Dirty Deeds

by HelenKay Dimon

  With anyone else Alec would shut this down. He’d done it before. People asked. Every now and then the press would bring it all up. Some of the articles about him being a bachelor would mention his messed-up family past. Skip the rumors, but not the hard facts.

  Instead of shuttering the topic or getting defensive, Alec took a deep breath. He waited for his mind to go blank and the anger to take over, but the warmth from Gaige’s hand seeped into him. Having him so close, being able to skim his lips over Gaige’s hair, soothed Alec. This one time he didn’t want to run or ignore or yell his way out of this.

  “After my sister died my mom shut down. Like, she wouldn’t get out of bed. I’d find her sitting on the floor of my sister’s bedroom, holding a shirt. Just rocking back and forth.” The words spilled out of Alec. He’d expected halting sentences that he had to choke out, but that didn’t happen.

  “Depression.”

  “The type where you’re drowning. That’s how she’d explain it. This suffocating darkness where everything hurt.” The memory of his mother’s soft voice ran through his mind. A familiar ache at having been too late started to throb. “My father wasn’t the most compassionate man before my sister’s suicide. He went full-scale asshole after. Blamed my mom for not seeing the signs. Blamed her for being upset. Cheated on her, then got so used to cheating that he started stealing from the company, because why the hell not.”

  “Jesus.” Gaige rubbed his cheek against Alec’s chest.

  The rough scruff provided just enough friction for Alec to push forward. The story had so many pieces, all of them horrible. “He and his brother had this elaborate scheme, including what amounted to committing fraud on government contracts.”

  It wasn’t until right at that moment that Alec realized their stories shared some features. They’d both had their lives upended by lies and betrayal committed by others. They’d both depended on people who screwed them over.

  For Alec, that made him hard and unbending. He didn’t trust easily and didn’t have any interest in changing. The road had been just as tough for Gaige, continued to be, but he didn’t shut down. He said he did, and he probably held back and hid, but when the chance came and they got together, Gaige wasn’t the one giving no-strings lectures.

  Every time Alec growled or raised his voice Gaige took it in stride. He backed Alec down when most people couldn’t.

  “Were you working for the family at that time?” Gaige asked.

  “I was fresh out of business school and not hurting for ego.” People who thought he was an asshole now should have seen him back then. He’d had just enough education to be dangerous, but he lacked experience and nuance. Alec liked to think he’d gained both. “I came in with big ideas, not knowing none of it mattered because my father had long abandoned any real future for the company.”

  “You figured out what he did?”

  “After a few years. I worked behind his back, uncovered the falsified documents. My mom died around that time. A mix of too many pills and breathtaking heartache.” The memories ran together, each one worse than the last. All that pain. How he couldn’t eat and threw himself into the business to escape the tightening sensation in his chest. “I was furious that my father hadn’t stepped up. He’d basically hidden my mother from us, but we let him do it. So, in a mix of fury and guilt I buried myself in work, and that’s when I figured it out. My dad and his brother.”

  “Shit.” Gaige turned his head and placed a kiss on Alec’s chest.

  He didn’t make a move to get closer or insist on more information. It was a comforting gesture that let Alec know Gaige was there for him. Other than his brothers and Tony, no one filled that role for him.

  “I worked there for two years before seeing the issue. Then it took me another two years to get everything in place, but then I launched the hostile takeover and that was the end of the father-son relationship.” Doing the right thing meant Alec shredded any connection. Spent nights worrying he’d lose his brothers, too, but they supported him. He could still remember that freeing feeling when Griff made the announcement in the middle of a family fight that the brothers would stick together no matter what.

  “What about your uncle?”

  That was the worst of it. He was one person Alec had thought he could trust and he’d been pretty fucking wrong. “Like your ex, he did a better job of covering his fingerprints. I went to him, thinking he’d help with getting rid of my dad.” Alec hesitated, not sure if he should fill in this blank. The piece of information no one except a few knew. “He tried to kill me instead.”

