by Layla Reyne
“This way, folks!” Cam shined his light up at the glossy white ceiling, moving it around like a beacon. “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!” he hollered in his agent voice.
People began to hustle, taking his orders seriously.
“Boston!” Nic called from where he stood holding open the stairwell door, ushering people through. “We need to get upstairs!”
“I got it here!” A third voice entered the fray. A young man in uniform was shoving his way through the crowd, flashing a badge. “Shante Bridges, Redwood City PD. Just got home from my shift. You cops too?”
“Assistant Special Agent in Charge Cameron Byrne.” He flashed his FBI badge, then aimed the beam of his flashlight at Nic. “And that’s Captain Dominic Price, retired SEAL and federal prosecutor.” He normally wouldn’t prioritize, much less reference, Nic’s rank, but Cam didn’t want to waste time arguing who would take lead here.
Shante caught the drift. “Go on, then. I got it here. I’m sure they can use your help upstairs.”
“Thanks, man.” Cam slapped his shoulder, then hurried to join Nic in the stairwell. Using his bigger body to cut a path along the rail, Cam climbed the steps in front of Nic, the smoke getting thicker the closer they got to the fourth floor. The crowd, however, was thinning out.
Cam understood why when they reached the fourth floor landing and heat blasted his face. “Fire must be on this end.”
“It’s right there!” shouted a woman running past them, dragging a bleary-eyed kid behind her. The next man pointed to the elevator side of the stairwell. “It’s the corner unit!” he hollered, then thundered down the stairs, picking up the kid for the woman, who thanked him profusely.
“Right above my unit,” Nic said, redrawing Cam’s attention. “We need to make sure it’s clear.”
Cam nodded and they moved into the hallway, where they were blasted by another wave of heat. People were running away from this end, away from the corner unit that was clearly the source of the fire, dark black smoke billowing out from around the door’s edges. Cam laid his hand on the door—blistering hot. Cursing, he snatched his hand back and kicked at the door with his foot.
It didn’t budge.
“You smell that?” Nic said beside him. “Underlying the smoke.”
Cam sniffed and nearly hacked up a lung, but yeah, he smelled it. Taken together with how hot that door had been to the touch, there was only one conclusion. “Accelerant.”
“Has to be. Meaning we gotta get everyone out of here, now.” Nic banged on the door with his fist. “First responders! Is anyone in there? First responders, open up!”
“It’s empty,” came a thin, wobbly voice from across the hall.
Cam spun, gaze following the direction of the voice to a little girl in the opposite doorway. Dressed in Wonder Woman pajamas, she couldn’t be more than eight. Tears streaked down her face and as a coughing fit overcame her, she covered her mouth with her hand.
“I got this,” Cam said to Nic. “Make sure the other units are clear.” Nic nodded and took off down the hall, banging on doors, while Cam crouched in front of the little girl. “Hey, sweetheart. What’s your name?”
“Amali.”
“Amali, my name’s Cam, and that’s my friend Nic.” He shined his light at Nic, who was rustling stragglers out of their units and directing them to the far stairwell. “We’re cops,” he oversimplified. “We need to get you out of here.”
She grabbed Cam by the hand and tugged him inside the unit. “I can’t leave Nani.” In the living area, an older woman wheezed and struggled to stand from a wheelchair.
Cam glanced at the pictures on the walls. Amali with a mom and dad, and her grandmother, her Nani. “Where are your parents?”
“Wedding,” the older woman said. “Sacramento. On their—” she broke into another coughing fit “—way back.”
“Boston!” Nic called from the door. “Hall is clear. We gotta get out of here.”
“Help me!” he hollered as he darted into the kitchen. He grabbed the hand towels off the fridge door, wet them, and was coming back into the living room as Nic charged in. Cam tossed him a towel and was going to offer to carry the grandmother, but Amali had already attached herself to his leg. “Don’t leave!”
“We’re not, sweetheart.”
