33 Degrees of Separation (Legacy)

by Rain Carrington

  Javi was on the phone that last morning with him while Ian was in the shower. “It’s going down today, Papi. Does the kid suspect?”

  “No. I mean, he knows I’m keeping something from him, but I’m sure he thinks it’s Grail members deaths or something. That, he could live with.”

  “Yeah, no shit. Papi, man, tell him. Tell him before you lose him forever.”

  “I can’t, Javi. He’d try to stop him. He’d get himself killed, or stop him, and then the virus and the Grail members would still be around. This is the only way.”

  Javi wouldn’t stop. “It’s happening today, Papi. He won’t get back in time. Tell him now. Go to him, talk to him. Man, you gotta try. You guys belong together, and you know this is going to break you apart. Maybe it won’t if you come clean before it happens.”

  It made sense, and if there was a slight chance he wouldn’t lose Ian, he had to try. “I’ll tell him, Javi. But…I’m not counting on it making a difference.”

  “Either way, I am going to win this war for you guys. I won’t let these fuckers win. The army guys, man, they were tough. They have no real loyalty to anyone except themselves and money, though, fortunately. They are all in. Not one even blinked when we told them.”

  Pat sighed and heard the bathroom door open. “I gotta go, Javi.”

  “Good luck, man.”

  Luck? He’d need a lot more than luck. Ian came up behind him and grabbed him around the waist. In his ear, Ian whispered, “What should we do today besides make love a few times and lounge?”

  That sounded like heaven, but it wouldn’t be their day, Pat knew. “Ian, baby, we have to talk.”

  He came around to face him. “Finally? Are you going to tell me what the hell has been going on in your head? You’ve been distracted since we got here.”

  “I know. For good reason.”

  He led Ian out to the porch, possibly hoping the cool breeze that smelled of salt and the view of the turquoise ocean would help to keep him from screaming at Pat once he found out the truth.

  As they sat on one Adirondack chaise, Pat pulled him close. “You know I love you more than my own life, Ian.”

  His voice clipped, he spat, “Yeah, so tell me.”

  “Something is going to happen today. The fail-safe is being activated.”

  Ian spun to stare at him, eyes narrowing. “Why am I just hearing about this?”

  “Because we didn’t want you to try to stop it.”

  As he started to shake his head, Ian stammered, “I…I…I don’t know what the hell…what are you talking about? I agreed to it already.” Then, he stopped moving except for his eyes, which got huge. “That’s why my father sent me here, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” he said plainly. No need to lie again.

  “Tell me why, then.”

  “The fail-safe was constructed in a way so that whoever activates it, well, they can’t escape.”

  He let that sink in, and Ian was up, pacing as he went over it in his head. “Can’t escape?”

  “Ian, they wanted to be sure that whoever activated it couldn’t do, well, what we wanted to do. Get rid of the other Grails and be one of the only families left. They knew how money and power hungry the members were, and how easy it would be to kill off a bunch, taking their shares of the money the Grail possessed. If someone were to activate the fail-safe, they’d have to know that they would die along with the rest.”

  Ian stopped right in front of him. Pat could see and feel his pain, the pain of losing his father only second to the betrayal at the hands of his partner. “My father is going to be the one to activate it? You fucking kept this from me? You knew?”

  “Yes, Ian. Your father told me, and he told me that I needed to keep you away from there. If you saved him, you’d save them all, or you’d die with them all.”

  Ian left the porch suddenly, without a word, and Pat wasn’t sure if he should follow or not. When the butler came to Pat, however, to ask if he’d be following Ian in leaving, Pat did move then, trying to catch Ian, who was flying down the road in the only car.

  “Dammit.”

  He was on the phone, stopping the plane they’d flown in on, calling Javi to warn that that may not stop him. Pat told the butler to gather their things and send them, then he left to get on the private plane.