  “What?” Gaige lifted his head and looked up at Alec. The shock and anger were right there in his eyes. But not at him. For him.

  “I told you it was a dysfunctional family history.”

  Gaige shifted until he balanced his upper body on his elbow. “What happened?”

  “I shot him in the leg to get him to stop. It became part of my reputation and the gossip.” His part did. No one ever knew his uncle had launched first. People assumed Alec was trying to eliminate the competition. Little did they know. “The last time I saw him was right after I found out my dad had cancer, when my uncle kicked me out of his hospital room.”

  “Were you and your brothers ever estranged?”

  Some of the anger that shot up and clouded Alec’s brain whenever he talked about this subject cleared. “Never. I refused to let that happen. More importantly, they refused.”

  Gaige sighed as he shook his head. “So that’s where the rumor about you killing someone came from.”

  Alec wasn’t surprised Gaige knew that rumor. It played a big role in people viewing him as a hardass. “That and a competitor died in a plane crash. I had nothing to do with it, but with the timing so close to the business takeover, people made up their own version of events.”

  Gaige stared at him then. Looked and didn’t flinch. “And you had nothing to do with the death of your sister’s attacker?”

  Alec felt something inside him deflate. This was a harder story. Alec had guilt, not excuses, on this. “Actually…”

  Gaige’s eyebrow rose. “Alec?”

  He’d been filled with rage back then. He’d felt nothing but this pounding need for vengeance. The only thing that ran through his mind back then was that the kid should pay, and when the court system couldn’t make it happen, Alec’s sole existence, his reason to get up in the morning and what he thought might make it better for his mother, was to know the guy paid a price.

  “I hounded him.” Alec stopped, waiting to see if Gaige’s expression changed. If revulsion crept in. When Gaige listened without moving an inch, Alec started again. “I made sure people knew, talked about it and understood how dangerous he was. When he ran his car into a tree, I didn’t mourn. Even when it was ruled a suicide.”

  “I guess not.”

  The tone had regret slamming into Alec. He’d gone too far. Gaige could be expected to forgive only so much. Hell, Alec couldn’t forgive himself for this one.

  “I’ve never pretended to be a good man,” Alec said over the strange lump in his throat.

  Gaige moved then. He shifted until his body covered Alec’s again. They met chest to chest and their legs slipped over each other as he stared down into Alec’s eyes. “You are.”

  “How can you say that after what I just told you? I did push my father out. I did miss the signs with my sister and my mother. And I taunted that kid, knowing what might happen.” Despite the harsh words Alec wrapped his arms around Gaige’s waist and held on. “That’s not the end of my list of sins either.”

  Gaige smiled then. “You’re trying to convince me you’re a jerk?”

  “I’m being honest.”

  “Things happen to us, Alec. We deal. We fail. We make terrible choices. We go too far and have regrets.” Gaige dropped a quick kiss on Alec’s surprised mouth. “I hate to tell you this but as far as I can see, you’re flawed and imperfect and totally human. Welcome to the fucking club.”

&
nbsp; Alec couldn’t even describe the sensation that moved through him. It washed away some of the darkness. Eased some of the ache. “Not shooting you in my server room when I had the chance was the best decision I’ve ever made.”

  “Spoken like a man who’s ready for round two.”

  “Now you’re talking.”

  Chapter 23

  Gaige didn’t know how he was going to make it through the next day. He’d been up most of the night, reeling from Alec’s story. He knew what it took for a man like Alec, so strong and sure of his place in the world, to share that type of personal information. To rip the skin open and bleed.

  As he listened, Gaige took it all in and tried not to swing from one reaction to another. He knew Alec didn’t want his pity, but Gaige still needed to show support. Walking that line proved difficult. Most of the time it worked out best if he said nothing, so he went with that. But when Alec’s breathing grew heavier and he slipped off to sleep, Gaige’s mind began spinning.

  He thought about all the pain Alec had survived. The disappointment and frustration he waded through every day and the guilt he took on for not having handled each situation in a perfect manner. That type of pressure ate at a person.