“I’ve got Riya,” Nic said, tying the cloth over the older woman’s mouth, whose name he’d also apparently gotten.
Cam knelt and did the same for Amali, then picked her up in his arms, shifting her onto one hip.
“Stairwell across the hall is closer.” Nic adjusted Riya in his arms. “Open some doors for me.”
“Amali, I want you to hide, right here.” Cam patted his chest and Amali shoved her face into it. “We’re going to run, okay?”
She nodded, and Cam hauled ass to the door, Nic on his heels. He held his breath and charged across the hallway. Visibility was nil, the air roasting, and Amali screamed in his arms, but they made it across the hallway in one piece, unburnt. He slammed open the stairwell door, his own eyes watering from the smoke, and Nic barreled through behind him.
Shante was waiting for them on the third floor landing.
“We’re clear up there!” Nic said. “All clear here?”
“Clear, Captain.”
“Let’s get out of here!”
Cam couldn’t agree more.
Chapter Three
It was closer to sunrise than sunset when Nic emerged from a cloud of steam in Cam’s bathroom, a far cry from the cloud of smoke they’d staggered out of earlier with Amali and Riya. Heat and smoke had nipped their heels every step of the way, but they’d made it to the ground floor, Shante throwing open the door to glorious fresh air. And to Amali’s tearful, thankful parents who’d been waiting outside. He and Cam had gotten the reunited family seen to, then, after a couple hits off a shared oxygen mask, they’d assisted the actual first responders until residents had been allowed back inside. Nic, however, was barred from staying in his unit. Between the smoke that’d poured through the air vents and the overflowing water from the sprinklers in the upstairs unit, Nic’s new home had been deemed uninhabitable. He’d only been allowed in to quickly grab essentials, most of which were still packed in his suitcases by the door.
He’d grabbed his luggage while Cam had packed up the Instant Pot, the stew preserved under the locked pressure lid. As much as Nic wanted to sleep, he also wanted to eat, his body thrown out of whack from the travel and unplanned all-nighter. Maybe food would also make the difficult conversation he’d avoided earlier—the one about what an idiot his father had been—go down easier.
Cursing him, Nic yanked on a borrowed tee, rolled it down to the top of his sweats, and ran a hand through his damp hair. Situated well enough, he strolled across the open dining area and into the kitchen where Cam stood ladling stew into bowls, his cat winding around his feet.
Cam’s dark eyes twinkled up at him, surprisingly awake for three in the morning. “Beer to go with?” he asked with a nod to the fridge.
He’d showered first while Nic had been on the phone with the arson investigator, filling him in on what they’d detected at the scene. He’d also made it known they wanted to be kept in the loop. Because it was his home, he’d claimed. Because it was a nasty welcome home present, he suspected.
“I’ll get it,” Nic said, ignoring the hissing orange fur ball. He and Bird had been on good terms before he’d left for San Diego. Apparently he was going to have to win the beast over again.
Food and drink in hand, they bypassed the dining table for the deep-cushioned couch in the living room. Digging in, Nic hummed as the rich flavors of the stew hit his tongue. “Thank you for the housewarming gift,” he said a few spoonfuls later. “Even if we are enjoying it at your place.”
Cam shot him a sideways grin. “I’m just glad it survived. Otherwise it w
ould’ve been cup of noodles.”
“Wouldn’t be my first time.”
“Military?”
“Law school.”
Cam laughed, mid-slurp of stew, and Bird pounced on the spray, licking it up off the floor.
Nic smiled, amused and more content than he had any right to be. “You didn’t have to do this.”
Dark eyes, dimmer now, slid his way. “My apology, for presuming.”
Nic lowered his spoon and forced down the bite that lodged in his throat. “I’m the one who owed you an apology. Thought we established that.”
“Confession,” Cam started, and Nic whipped his gaze back up, not sure where Cam was headed with that lead-in. “This is also me softening you up. I’m Irish,” he said, gesturing with his spoon at the clover on his Celtics T-shirt. “We attack through the belly.”
