he’s been caught sneaking out and hiding away at home until he’s able to catch his breath.
All three brothers are different in their own ways, but when you dig right down to the core, you see the similarities. The love. The loyalty. The respect. And the most annoying senses of humor.
“Come for a walk with me?” Gunner pulls back far enough to catch my eyes. “It’s hot in here.”
“Sure.” I drop down onto my heels and take his hand as he leads me off the dance floor. We pass Kane and Jess and the girls, and despite his full hands, Kane still manages to shoot out a fist for bumping as we pass.
We scoot around the edges of the dance floor, around Jay and Soph while she seduces him with her dancer hips, and his hands remain cupped around her teeny tiny little belly.
She said ten years. He said ten days.
He won, she lost, but she doesn’t seem all that put out about it.
We shimmy between seats and meet at the exit in the same moment that Meg, the wedding planner, does
. She’s beautiful and blonde, and obnoxious enough that I’ve felt the deepest compulsion to toss her into our cages at work a million times in the past.
Of course, being obnoxious isn’t a crime, and I’m all about being a good cop, so I leave her be and take myself back to the gym to work through my urges. I’m in such a good mood tonight that I don’t even try to hurry Gunner along so we don’t have to chat with the bombshell who holds a clipboard and wears sky-high heels.
“Hey, Tate.” Meg flashes a wide grin and shows off pearly white teeth behind bright red lipstick. “You guys having fun?”
“The wedding is beautiful. You did good.” We push through the doors and breathe a sigh of relief when the heat and music lower the second we step into the hall. “What about you? Have you had time to relax?”
“Sure have. The cake was amazing, right?”
“I liked the turkey dinner,” Gunner answers with his repressed grin. Repressed, because he’s still a grump that rarely makes friends, but the turkey was too good for him to pass up. “Who’s in charge of catering? Because that was delicious.”
“My friend catered.” Meg makes a note on her clipboard and follows us to the end of the hall. “I’ll be sure to tell her you said so.”
“Oh, sugar! Yes.”
We stop before we turn the corner, caught out by Dolly’s indecent noises just a few feet away. As a group, we lift our brows and bite our grins, because that’s not a Bishop-inspired ‘Oh, sugar, you look so sexy’ that Dolly’s so inclined to give. But something else, something much more… err… physical.
“Just let me…” The poor woman grunts just out of sight. She growls after a moment, and purrs a moment after that. “Yesssssss. You know how to make a woman happy.”
“Oh my God.” Meg whisper-laughs and presses a hand to her mouth. “Is Dolly fucking in public?”
Gunner shakes his head, though he can’t possibly know.