  Gaige had spent the last few months barricaded away, not getting involved. He’d detached and looked for ways to become even more isolated. With Alec that hard shield cracked. Something tugged at Gaige, that need to open up and let Alec in, if only for a short time. The idea was so dangerous, so against how he’d survived the mess with Jase that part of Gaige balked. But a bigger part no longer did.

  Alec needed a sounding board. When it was just the two of them alone in bed, Gaige could offer it. They talked and shared information Gaige never intended to tell anyone. He knew that mattered, but he wondered if Alec did.

  —

  “This is not my idea of a vacation,” Tony said as he sat across from Alec and Gaige the next morning at the small café that consisted of four tables.

  They drank coffee and avoided the vault and the people who worked there. For now, they needed to meet without too many eyes watching them.

  Alec nodded. “I know. I will make it up to you, but I needed you here to relay information and run backup if needed.”

  “Because you’re here without warning Seth and against Finn’s advice.” Tony didn’t ask. He offered the comment as a fact.

  “Finn was against this trip?” That was information Gaige wished he’d known before he boarded a plane for the middle of nowhere. Pitting brother against brother didn’t interest him at all, especially now that he knew more about the inner workings of the Drummond family.

  Alec shrugged. “He has a really great lecture about how we’re businessmen and we should let the CIA and special ops guys handle the lethal stuff.”

  Gaige was starting to think Finn was the smarter Drummond brother, or at least the one without a death wish. “He’s not wrong.”

  “In general, it’s good advice, but Seth needs us and we don’t need him here being a pain in the ass.”

  That was the party line. Alec had gone along with Gaige’s request to keep Seth in the dark for now. They were supposed to be there gathering intel and getting a sense of which players had access to all the information and all the seeds.

  At the last minute Alec had filled Tony in. Gaige agreed with the choice. Alec trusted Tony, so Gaige trusted him. Plus, they needed someone who could work from the outside and handle the influx of data they collected. Why his presence had to be top secret was unclear to Gaige, but he let Alec work out those details.

  “I do have a bit of a surprise,” Tony said as he wrapped his hands around the mug in front of him.

  Alec smiled. “Caroline is with you at the hotel.”

  For a second Tony’s mouth dropped open. “You really do have eyes everywhere.”

  “It probably benefits me if you think so, since I’m the boss.”

  “Well, there’s no great mystery why.” Tony launched into the explanation, rushing his words as if he needed to convince Alec. “She’s started making sly comments about work being the most important thing in my life, and Pam backed her up. The two-against-one thing is not a winner, no matter what I do.”

  The pitch almost made Gaige laugh. Tony failed to pick up the cues. There was nothing in Alec’s tone or body language that suggested he was upset with the news about Caroline.

  “Leaving town after the anniversary disaster seemed like a great way to lose a girlfriend and never have sex again.” Tony did a quick look around the empty café. “I mean, come on.”

  “That would suck.” Gaige didn’t know about women but he did know about sex.

  Tony looked from Gaige to Alec. “Right? So, she’s here. She knows I need to work, but I am going to call in a favor and stay up here for a few days after you two leave. Alone and without work.”

  That sounded smart except for the part about vacationing in an ice cave. Gaige didn’t get that at all. “It’s freezing here. There are beaches, you know.”

  Tony waved off the concern and rolled his eyes. “She’s fine with cold. She’s off on some group snowshoeing expedition.”

  “I can’t think of anything worse.” Gaige believed in indoors and heat. And right now he believed in more coffee, so he signaled the server with what he hoped was an international symbol to get some.

  “I can.” Alec leaned back and slipped his arm along the length of the back of Gaige’s chair. “Today we go in, pretending to perform an in-depth check of the seeds when what we’ll really be doing is giving Gaige more time to crack their internal system.”

  “And what will you be doing while he does that?” Tony asked.

  “I’m the one checking seeds.”

