by Mary Calmes
“Can’t.”
“What?” he asked, having gone back to eating while I was thinking about him.
“You said that I should leave the killing to you, but I can’t.”
Quick flashing grin. “And why’s that?”
“Because you work for me now.”
The choke was fast, some coughing before he righted himself. “You need to see a doctor. Your dementia is progressing.”
I shook my head. “No, I get to choose my second, as the vault, and I choose you to fly all over the world and collect things for me so I can sit on my ass at home and read.”
His eyes narrowed.
“Just think, you go everywhere on me, you get to network, you get to kill people on occasion, and you know secrets that no one else will.”
He took a sip of whatever white wine he was drinking with his shrimp. It smelled good, fruity.
“And best of all, I could die, and you’d get to tell everyone. Doesn’t that sound great?”
“You dying sounds marvelous, but why in the world would you pick me?”
Because he was smart, instinctive, hyperaware of his surroundings, detail-oriented, could charm the hell out of anyone—given his superlative interpersonal skills with everyone but me—and was both quick to discern the motives of those around him and deadly, making him the perfect combination for the position I needed him in. Ceaton, my knight, was the opposite. He could be engaging if he tried, but mostly he was loyal and protective and laser-focused on my safety, which was why there was no one better for that job.
“Hello,” he flared angrily, snapping his fingers in my face. “Wake up, old man.”
“I will break your hand if you don’t move it.”
“Oh, how frightening.”
I was having second thoughts. I could just wring his neck right there and find a bishop I didn’t want to throttle.
“So?” he demanded before muttering something under his breath in Korean. “Why me?”
“Because no one’s ever going to think you’re the bishop of the vault, with that pretty face of yours.”
The scowl was instant.
“What?”
“Suddenly I have no skills, I’m just pretty?”
“Is that what I said?”
“I—”
“Besides,” I said with a shrug. “Your mother thought it was a great idea. She worries, you know, with you killing people and all.”
His mouth dropped open.
I had to hand it to him. Most guys would not have had the balls to tell their parents that their only child was a contract killer. But Lee Tae San had told them because he didn’t lie to them. Never had, was not about to start now. If he couldn’t do something without them knowing, then it wasn’t worth doing. It was impressive, and I’d used it to my advantage.
“You talked to my mother?”
I nodded.
“You went to Seoul,” he pried, eyes narrowing, and I knew why. He was trying to catch me in a lie. We both knew where his parents were.
“Actually,” I said, calling his bluff, knowing he was trying to trick me. “Your folks were vacationing in Rome when I caught up with them.”
“I will kill you for this.”
I scoffed. “You will not.”
His gaze locked on mine.
“I’m saving your life, man.”
“And how do you figure that?”
“It’s no life for a man who’s supposed to get married and have kids someday.”
“You—”
“That’s what your mother said.”
He sat there staring at me.
“Just think about your own private plane. You can have orgies in the sky.”
He was not amused.
“You get paid a lot, just think of all the clothes you can buy. Women love a sharp-dressed man.”
Still nothing.
“Are you going to eat that?” I asked, reaching for his lunch.
He blocked me but called over the waiter and asked him to bring me the same thing he was having.
“We’re eating now?”
“Do I have security clearances?”
“Yes.”
“Do I get military-grade tech?”
“Yes.”
“May I have a gun made?”
“Yes.”
He nodded. “And if you die, am I out?”
“If you want.”
He was thinking.
“I could get shot tomorrow and make your whole year,” I pointed out.
His face brightened; clearly this was good news.
“So?”
He pushed his wineglass over to me. “Try this Gewürztraminer, it’s really good. I like the Trimbach more than others I’ve had.”
He was like an evil imp, and I wasn’t buying it. “We’re not friends.”
“No,” he agreed. “But is that what you need?”
It wasn’t, no.
“Try the wine.”
It was good. I ordered my own glass with my shrimp.
NOW, AS I sat beside him in the back of the Chevy Suburban, I realized that in six short months, I’d come to depend upon him as a confidant, a fixer, and most of all, as an ally. He was still scary, but his loyalties were clear. He was, most definitely, my man. Friends we were not, but it was inching decidedly in that direction despite what either of us wanted.
“So?” Lee began, smirking at me. “Am I to shoot that man if I see him again or no?”
“No.”
“No?”
“Just—leave it alone.”
His gaze was on me, heavy, trying to peek inside. “Why?”
“It’s nothing to concern yourself with.”
“An agent from Homeland Security took you in, and then the DOD springs you on the word of the CIA, and I show up to collect you, and you think, what, he’s just going to drop it?”
It sounded ridiculous when he said it like that.
“Do you need to lie down?”
“No, I don’t need to—”
“You are old.”
I wanted to punch him in his smug little face.
“I mean, what are you now, like fifty?”
“He’s not fifty,” Trevan said quickly before turning to me. “You aren’t, are you?”
I pulled my sunglasses from the breast pocket of my suit jacket and put them on quickly.
