She nods.
“Kick my foot if you want the napkin.” I’ll need to create a diversion.
She nods again. But she’s not whacking my shin. For Jane, it’s a last resort. I lower my hand from her mouth. Quickly, she swallows down the organ with a swig of wine and then picks up the last heart.
I draw attention off her and ask Beckett, “How do you like your new bodyguard?”
“O’Malley?” Beckett shrugs, eyes dropping. “He’s fine.” He sucks on his cigarette.
I would’ve never assigned him to Beckett’s detail. It has nothing to do with his skills as a bodyguard. We all know O’Malley thinks Donnelly is white trash, and this transfer is just another slap to SFO.
My fault.
I massage my strained deltoid.
Charlie is watching me.
I nod to him. Confused about whether he hates me or likes me—two extremes. That’s what I feel from Charlie, and it’s strange terrain.
He just smiles, then looks to Beckett. His twin brother passes the burning cigarette to Charlie. He takes a drag and blows smoke to the side before handing it back.
Jane gulps more wine. “Done!” She pounds the bottle on the table while her brothers applaud. My lip lifts and a bright smile overtakes her features. “We make a good team, don’t we?”
“Hell yeah.” I eye her pink lips.
Flush sneaks up her neck, and she almost touches her skirt, forgetting her hands are bloodied. I catch her wrist.
Her breastbone caves. “Oh.”
My cock almost hardens. Fuck.
“That’s all for tonight,” Charlie tells us and tosses Jane more napkins. He stands up, cane in hand.
I let go of her wrist, and she wipes at her fingers. Beckett gathers the spread cards into a single stack. “You should take the cards, Charlie.”
“No, you keep them.” Charlie slowly sinks back down and places his cane on the table.
The air strains.
Beckett makes a confused face. “Besides Jane, you’re the only other Cobalt going on the trip. I can’t make her and Thatcher play the game if I’m in New York.”
Charlie glances to Jane, and she gives him a tense nod. I understand the clandestine exchange.
I’m in on this plan that we’ve all been constructing. So are Banks, Maximoff, and Farrow. I didn’t think it’d be implemented tonight, but I’m prepared for the fallout.
Shit is about to get tense.
Beckett doesn’t realize it yet, but he’s going to Scotland.
10
JANE COBALT
“You’re taking a week off ballet and coming on the trip,” I tell Beckett, my rabbit-filled stomach in a blender and my pulse racing at a million miles per hour. Yet, I can’t let up on him.
I won’t.
Charlie has an arm across the back of the booth behind Beckett, and Thatcher angles more towards me. My wingman.
My right-hand.
My partner in crime.
My protector.
My boyfriend.
It feels terribly good to have him next to me, especially in case this all backfires.
Beckett tilts his head, his befuddled expression cinching his brows. “I can’t just take off an entire week. You know that, right?”
The booth is quiet. Really, the entire sports bar is deathly still and silent—no one from the bar makes a peep. Even the ones who don’t truly know what this is about seem to imprison oxygen.
Dry Merlot and pungent meat sours my mouth. “You took off months for the FanCon tour,” I remind him.
Beckett sets down the lion-decaled cards, straightening them into an even stack again. “I was between major productions at the time. I can’t miss a performance now.” He dances six nights a week in Cinderella, and his days are crammed with six-hour rehearsals and hour-long morning classes.
I know very well how hard he works.
How much he’s sacrificed for ballet. It makes this next part that much more painful.
“You can stay here and dance, but if you continue to use, then Charlie, Moffy, and I will force you on this trip.”
Beckett freezes cold. Fury lances his yellow-green eyes. I’ve seen his calm exterior rupture and explode quite a few times in my life, but mostly it’s only ever been to protect Charlie.
“Use what?” Eliot asks, breathing hard. “Beckett?”
Tom gapes. “Dude.” New York hedonism, they’re all surrounded by the lifestyle of debauchery, riches, and fame.
Ben stares haunted at the table.