“Go on.”
Dropping his spoon in his empty bowl, Cam leaned forward and set it on the round leather ottoman. He stopped halfway back, elbows resting on his knees. “It’s about your father.”
“What’d you find?” Nic set his bowl next to Cam’s for Bird to lick clean. Cam had said he was going to keep digging, but had he found out more than Mel? And had he tipped off Vaughn doing so? “Were you quiet?”
Cam nodded. “We didn’t approach. Just dug into financials and legal records.”
“This is what you were softening me up for?”
“No, I was softening you up for what we found. You’re not gonna be happy when I tell you what your father’s done.”
Meaning they’d gotten at least as far as Mel had. “The mortgage on the house,” he said, grimacing.
“You knew?”
“Mel gave me a lift back from San Diego. Brought me up to speed.”
“Do you know who holds that loan?” Cam’s tone clearly indicated he did.
But first... “We didn’t approach?”
“Lauren.”
Nic had guessed as much; he’d already drawn her in himself last spring. Ultimately, though, she answered to Cam, and her ace hacking skills, together with Cam’s investigative prowess, had led them to the same discovery Mel had made. “Duncan Vaughn.”
“He’s a gangster, Nic.” Cam raked a hand through his hair, dark brown made black by the lingering dampness. “He must be the one behind the attacks last April. He’s come at you three times already.”
Two snipers and a hit-and-run. Plus one Cam didn’t know about.
“Four times. Five, maybe, if that fire in the unit above mine tonight was arson. Which is why I’ve tried to keep you out of this.”
Cam’s eyes grew wide, swirling with worry and smarting from betrayal. “Four or five? And how long have you known it’s Vaughn?”
Nic put a hand on Cam’s knee to keep him from bolting upright. He left it there as he filled Cam in on his first run-in with Vaughn’s goons. The two bruisers had tried and failed to jump him in Gravity’s parking lot a week before a sniper had pinned him and Cam down there.
“You’ve known it’s been Vaughn this entire time?”
Standing, Nic grabbed his wallet off the table, took out the card the goons had given him, and handed it to Cam. “They were clear about who they worked for.”
Cam turned the card over in his hand, running a thumb over the embossed lettering. VAUGHN INVESTMENTS. He glanced back up, the betrayal in his eyes eclipsed by the worry. “Fuck, Nic. This is serious. We need to report this.”
“I can take care of myself, Boston.”
Cam shot up off the couch, standing nose-to-nose with him. “Don’t be fooled by that lie I told earlier. I’m the LEO here.”
“I’m not going to report this.”
“Why the fuck not?”
Bird scampered off the ottoman with a startled meow, surprised by his owner’s outburst. It was enough to break their stare down and poke a hole in the rising tension. Taking Cam’s hand, Nic sat on the edge of the ottoman and tugged Cam back down to the couch. He wasn’t the enemy—Cam could be an ally—if Nic explained why he’d taken the steps he had. Why he’d kept things quiet, beyond merely wanting to protect him.
“I’m not going to report this because I still think they were just threats, not actual attempts on my life.”
“Bull—”
“And because the FBI is already investigating. I don’t want to fuck up that case, and I don’t want to be walled off any more than I already am.”
Cam pressed his lips together, stewing. “We’re walled off too,” he said after a moment. “I can’t access the files on Vaughn or Curtis.”
“All of us are, including Aidan. Conflicts of interest.” Which was putting it mildly. Aidan Talley, Cam’s partner, was the San Francisco Special Agent in Charge. He was also Cam’s best friend’s husband, Mel’s brother-in-law, and the man Nic had once dated. The Irish ex-pat was the center of the wheel that held them all together. “Assistant Director Moore has the files. He keeps them on flash drives in a safe in his private residence. He’s the only one who can grant access.”
It took Cam less than a second to draw the same conclusion Nic had earlier. “Shit, the same flash drives I stole that one time?” Cam, undercover with a wanted heist crew, had had to steal flash drives out of the AD’s personal safe to prove himself. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, Becca said they were for another client. Vaughn?”