“I think my dad had some like that,” Lee offered, smiling at me. “Those are Ray Bans right, the Clubmaster? The partial metal rim is really old school.”
He was lucky I wasn’t strapped.
“I’ll be in Boston next week.”
I needed him to stop talking. I needed to drop Trevan off with Landry, and I needed to drive out to my new house on Nahant and just have some quiet time to reflect upon seeing Efrem Lahm. I needed to process that whole encounter.
It had gone nothing like I’d thought it would. Never in my wildest dreams had I imagined that Efrem would choose his job over me if actually given the choice.
“Are you listening to me?”
I turned my head to him.
“I was saying that I have to fly to Cairo tonight and then go to Amsterdam on Thursday.”
It was only Monday; he was going to have a busy week. I forced a smile. “Well, that will be good. Amsterdam, I mean, you like blondes.”
“I do, so the Netherlands is a good place to start.”
“Have you been there a lot?” Trevan asked him.
“A few times,” Lee answered. “You and Landry should come with me some time.”
They started talking then, and I was glad to not be included, old man that I was.
Chapter Five
I WAS surprised to see Ceaton there to greet me when Trevan and I landed at Logan Airport. His text came through as we were getting off the plane, and as we waited for our luggage, I saw him and Pravi walk toward us.
When I’d first asked Ceaton to be my backup, to lead the team that protected me, I’d thought that I’d only ever see him. I’
d thought that the guys who worked for him wouldn’t be familiar faces in my life. What I hadn’t counted on, though, was how close Ceaton already was with the men he worked with. They were more than coworkers. They were family, and so what had started out so very structured—I had a military background, so that only made sense—deteriorated in a very short time. Normally that would have bothered me. I had a finite number of people in the world who knew me, who I cared about, but lately that number was growing, and I wasn’t sure how comfortable I was with that yet.
What I did know was that I liked being met in the baggage claim, and seeing Ceaton soothed me for the simple reason that I considered him a friend. It was a strange feeling.
I returned Ceaton’s wave as Trevan slipped from behind me to my side.
“Who are they?”
“The bigger guy is Ceaton,” I told him. “You’ve heard me talk about him before.”
“Yeah, but who’s the other guy?”
Pravi Radic was the guy prowling beside my number two, moving with a sort of boneless quality that made people watch him walk by. He oozed sex appeal, that raw, dirty kind that said he’d be good in bed. But also, lingering around his eyes, was just enough of a trace of vulnerability to make keeping him a keen, sharp desire. Pravi was a wicked temptation from his deep-set eyes to his full lush lips, and he had a way of grinning that made both women and men ready to drop to their knees. I’d never had that effect on anyone. I’d always been the scariest guy in the room.
“Darius?”
I cleared my throat, realizing that because I’d seen Efrem, I was suddenly thinking about sex. Players like Pravi didn’t do it for me, but the fact that I was noticing how well his suit fit was a clear indication I wasn’t really seeing him. The itch I had could only be scratched by one man, and seeing him had reminded me of lust and longing.
“Darius?” Trevan asked again.
“Sorry,” I huffed. “That’s Pravi, he’s Ceaton’s guy.”
“His boyfriend?”
“No, they’re friends, and they work together.”
“Got it.”
“I never see you notice other men.”
Trevan gestured at Pravi. “You’d have to be blind not to see him, but you know me, Landry’s the only one I give a shit about.”
It was so very true. Trevan would take a bullet for his husband at a moment’s notice, if needed. I’d never seen two people so in love, though, it was a kind of love I didn’t understand. At times, over the years, I had worried about Trevan and had dropped in unannounced to see him. I’d told him that watching him sleep soothed me, that sometimes just breathing the same air did, but that was a lie. I’d been there to check on him, to make sure that Landry’s possessiveness had not turned deadly. I made more excuses to come and go, letting Trevan think I myself could hurt him and so was leaving instead of turning my homicidal urges on him. It was crap. I had no impulse control issues; I was a contract killer, for the love of God, and really, if he’d thought about it logically, he would have known all of that was an excuse to come and go without having my motives questioned. I’d told him he was special, and that was true, but not for any other reason than he was my friend.
I watched Landry sometimes when I knew he wasn’t looking, and I’d watch him stare at Trevan. It wasn’t hungry or predatory, it wasn’t fanatical or scary. He looked at Trevan with absolute focus as though he were the only thing in the world. It wasn’t that Landry didn’t love Trevan—he did, completely, with his whole heart, with everything in him—but there was that little bit extra I didn’t like and was the reason that still, I checked on Trevan.
He said that sometimes one thought got stuck in Landry’s mind, and no matter what he did, he couldn’t stop the fixation, couldn’t pull himself loose until something, or someone, jostled him. Trevan was very good at picking him up, dusting him off, and putting him back on track. There was patience in him, even with how young he was, that I had never possessed. Being the best man at their wedding a year ago had felt a bit hypocritical because, while I knew Trevan loved Landry and Landry loved Trevan, I still felt a twinge of concern as the marriage had been a source of contention for more than a year. Trevan worried that his life was so uncertain, it was unfair to ask to bind Landry to him. Landry, in his regular style, gave Trevan an ultimatum.