  Flying home without Ian gave him the first glimpse of how his life would be from then on. Not having those shining eyes gazing over at him, showing him the same love Pat himself felt. No feeling Ian’s hand in his, no holding him as he drifted to sleep at night. He’d lost him, in one breath, he’d lost him, and Pat’s heart started to break then and he knew it wouldn’t stop breaking for the rest of his life.

  When he landed, Javi picked him up, driving like a bat out of hell to the mountains. “I haven’t heard from him. His phone goes straight to voicemail.”

  “I know. I left some pretty pathetic messages for him to ignore. He hates me, Javi.”

  “You can’t blame him, Pat, but he also needs to see your side of things. His father asked for your silence on this. Ah, man, he’s never gonna understand.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You want me to lie?”

  That’s something he didn’t want. “There’s been too many lies already. So, no, I don’t want you to lie. Javi, this is it for me, isn’t it? And then, I’m feeling sorry for myself while Ian’s about to lose his father. I’m the biggest asshole on the planet.”

  “Yeah, but you have the right to be right now, Papi. You love him, and he does love you, even as mad as he is about it.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I guess. Just get there. If he hates me forever, I don’t care as long as he doesn’t try to get in that bunker.”

  They pulled to the gate, and unable to open it, they had to run from there. Pat had never been a sprinter, but he ran like his life depended on it. Once they got twenty feet the entrance to the bunker, however, they saw a struggle going on, and Pat and Javi both stopped as they saw who it was fighting.

  Ian’s father was being thrown to the ground by Marianne’s bodyguard, Mitchel Pendergrass. Javi started first, as Pat was still trying to figure out what was happening, and before either could get there, Mitchel was rushing into the open entrance as Ian’s father was screaming for him to stop.

  The door started sliding shut, but before it closed completely, Ian’s mother was thrown out, landing near Ian’s father.

  She started to scream, but the door was shut. She scrambled to her feet, getting to the entrance, pounding her fists against the rock, but Ian’s father pulled her off, and Pat ran to help him. “Please! Get him out of there!”

  Ian Junior screamed, “Marianne, he’s gone! The fail-safe! We have to move! The mountain will crush us!”

  Pat was screaming at her too, “What the hell are you even doing here?”

  Marianne looked at him and begged, “Open it! Find a way!”

  Two things simultaneously happened then. From deep in mountain, they heard a boom and then rumbling under their feet signaled the fail-safe had been activated. Marianne screamed louder, trying to get away from the grip of her husband, but he wouldn’t let go.

  At the same time, they heard another noise, closer, and Pat looked up to see a helicopter descending on them, though it moved south to get away from the mountain as it started to crumble.

  Landing, Pat saw Ian inside, and his partner looked as confused as he felt at seeing both of his parents there, but wasted no time in getting the two of them, Javi and him onto the chopper, and telling the pilot to take off again.

  They tried to scream over the noise from the helicopter, but it was no use. When the pilot could, he found a field to land in and told Ian he would send the car for all of them as soon as he took off again.

  After they all climbed out of the helicopter, Ian demanded from his parents, “What the hell is going on?”

  Ian Junior explained, “Your mother, she…she tried to save me. She was going to pull the fail-safe herself, but…but Mitchel th
rew us both out and did it himself.”

  “Mitchel?”

  “Yes, son. I’ve known for years, like she knew about James. They’ve been together for a long time, in love.”

  Ian pulled his mother to him, holding her. “Why the hell were you going to do that?”

  “I saw…I saw at your graduation how close you’d gotten to your father. I knew what was going on, Ian, it’s not like any of you were very quiet about it in the house. I couldn’t let you lose him, not after all these years of wanting to have a relationship with him.”

  “What about you? I wanted one with you too!”

  “I thought…I thought it was too late for us.”

  Pat’s heart hurt in his chest for the small family, who hadn’t gotten out of their own way long enough to see that they needed one another.

  Javi told the three, “Here comes the car. You three take it and talk.”

  Pat agreed, “I’ll call and get us another.”