I glance backward at the bar, and Sulli mouths to me, what the fuck? Beckett is her best friend. None of them knew.
Not until now.
Beckett lets out a blistering breath. “Thanks, sis.” He glares at Thatcher. “Fuck your brother—”
“He didn’t do anything,” Thatcher snaps.
“I know Banks saw me do a key bump, and I know he told you. Half of Omega already found out.” Beckett pins his glare back on me. “I use so I can dance through minor pain. That’s it.”
“A key bump in an alley helps you dance?” I combat.
“It was before rehearsal.” He snuffs out his cigarette on the ashtray.
I lean toward him. “You’ll hurt yourself more if you dance with injuries.”
He throws up a hand. “You think I’m the only one who does? Everyone pushes their bodies to extremes. I’d love to just pop Adderall like half the company, but I can’t!”
My face twists. “Why can’t you? Not that you should do that either,” I add quickly.
Beckett shifts backwards, then forwards. He turns to Charlie. “I’m not doing this here.”
“Yes you are.”
“Charlie,” he pleads. “Let me go.”
Charlie can’t look at his twin. He eyes me, in need of an assist.
I come in. “Beckett—”
“Adderall terrorizes my OCD! Okay?” Beckett rubs his palms together, then clutches his thighs. “Cocaine doesn’t.”
“You don’t have to use,” I say gently. “You have a choice.”
Sudden quiet slices the bar into a billion little pieces.
Beckett shakes his head, and then he tells me, “That’s easy for you to say.”
I bristle, hurt gripping my insides. “What does that mean?”
He’s blunt and honest, and I don’t expect Beckett to hold back—but he does this time. He just keeps shaking his head.
I’m not an idiot.
I clutch the table and careen forward to be closer to him. “You think I have no room to talk because I’ve never strived for anything like you? Because I have no talents and no ambition like you?”
His reddened eyes lift to mine. “I give everything to ballet. My time, my body, my life. What have you ever given to something you’ve loved?”
“I’ve given all of myself to my family,” I retort, tears burning my eyes. I’m the older sister. I carry the torch that lights the way, and if I drop it, no one behind me can see. “And I don’t care if you can’t see that—but there is a reason you never told your best friend you use.” I turn in my chair.
Sulli is already approaching the booth. Disappointment all over her face. “What the fuck, Beckett. How long?”
He looks pained. “It’s not a big deal—”
“You’re using drugs!” Her eyes bug. “We said we’d never take the easy out and use performance enhancers!”
“Ballet is different than swimming.”
“Fuck that,” Sulli cringes. “Jane is right. You didn’t tell me because I’m the one person who chose a sport over a childhood and I’m the one person who can tell you fuck your excuses.”
Beckett shoots to his feet. “What about you? The second you retire from swimming you’re all of a sudden drinking alcohol and passing out—at least I’m not pointlessly destroying my body.”
I wince.
“Cold, brother,” Eliot says sadly.
Sulli grits her teeth. “Fuck you.”
“No, fuck you,
” Beckett snaps.
We did not plan for a friendship to blow to smithereens tonight. I spring to my feet. Thatcher stands, and Maximoff is already at Sulli’s side, ushering her backwards while I talk to Beckett and repeat the same ultimatum.
Beckett holds out his hands like he’s at gunpoint. “If I leave, the company will replace me in Cinderella with Leo. He’s already being called the blond version of me.” Leo Valavanis is the same age, same height, same build, and same costume measurements as Beckett, and he’s also another male principal dancer. Unfortunately, their rivalry in the company has created good buzz for the ballet.
“You can stay in Cinderella,” I remind him. “Just stop using.”
Beckett massages his palm. “And if I don’t? You can’t force me on a plane.”
I quirk my brow. “I’m your big sister. I can do anything.”
He takes a few tense breaths, still on his feet.
Charlie rises, leaning his weight on a cane. “What have you learned, children?” This is a classic Cobalt word game.