  Gaige was impressed Alec managed to make that answer sound real. “Wouldn’t you have to be a scientist to do that?”

  Alec frowned at him. “I can identify the seeds.”

  “You’re a businessman.” Yes, that was stating the obvious but Gaige felt obliged to point out now and then that Alec did not know everything. It just seemed that way sometimes.

  Alec tapped his fingers on the back of Gaige’s chair. “Don’t underestimate me.”

  Fair point. “I’m learning not to.”

  —

  The crate from the late shipment was on the table when they walked into the small room next to security. The room held exactly one chair and a small desk. Alec expected them to be left alone to work. Daniel, the head of security, appeared to have other plans. He stood near the door and watched every move.

  That meant Alec actually had to catalog the seeds, or pretend to. Since whatever Gaige was doing with the laptop in front of him had nothing to do with inventory, Alec was on his own.

  After about twenty minutes of working in near quiet, Daniel piped up. “Everything okay?”

  No, but Alec wasn’t about to admit that. “The sealed foil packages look fine. No evidence of tampering and the manifest lines up.”

  Daniel made a humming sound as he continued to stand there in his thick jacket and gloves. “That’s good news, but how did the late shipment really happen?”

  Alec had waited for this question. For a moment he thought Gaige even hesitated in typing. His hands rose off of the keyboard for a fraction of a second, then the clicking of the keys resumed.

  “That’s just it. We’re not sure.” Alec continued to keep his body between Gaige and Daniel. If Daniel shifted even a little, so did Alec. The goal was to keep security away from Gaige’s computer screen. “Our records show a clean, on-time deposit. When we realized that didn’t happen, we started investigating.”

  “What did you find?”

  The way Daniel kept pushing had a warning bell ringing in Alec’s head. Drummond business was not Daniel’s responsibility. The fact that he couldn’t accept Astrid’s decision to let them be at the vault could be a territorial pissing match or it could be something much bigger.

  “A lot of loose ends.” Alec shrugged. “Typical red-
tape stuff.”

  The chair screeched against the cement floor as Gaige pushed back and stood up. He had the laptop closed and tucked under his arm. Daniel had already warned he would need to look at the computer before they left the building. Alec knew Gaige was prepared for that and had a work-around.

  Alec glanced at Gaige. “So, are you good here?”

  “Looks like I have what I need.”

  That meant they could go and should do it now. Alec shook Daniel’s hand. “The scientific team will assess. If all is well, we’ll come back tomorrow, say goodbye and head out.”

  “Sounds like another night in Svalbard for you two.” Daniel made the comment as he stepped away from the wall and opened the door to the outer hall.

  “The place is growing on me.” Which Alec had to admit was a damn lie. The exact opposite was true. He appreciated the work here but he preferred not to wear nine layers of clothing, if possible.

  “If you’re looking for dinner, you should try the Lodge,” Daniel said.

  More food talk. Before Gaige, Alec had tended to skip meals. Now he needed to keep the guy fed. The Lodge should work. It was the place you went if you dropped in from out of town for vault work.

  “Sounds good.” Alec nodded. “I haven’t been to the Lodge in some time.”

  Daniel left the room first and they followed. Alec wanted to ask about Gaige’s work and what he uncovered, if anything. He settled for the usual business chatter.

  “You think this was worth the trip?” Alec couldn’t afford to ask Gaige a bigger question, one that might draw attention.

  Gaige shot him a quick glance. “Definitely.”

  —

  They walked up the three steps to the front porch of the cabin later that night. Gaige was itching to dive into the information he’d downloaded at the vault, but dinner had been too tempting to pass up—when Alec actually bothered to offer a meal Gaige didn’t say no.

  Of course, not all food was equal in Gaige’s mind. “I was doing just fine at dinner until you told me smalahove was a sheep’s head.”

  “If I knew, you had to know. I didn’t want to suffer alone.” Alec laughed as he pulled the keys from his jacket pocket. “But I did like how you tried to cover it up with potatoes.”