  Ian glared at him like he had turned to ice. “Take it home, Pat. To your home. I don’t want to see you again. Ever again.”

  Ian’s father tried to reason with him, “Son, he lied because I asked him to.”

  The ring Pat had given him was on his finger, and Ian stared down on it, tears falling on his hand as he did. It slid from his finger, making Pat want to vomit with the pain he suddenly felt. That was nothing, however, to how he felt when Ian threw it to the dirt. “And that’s fine, Father, but he lied. That’s all I need to know. He was going to let you die and not tell me or allow me to say goodbye or try to talk you out of it.”

  Pat’s voice was breaking, like the rest of him. “Baby, please, I had to. I couldn’t let you run in and get killed.”

  “So you’d let my father? You’re a fucking coward, Pat Castaldo.”

  They got into the car, and Ian didn’t so much as look back. Once they were gone, Pat fell to his knees, his entire body erupting in shaking, and he felt as if he had been in that mountain, that the world had caved in on him and he had nothing left. Nothing.

  “Papi, he’ll come around.”

  “No, he won’t. I saw it in his eyes, Javi. It’s over.”

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  As he peered down at the mountain below, crumbling in on itself, Cameron smiled, knowing the men who’d killed his father were all dead.

  “Is it really over?”

  The voice behind him was Fred, his long-time lover, and Grail member. Fred’s insistence that they watch and follow when they could enter the bunker had produced the best results. “It’s only beginning, Fred.”

  As his partner smiled, Cameron reached down to pick up the thick case. “We’ve got a lot of work to do to set things really right.”

  The case containing the virus and vaccines was heavy, but the weight of them was nothing compared to the impact they would have on the world. Fred leaned over and kissed him, promising, “I called my security. The army is looking for me.”

  “Of course, they are. Ian and his father were thorough. We’ll fake your death, like my father did for me. Then, we’ll take a few years to enjoy ourselves and let things calm down.”

  Fred went to the car to open the door for him. “Good. I need some time. I’m in mourning for my horrible father, and your good one. When this is over, Cameron, it’ll be our world. Our time.”

  Cameron felt his insides light up at the thought. He and Fred, running things the way they were meant to be run. “Never again will anyone have too much power, Fred. We’ll make sure of that.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Two years, five months later

  Ian was putting the final touches on the door he was going to hang for his mother. It was a solid wood antique he’d found when he’d driven by a home that was being torn down.

  For a moment, a fleeting moment, he felt the sorrow for the home, a nineteen fifties Craftsman. He’d driven by hundreds of times on his way to the yard, but didn’t have it in him to restore homes any longer. That was an old dream, for a former Ian that didn’t match the man he was anymore.

  “Ian!”

  His mother was in their new home, calling from the door of the laundry room. The house, built in two months in a subdivision of NE Denver, wasn’t anything he’d dreamed of when he thought about the home he’d eventually live in, but it was home.

  “What?”

  “You have company! Get in here!”

  It was most likely his father again. Ian Junior visited once a month or more from his place in Boulder, where he lived with his new fiancé, Ted. “Coming!”

  He’d built a small workshop in the far corner of the long yard, where he could work on the smaller projects he took on to make their home a little different from the rest of the neighborhood. Four bedrooms and five bathrooms contained in thin walls and faux brick could only be so different, but he tried.

  When he got to the laundry, he took off his boots and gloves, washing his hands in the kitchen sink as soon as he entered the kitchen. He could hear his mother perfectly from the living room, but he didn’t hear to whom she was speaking until he rounded the corner and saw the man.

  “Javi!”

  Javi got up and met him halfway to give him a tight hug. “How are you, mijo? You’re big now? You been working out?” When the hug was over, Javi was squeezing Ian’s heavier biceps and wriggling his brows as he let his eyes scan over him.

  “I’m fine, and yeah, if you consider working hard for the first time in my life working out. I’m doing construction now. It’s somewhat in the field I wanted, but…But who cares? How are you?”