What have you learned, children? Whoever asks this directs the game to those younger than them.
Beckett is next in age and supposed to pick a line of poetry, the others will then add to his opening line.
He stares at the table. “I’m not playing.”
Eliot rises. “It was all decaying.”
Tom leans back. “I can feel us fraying.”
Ben opens his mouth to finish the poem. His eyes start filling with tears. And he buckles forward and cries into his palms.
My heart tears to shreds. Usually Beckett is the one to console our youngest brother. But his face contorts in pain, and he pushes out of the booth.
Leaving.
Charlie follows, their bodyguards leading the way. I worry that Beckett will go out tonight.
But quickly, I slip into the booth and hug Ben. He cries into my shoulder.
“He’ll be okay, Pippy,” I whisper, and I look up at Thatcher. He crouches so we’re more eye-level.
“I’ve asked Akara to put my brother with Beckett tonight. He agreed.”
Banks is doubling up on Beckett’s detail. I breathe easier. Banks will look after Beckett. I know Thatcher’s brother has been drinking, but definitely not enough to be more than buzzed.
“Thank you,” I say, my torn heart mending in a strong beat.
He nods and then holds out his pinky. “I promise we won’t fuck this.” He means forcing my brother on a plane. It’s going to take strength and terrible might. Together.
One hand on Ben’s head, I use my other and hook my pinky to my boyfriend’s. He kisses my knuckles, and my heart rises with a smile that shouldn’t exist.
Yet, he’s summoned one out of my soul. Reaching deeper inside me than anyone ever has or could.
And it’s terrifying.
11
THATCHER MORETTI
One month into the twisted Truth or Dare game, and some of the “tell us” questions have been like slogging through knee-deep cement.
Tell us your last sexual fantasy: Jane horizontal on a kitchen table while I pound my nine-inch dick inside her pussy.
I politely answered, sex on a table.
I got reamed for not including, with Jane.
It feels like I blow my shot to hell with every card flip. I piss off or irritate at least one Cobalt.
Jane’s response was more graphic, and I almost smiled when she described me pinning her against the wall. My hands cupping her ass, her legs hooked around my waist, my cock filling her to the brim with each thrust. Her face was bright red by the end of answering, but she did it.
Bolder and better than me.
The dares, on the other hand, are a cakewalk.
Strip to your underwear and watch Titanic four consecutive times.
Easy.
It took me back to Marine boot camp. Holding my piss while running a ridiculous amount of miles under 20 minutes. Having four Drill Instructors spit-yell insults and nonsense in my ear, their noses rubbing up against my nose while I couldn’t flinch.
Couldn’t talk.
I played this warped game of Simon Says where I’m never right, even when I am, and I still have to jump when I know the smarter route is to stand.
I’m fit for hell.
Semper Fi.
But Jane, the sweetest thing my arms have ever held—she’s fit for heaven. She was restless after the eight-hour mark but she persevered. The good: she was beside me.
The fucking weird: she had to strip in front of her brothers. But it’s not like they planned for her to be a part of the game. And she wouldn’t let them alter the tasks for her.
The cards almost made me forget about the parasite attached to my girlfriend.
Tony.
We’re 4 days out from Scotland, 4 days from executing the twin switch, and security prepping for departure shouldn’t be a war, but it feels like one.
“Back the fuck down,” I growl at a dark-haired, pale twenty-seven-year-old.
O’Malley has strawberry pink lips and snow globes for eyes: round, glassy, and full of shit. Bodyguards always talk about how he resembles that one actor in some airplane horror movie. Cillian Murphy, I think.
I’ve only really known O’Malley since he joined Epsilon four years ago—and no matter what, I would’ve protected him to the end like all the men on SFE. But right now, he respects me about as much as shit in a ditch.
He raises his hands in surrender. Like he didn’t just throw a grenade in Studio 9, the gym lit with fluorescent lights at oh-six-hundred.
“Nah, say it again,” Donnelly snaps, tossing his blue gloves on the mat.