Nic nodded. “I’d put my money on it.”
“But we gave them back.”
Nic shook his head this time. “I’m pretty sure I saw Lauren copying them after the bust, before we gave them back.”
“That’s what she’s been working on all these months. She can’t crack ’em. It’s driving her nuts.” Slumping into the cushions, Cam ran a hand down his face and over his stubbled jaw. Nic wished for this conversation to be over so he could run his fingers over it. “I can talk to AD Moore.”
And then he was right back in it. “No!” The word came out harsher than he intended, and Bird skittered on his nails the rest of the way out of the room. “Shit, I’m sorry, that came out wrong.” He spread his legs on either side of Cam’s knees and laid his hands on his thighs. Containment, with a side of contrition. “I haven’t slept in almost twenty-four hours. Hell, I haven’t really slept well in over a month.”
Cam’s hands landed on top of his. “In five weeks?”
Nic smirked as irony reared its head. The very house he’d run from was now his refuge. He was here now; he wasn’t going anywhere. No use denying how much he’d missed it. “Yeah, Boston, since I left your bed. That what you want to hear?”
“That’s exactly what I want to hear,” Cam said, voice practically a purr, but when Nic tried to slide his hands higher, Cam stopped them. “First, though, I want to hear why you think we can’t talk to Elton Moore about this.”
He should have known Cam wouldn’t let it go. Groaning, he tipped from the ottoman onto the opposite end of the couch. “I already told you.”
Cam shifted to face him, bending a leg and planting a foot in the cushion, arm resting on his knee. “The real reason, Dominic.”
“The first sniper, who had my picture, struck mid-operation. The car that hit me, mid-op. And the second sniper was waiting when we pulled into Gravity that night, after we left the Federal Building.”
“Vaughn has someone on the inside,” Cam said, tying it all together. “Someone who knows when and where we’ll be.”
“On our operations, no less.”
“Perfect cover. We thought they were connected to the case, at first.”
Nic nodded. “Which is why the only people I trust at the Bureau right now are you, Aidan, and Lauren.”
“It could also be someone in your office.”
Cam’s someone sounded a lot like Bowers to Nic’s ears, and given how far up their asses his boss had been on that case—how he’d been clued in to every
one of those events where Vaughn had simultaneously struck—Bowers was at the top of Nic’s suspect list too. “Oh, I know. It could be more than one person, in both offices. Vaughn’s spent a lifetime accruing favors and leverage.”
“We’ll get Lauren to run financials.”
“I was going to do that, but then the threats quieted and I didn’t want to tip Vaughn or his sources off.”
“The threats died off because your dad mortgaged the house.”
And they were back to that unfortunate turn of events. “Count on Curtis to make the wrong decision.”
His father’s history of wrong decisions was a major reason why Nic strived so hard to make the right ones, even if they were the opposite of what he wanted. Case in point, avoiding anything too serious, like cohabitation, with the man on the other end of the couch. If Nic had his way, he’d happily spend day and night in this house with Cam, preferably in his bed.
But he never wanted to go the way of his father, or repeat the mistakes of his own past. He’d thought he’d been making the right decision decades ago—the one his heart had demanded—but the ensuing mess had jeopardized more than one person’s future. Until he’d made the right call and broken his heart in the process. Since then, he’d kept dalliances casual, never wanting to hurt someone else by making the wrong decision.
Then Special Agent Cameron Byrne had walked into his life, and his heart had begun making demands again. If Nic made the wrong call, if he trusted the wrong person, or if he trusted his single-minded heart, both their lives could be in danger.
“I don’t think it’s the wrong decision to trust AD Moore,” Cam said, as if he could hear his thoughts. “El’s been nothing but upstanding since I transferred out here. Even after I stole from him.” He waggled his eyebrows, and Nic appreciated his attempt to lighten the nosediving mood.