  “Tired, man,” he said, laughing.

  Javi had spent a year getting Pat ready to take over the soldiers, and from what Ian heard, they’d traveled all over the world, accessing the families of the Grail members who’d been killed. Those who didn’t have thoughts of bringing the Grail back to life were given money to live, and got to keep their homes. Those that fought it, however, were given a choice. Give up the Grail and all it’s ideals or die. All chose to live.

  Since, he’d been on a sort self-discovery mission. He was using the money he’d made to travel and try to find what was next for him. Ian was anxious to find out if he’d done it.

  Marianne excused herself upstairs to give the two friends time to reconnect. Javi sat on the big sofa while Ian sat near him. “So? What’s got you so tired?”

  “I have found the place I belong, mijo. I think, maybe, you might belong there too. That’s why I came back here, to this fucking place with all the mountains.”

  Intrigued, Ian asked, “Oh? Where is this?”

  “Come with me on an adventure, Ian. No timetables, no worries. I came into some cash,” he teased, elbowing him.

  Ian would love it, but he wasn’t simply working hard for the first time in his life, he also had serious responsibilities for the first time. “I can’t leave my mother. She’s…she’s still getting acclimated to not having unlimited amounts of money. Not to mention, I have a job.”

  “Construction? Give it to another guy, and your mom, she’s a strong lady, man. I think she’ll be okay.”

  “I will, Ian,” Marianne called from the stairs, then started down. “Go. You’ve never really lived. You went from school to taking care of me. Go, son.”

  As much as Ian wanted to ask about Pat, he didn’t. He missed the man to that day, wondering how he could have ever let him go, but he’d asked Javi about him a few times, and every time, Javi had skirted the subject or told him flat out that Pat was busy with his new job.

  “Shit. Why not? How long?”

  “I’d pack for a few months.”

  “M-months?”

  “I told you. It could be where you belong.”

  Marianne helped him pack and once he had three suitcases full, she finally listened to his pleas and stopped, setting the fourth one back in her closet. “Are you sure? What about your suits? I know, they’re out of style, but son-”

  He stopped her by hugging her to hi
m, feeling her start to cry on his shoulder. “Mom, stop. I’ll be back.”

  “I know you will. I’m going to miss you. We’ve finally gotten close.”

  “And I’ll take that with me. I have parents now, real ones, and that’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

  “Not all,” she told him, Pointing her finger in his face. “You need a love in your life.”

  “Had that, remember? Until someone else comes along like him, I’m fine on my own. And there’s no one like him.”

  After another hug, his mother asked, “You could try to find him again.”

  “Javi won’t tell me, so that would be the only way. It’s fine, Mom, I’m over it. Sort of.”

  After rolling her eyes, she helped him downstairs with his bags and Javi came soon after, kissing his mom’s cheek before Ian went to her for a long, sad goodbye.

  “You and your moms got close, huh?”

  “It’s so weird. My life is totally different. We don’t have much money. What we kept went for the house, so she has a home. I make decent money, but nothing like I used to have. Still, though, my life’s never been better.”

  “I’m happy for you, man. It’s hell without your family. You needed this time, get with them, figure out the money didn’t define you.”

  “It did, though. For most of my life it did. Denny helped, and you and…but before that, money defined everything for me.”

  “It’s not now, though, and you are tight with your moms and pops. You look hot, by the way.”

  Ian ran a hand over his chest and stomach, proud of his new physique. “I’m pretty hot, yeah,” he laughed.

  “Too bad you put the brakes on me, and that you’re a fucking bottom too.”

  “Yeah, Javi, too bad, I agree.”

  Javi drove them to a small airport outside of the city and Ian saw a private jet waiting. “Javi, what is this?”

  “Mijo, just because you don’t like money anymore, don’t mean I hate the perks of it. I like my money.”

  He laughed, actually excited that he’d be traveling in style again. It had been a long time since he’d flown in a private plane. “Shit, I may just day drink like rich people do.”