Everyone is dripping sweat in workout gear. But this call time isn’t social hour. We’re here to discuss security protocols for Scotland. Which won’t happen until the Tri-Force arrive.
O’Malley stews, a twenty-pound dumbbell in his fist.
I narrow my gaze on him with intense warning. If he repeats what he just said, we’re going to have a fistfight before this meeting even begins.
Tension splits the air. Silence taut and uneasy.
Banks glances at me, cautious. We stand between the physical divide inside the team. On my nine, two Epsilon bodyguards hover near the boxing ring and free weights.
Tony and O’Malley.
The only ones who aren’t in on the twin switch.
On my three, red boxing bags hang from the rafters, and Oscar, Farrow, Donnelly, and Quinn just finished sparring.
Epsilon vs. Omega.
I feel the fracture between the two Forces more heavily because I’m the one who cracked a cavern between them.
Hurt flares in O’Malley’s eyes as he reroutes his lasered anger onto me. “Back the fuck down?” He repeats my earlier words and throws his dumbbell on the mat. “You’re telling me what to do.” He jabs a finger at his own chest.
I deserve his rage. I deserve a lot of bad shit coming at me, but my insides broil. Without breaking his gaze, I tighten my loose black handwraps. Biting my tongue.
“You’re not my lead anymore, Thatcher. You have about as much room to bark orders as a Doberman Pinscher.”
My face hardens. Guilt hammering down on me.
“Relax, O’Malley,” Banks says. “Thatcher’s just trying to avoid a blood bath.”
O’Malley clenches his jaw and mutters under his breath, but loud enough for me to hear. “And if he were better at his job, he would’ve thought about that before sleeping with his client.”
All month.
These comments have been chucked at me all fucking month. November into December, Epsilon bodyguards are now just the “shit on Thatcher” brigade.
I don’t care.
They can call me names.
They can curse me out.
I don’t fucking care. I did break a rule, and if this is one of the many consequences, I plan to bear the onslaught for as long I need to. But if someone wrenches Jane into this, I will end them.
That�
�s my line.
Clear in the motherfucking sand.
It hurts even knowing that months ago Farrow was in this exact position. And I was the asshole on the other side, berating him. Karma—it’s got its hands wrapped around my windpipe.
I want it to choke me.
Tony squints at O’Malley. “It’s not that big of a deal. Thatcher slept with a client. Who cares? Get over it.”
Bile rises to my throat. Tony defending me right now feels about as good as being run over by a cement truck. On any other topic, maybe it would be a bridge to rebuild our relationship, but him being calm and nonchalant about bodyguards sleeping with clients—it tweaks my nerves.
And I can’t even call him out on it without sounding like a raging hypocrite.
O’Malley frowns. “You’re new, Tony. You don’t understand how things work around here.”
Tony shrugs. “It has nothing to do with me being new. In my opinion, sleeping with a client shouldn’t even be a rule.”
My blood temp skyrockets, and I can’t shut my mouth. “I don’t need you defending me.”
Tony sets a glare on me. “The fact that my opinion leans in your favor does not mean I’m defending you, and what the fuck are you even doing here?” He motions to me with an angered hand. “This is a meeting for Scotland, and you’re not going on the trip.”
That’s what you think.
“Akara asked me to be here.” My voice is like hard cement. “You’re still on your probationary period with Jane, and I want to make sure you’re squared away before you leave.”
Fuck you.
Fuck off.
I force these back. Professional, stay fucking professional.
Tony crosses his arms, sweat staining his blue tee. “You’ve been breathing down my neck all month, Moretti. At this point, you either trust me to do my job or you don’t.”
A part of me does trust him—I hate that I trust him.
It’s why I can’t rip him away from Jane’s detail, but I’m not even here to triple-check Tony (though it’s a perk). I’m here because I’m the one traveling to Scotland, not Banks, and I’d rather be in this meeting than have Banks regurgitate everything back to me.
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