I was there, at their apartment, dropping Trevan off after work when we both noticed the open window leading out to the fire escape. Leaning out, I saw Landry, beautiful blond-maned Landry with his wild dark blue eyes, sitting on the edge of the roof of the building next door. And it wasn’t so much where he was sitting, but how. He was perched there; legs draped over the side, like he could scoot forward and plummet to his death. I was going to yell when my phone rang.
I put it on speaker and answered roughly, my voice stumbling on the words. “Hey Lan, what are you doing?”
“Is Trevan there?”
“Of course I am,” Trevan answered softly.
“Are you home yet?”
“Yeah.”
“Can you see me?”
“Yes.”
“Trevan,” he said, sounding like he was drugged.
“Hey baby,” he soothed, always when he spoke to Landry, the love and tenderness right there on the tip of his tongue.
“You’re being so selfish,” he explained, staring at Trevan across the chasm separating them. “I want to get married, you want to get married, but you’re worried that maybe you’re going to die and leave me all alone.”
“I am worried about that,” Trevan agreed.
“You need to stop already,” he informed him, “because you know that if anything ever happened to you, I’d be right behind you.”
Trevan swallowed hard. “But I’d want you to live, baby.”
“Oh no, no, no, no,” Landry sighed. “There’s no me without you. Not ever. So you have to stop concerning yourself with that, all right?”
“Okay,” Trevan allowed.
“The only reason for not wanting to marry me would be that you just don’t want to because you don’t love me,” he said wearily, and even from the distance I could see that he’d been crying.
“That’s bullshit, and you know it,” Trevan insisted, climbing out the window and onto the fire escape, leaning over, the railing pressing into his abdomen as he spread his arms. “Now get the fuck down and come over here before I slip and fall,” he yelled over at Landry.
From looking like he was halfway dead, as though a stiff wind could blow him off the ledge, I watched Landry scramble back and down onto the roof, shrieking at the top of his lungs for Trevan to be careful.
“It’s rusty!” he yelled, and I could hear him bumping down stairs because the phone call was still live. “Trevan, ohmygod!”
Always, always, Trevan knew what to do where Landry was concerned. I could not have done it, wrapped my life around someone that delicate, that unhinged, his grasp on reality at times so tenuous that it was breakable by a glance.
The call went dead, and Trevan rose, turned, and leaned back against the railing, the weight of his carved muscular frame causing the dated metal to groan.
Landry came in fast, hurling open the front door, tossing his phone on the couch as he ran by and charged over to Trevan, leaping at the last minute without thinking that his added weight might break the railing and send them both to their deaths with the sudden jolt.
Trevan, though, always thinking, had levered off the rail at the last moment and caught Landry as he flung himself into his arms. They stood there together, Trevan holding him as Landry coiled around him tight.
“Don’t do that again,” Trevan warned.
His face buried against Trevan’s shoulder, Landry only nodded.
“We’ll get married on Friday, all right? We’ll go get rings tonight.”
Landry lifted his face, streaked with tears, and Trevan leaned in and kissed him. I started for the door then.
“You have to stand up and be my best man on Friday, okay?” T
revan called out.
I nearly tripped because, Jesus, this kid and his surprises. “You sure you want me?” I asked, not turning around as I neared the doorway.
“I want you,” Trevan assured me.
“Me too,” Landry added before I heard only the sound of kissing behind me.
I closed the door on my way out, making sure it was locked.
“Maybe you and Pravi, huh?”
I jolted out of my memories back to the present. Turning, I regarded Trevan. “What?”
“What?” he asked me.
“What are you talking about?”
He leaned closer. “I know you’re gay, you told me.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I groaned, not even going to try to explain to him that Pravi was straight and that even if he wasn’t, I was not interested beyond looking. Sadly, my body didn’t go where my heart didn’t lead, so one-night stands or short-term anything were not for me. The whole international playboy thing other murder-for-hire guys I knew had going on—Lee, for example—had never been me. I hadn’t slept my way across Europe or anywhere else. Before Efrem Lahm, a handful of guys, nothing serious, nothing lasting, and after him, no one. It was just how I was made. I was not about to get on board with having one-night stands now.
“I think you need to start dating.”
I needed to rest, take a real vacation, get away from everyone and everything. I couldn’t remember ever doing nothing in my entire adult life.
“Boss,” Ceaton said as he stepped in front of me.
I sighed, then groaned without meaning to.
“What’s the matter?” Ceaton asked quickly.
“Nothing, sorry.”
“Who’s this?” Pravi asked, glancing at Trevan.
“He’s the one I told you about,” I informed them. “I sent you to find a place for his Cuban restaurant, and you found one over in Faneuil Hall.”